Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)

> From Kahneman & Tversky, behavioral economics and cognitive biases, to the smartphone (and other screens) epidemic that rages everywhere the device is in use.

That new inventions often have a negative impact shouldn't be surprising, but I think it's worthwhile to try to set this against all the positive aspects. I remember life before mobile phones, and from my perspective, they have provided far greater benefits than harms. Wide access to GPS and maps, instant access to emergency communications, and many applications that improve productivity and quality of life are far better explanations of why these devices have become so prevalent.

> It's become extremely clear that "adults" are not very good at being rational and self-controling.

Has it? I feel that this is a refelction of them not very good at "following the agenda of the elites," but that's hardly the same thing as not being rational. As a counter example, there are more guns than people in the United States, yet there are only around 12,000 murders per year. From that view, we're exceptionally good at being rational and exhibiting self control.

Likewise, we travel trillions of miles on our roads, and they're not the complete disaster that you would expect from a population that's largely unable to self-regulate. Similarly, general aviation is a thing that exists, and while it may seem largely regulated you would be surprised to learn exactly how much latitude a GA pilot has in operating their aircraft.

> So the debate isn't really Control vs. Freedom anymore. Its more like Protection vs. Jungle Law.

If that's the case.. why wouldn't you punish the abusers, rather than preempt the freedom of individuals? One is definitely a problem, the other _might_ be a problem. It seems like putting the cart before the horse to approach the problem in this way.

“Suppose, for example, that a legislator should feel himself authorized to undertake the extirpation of drunkenness and fornication by direct laws. He would have to begin by a multitude of regulations. The first inconvenience would therefore be a complexity of laws. The easier it is to conceal these vices, the more necessary it would be to resort to severity of punishment, in order to destroy by the terror of examples the constantly recurring hope of impunity. This excessive rigour of laws forms a second inconvenience not less grave than the first. The difficulty of procuring proofs would be such that it would be necessary to encourage informers, and to entertain an army of spies. This necessity forms a third inconvenience, greater than either of the others.

“Let us compare the results of good and evil. Offenses of this nature, if that name can be properly given to imprudences, produces no alarm; but the pretended remedy would spread a universal terror. Innocent or guilty, everyone would fear for himself or his connections; suspicions and accusations would render society dangerous; we should fly from it, we should involve ourselves in mystery and concealment, we should shun all the disclosures of confidence. Instead of suppressing one vice, the laws would produce other vices, new and more dangerous.”

- Jeremy Bentham, English (1748-1832)

I order from a service that provides me nutritionist-built meals every day; in the morning, I get exactly 2000kcal spread out across 3 meals and 1 snack. I also drink protein yogurt reaching around 2350kcal so that's my daily intake (and I guess calorie limit) with balanced macro and micronutrients.

What this means is that I am aware that anything above these meals is too much for me. Do I still do it? Yes, but I have an unhealthy relationship with food.

Nicotine is fairly non-addictive (in gum and patch form. Vapes, may be slightly more addictive due to oral fixation -- but still nothing compared to actual tobacco).

Benefits are mostly in appetite suppression (if one is prone to overeating/unhealthy binging), mental stamina (usually due to the aforementioned appetite suppression), emotional anti-lability, and greatly improved saliva production (from nicotine gum, ergo oral hygiene).

Tobacco itself contains a lot more psychoactive chemicals (MAOIs, and such), and are definitely more useful in the emotional-regulation department. If you're going through severe, inescapable emotional and physical hardship, tobacco generally keeps you from losing your mind and having a breakdown. And generally, I believe this is the most addictive quality: it keeps the stress to a manageable level (that becomes unmanageable once you stop tobacco, but don't do anything to change your environment).

One cigarette/cigarillo every few days is nothing in the grand scheme of things. It becomes a serious problem when you're smoking a pack a day, every day, without giving your lungs any time to heal and clear out (i.e. once the sharp perma-cough comes in, it's time for a break). Even having a cigar once a month (and even inhaling it), it is basically nothing, if you're perfectly healthy otherwise.

For what its worth, if the U.S. stopped selling tobacco completely, the economy would fall apart. No one would work all of the absolute dogshit jobs that "underpin" everything else (see: low-skilled, manual labor, etc.); and weed would not be able to fill the void.

Honestly, you might be right. The way that pre-Colombian societies used it was totally different than the methods Europeans adopted upon introduction. And this is kinda interesting because the native cultures had thousands of years of experience with this stuff, and Europeans, even now, have about 500. Now as for scientific rationalism being applied in those communities, nobody can really say, so an argument positing that they did some actuarial science over the subject in such a long trial may or may not be spurious, but the long-range experiment being conducted may well have yielded plain and visible results. Maybe there was a reason they hadn't adopted alternative methods.

"Everything from effigy pipes topped by exquisite animal carvings (used to smoke a variety of tobacco strong enough to induce trance-like states" Graeber, via Goodman et. al - Consuming habits: drugs in history and anthropology

Evidently the Amerindians smoked high doses from pipes, enough to induce a trance-like state. Having made use of pre-rolled filtered Tobacco extensively, I'd surmise they were either using it infrequently, or making themselves use it infrequently. In the first case, they show enough self-restraint to forego daily use, which allowed them to remain sensitive to the drug. In the latter case, they frequently poisoned themselves by indulging in a very high level of consumption - I suspect this would discourage frequent use as the side effect tends to be nausea and sudden onset anxiety. Of course, my perspective on this is limited, as my exposure is largely (near-exclusively) that of commercially treated tobacco with its various additives and mode of transport - paper. They were smoking I imagine largely unprocessed tobacco out of pipes.

Altering the cultural fabric of smoking itself might actually yield better outcomes. I'm not so interested in the topic as to find statistical demonstrations, but I suspect at least a portion of the damage that smokers can be directly attributed to the physical characteristics of the smoke, and the frequency of use. Cooler smoke inhaled through a pipe constructed with a conductive material like ceramic or stone done for ritual purposes might well yield a better social outcome than what our current smoking modality does without infringing on human rights and wholly eschewing the use of tobacco and all of its cultural complement.

Something to think on in any case.