Comment by eganist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eganist | Hacker News Reader

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Original DOI link:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nm.4274

Edit: Please read abandonliberty's comment below before reading mine. I didn't properly elucidate the position on the harms v. benefits tradeoff (net harm) the way abandonliberty did.

My own opinion: it wouldn't be terribly surprising to see many harmful substances only be harmful to a majority subset of a population space, though that's why the scheduling system (theoretically) exists -- to allow drugs to be classified based on harm v. benefit to various populations. Whether Nicotine should be scheduled is... well, given the number of people addicted to it, probably not the easiest conversation to have. I originally thought it was Schedule II (high abuse potential but with some medical benefit, which would certainly fit our potential future understanding of nicotine based on studies like this), but it turns out my original hunch was faulty googling.

Unfortunately drug schedules aren't evidence based, and there's no evidence based measurement for "potential for abuse" in use by the DEA or FDA.

Clarifying: Nicotine harms everyone. Net harm to a schizophrenic may be negative, but they are still harmed.

"Self-medication hypotheses" exist for many abused substances. Rather than accusing the addicted of poor education, self control, or intelligence it argues (with mounting evidence) that there is a structural or genetic issue that contributes for some addictions.

Ideally we would figure out the mechanism of action and design something with less negative life altering side-effects.

There's always an opportunity to examine freedom of choice/free will for the more philosophic among us :)

"Nicotine harms everyone. Net harm to a schizophrenic may be negative, but they are still harmed."

This is also true of chemotherapy and many of the tricyclics.

Bullshit. Nicotine in itself doesn't harm anyone, that's completely made up. On the contrary, a lot of people would be helped by getting more Nicotine into their system, preferably from eating veggies rather than smoking it.

The burden of proof is on you here. If you're going to argue something at odds with the medical profession and most published research, you better have some solid facts from reliable sources.

Keep in mind that most of this published research is about smoking cigarettes (using "nicotine" as a metonymy).

> Nicotine in itself doesn't harm anyone, that's completely made up.

Unless you take too much or have an intolerance. Sweeping statements about neurotoxins usually ignore their complex effects.

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