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Nicotine as a useful stimulant

gwern.net

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Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#71

Post by Lost_BiomedE »

JPKab wrote: post #61
whalesalad wrote: post #2

I can't imagine life without stimulants. I hope to move off into the woods one day and live a completely natural lifestyle for a while. Reset myself. No caffeine, no nicotine, no amphetamines. Just me, a dog, and a nice ranch property in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, nicotine is a staple of my day-to-day. I quit smoking a long time ago, now I stick to Swedish snus and vaping. For a period I was chewing gum too. D…

Ok, so can you, or someone, explain "Swedish snus" to me? I'm curious, because whenever I have put any kind of American "dip" tobacco product in my mouth, my salivary glands go fucking nuclear and I end up drooling or spitting like a redneck. Does Swedish snus made in some way so that this doesn't happen? If so, I need to try it!

Snus does not require spitting. It is steam cured instead of fire cured and has a good safety profile.

Note: If you want a good experience, import it. Do not try Camel snus. Also, you may want to try packets first instead of loose.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#73

Post by jdnier »

A great quote from the appendix: "In philosophy, one is taught to not try to prove too much (inviting people to modus tollens your modus ponens), to not do more philosophy than one has to; in programming, you learn to not become an architecture astronaut solving some hugely abstract version of your actual problem - such overreach invites disaster."

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#74

Post by jonnathanson »

jcromartie wrote: post #22

I don't know, but I think cigar and pipe smoking are a perfectly valid way to get nicotine on your own terms while avoiding addiction. I have never seen someone cowering in the rain cradling a big cigar to get their fix.

Cigar smoker here, and back when I had more time on my hands, I went through a pretty heavy cigar phase. Cigars are impractical as addictive agents, because they're very expensive and take a long time to consume. But they exhibit at least some mildly to moderately addictive properties. Back in grad school I found myself moving up the ladder from the occasional cigar a week, to the cigar every day, to the two to three cigars a day. I wouldn't say I needed them, or that the urge to smoke clawed at me every waking second. But I'd build my entire morning routine around the first cigar, my afternoon and evenings around the second and third, and so on. A day without a cigar left me pretty restless and unfocused. If that's not addiction, per se, it was something resembling dependence.

Cigarettes are more insidious tobacco delivery vehicles, but cigars aren't exactly health supplements.

Nicotine supplementation, absent the tobacco, is an interesting subject worth further study and consideration. On its own, given Gwern's and other research, it seems no more dangerous or addictive than caffeine (for example).

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#75

Post by dllthomas »

smosher wrote: post #64
maxander wrote: post #37

If nicotine is supposedly "not highly addictive," what heretofore obscure, hideous compounds are lurking in cigarettes that accounts for their legendary addictiveness? MAOIs? True, they give withdrawal symptoms. But despite being a widely used pharmaceutical, to my knowledge no MAOI-only drug has seen anything resembling the abuse patterns of tobacco. The hand-wavy "other compounds" that the article mentions and then…

I've never heard someone talk about MAOIs in isolation before. You do realize the point of these is to affect other drugs right?

I've mostly heard of them in the context of treatment for depression (in a lower-division biopsych course, not personal experience). My understanding was that they'd be taken on their own, and the Wiki article doesn't obviously disagree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_inhibitor

"Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) are chemicals which inhibit the activity of the monoamine oxidase enzyme family. They have a long history of use as medications prescribed for the treatment of depression. They are particularly effective in treating atypical depression."

Though there is admittedly a "citation needed".

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#76

Post by shabble »

smosher wrote: post #64
maxander wrote: post #37

If nicotine is supposedly "not highly addictive," what heretofore obscure, hideous compounds are lurking in cigarettes that accounts for their legendary addictiveness? MAOIs? True, they give withdrawal symptoms. But despite being a widely used pharmaceutical, to my knowledge no MAOI-only drug has seen anything resembling the abuse patterns of tobacco. The hand-wavy "other compounds" that the article mentions and then…

I've never heard someone talk about MAOIs in isolation before. You do realize the point of these is to affect other drugs right?

I believe they can be used in isolation, because by suppressing/slowing the oxidative metabolism of synaptic neurotransmitters, they can be used to compensate for low baseline levels by extending their active lifespan.

The main reason they're not used is that better & more selective releasing agent/reuptake inhibitors exist, and MAOIs have potentially fatal interactions with a huge variety of different substances (including some cheeses, if memory serves)

We're definitely in agreement that MAOIs have a strong effect on the (heightened) levels of synaptic neurotransmitters (released by some nicotinic upstream signalling), giving a synergistic effect.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#77

Post by maxander »

gwern wrote: post #44
maxander wrote: post #37

If nicotine is supposedly "not highly addictive," what heretofore obscure, hideous compounds are lurking in cigarettes that accounts for their legendary addictiveness? MAOIs? True, they give withdrawal symptoms. But despite being a widely used pharmaceutical, to my knowledge no MAOI-only drug has seen anything resembling the abuse patterns of tobacco. The hand-wavy "other compounds" that the article mentions and then…

> The hand-wavy "other compounds" that the article mentions and then doesn't describe? Anyone know what those would be? Excuse me? I went to considerable pains to give the primary source citations & jailbreak the PDFs.

Its possible I've missed something? I don't have time to read all the papers you cite, but from titles/abstracts they all appear to be talking about the effects of MAOIs. If there are separate substances in play I've somehow managed to read your article and completely miss any mention of them.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#78

Post by cnp »

Leon wrote: post #62
agumonkey wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the nicotine refill are pure nicotine ? no weird additives ? You mean pre-packaged e-cigs provide a bad user experience with 'cold' vapor ?

It's not pure nicotine, but a mixture of propylene glycol or vegetable glycol, flavoring, and then nicotine. Some of the off the shelf disposable / prepackaged e-cigs aren't powerful enough to have a strong vaporization of the solution. When you're refilling yourself, it becomes substantially cheaper (maybe a few dollars for a month of heavy usage?), and with the higher end kits you can program your voltage / amperag…

Exactly. It gives you a lot of control over the smoking experience, where the prepackaged ones don't. I was a heavy smoker and enjoyed really bad (cheap) cigarettes; with the eGO cig you can really create a terrible smoking setup if you so desire, which is exactly what I needed quit :)

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#79

Post by overgryphon »

Never smoked, but for people who have smoked and quit- Would short term stimulant usage (eg Adderall) for a few weeks have helped quit smoking?

It seems possible that stimulant medication could prevent common symptoms like weight gain, problems concentrating, and help ignore physical cravings for the first two or three weeks of quitting smoking.

Edit: sorry, somewhat off-topic.

Re: Nicotine as a useful stimulant

#80

Post by nikcub »

overgryphon wrote: post #79

Never smoked, but for people who have smoked and quit- Would short term stimulant usage (eg Adderall) for a few weeks have helped quit smoking? It seems possible that stimulant medication could prevent common symptoms like weight gain, problems concentrating, and help ignore physical cravings for the first two or three weeks of quitting smoking. Edit: sorry, somewhat off-topic.

Complete opposite effect, you smoke a lot more on stimulants.
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