for me, nicotine is a much better hacking drug than caffeine.
I'm having trouble googling up a reference, but I did find this:
http://www.accessibility.com.au/news/adhd-appears-to-increas...
"We've already shown that nicotine-based medications can treat ADHD symptoms"
Nature ran an article about how a patent was keeping an arsenic based cancer drug out of reach of patients.
Nothing is all bad.
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v13/n9/full/nm0907-1005.htm... (subscription required)..
In the same manner, a cup of coffee can relax someone if they're a caffeine addict.
One way to judge is to look for withdrawal symptoms, but this requires changing my behavior to test ..
So the idea is that if something that stimulates most people, and used to stimulate me, now relaxes me, I've become dependent on it ..
Very intuitive
When smokers want to have more concentration, they take short and quick puffs. This gets a low level of nicotine in the blood. At a low dose, nicotine increases norepinephrine and dopamine. So it acts like a stimulant.
When smokers want to relax, they take long and deep puffs. This increases the dose of nicotine. And at high doses, it affects serotonin and opiate levels in the brain and acts like a sedative.
Yes, actually. Protective against Alzheimers and Parkinsons.
Inhaled tobacco smoke actually has MAO inhibitors in it, which is beneficial for certain people.
Amongst other things, nicotine's a vasoconstrictor. Long term exposure may not be the best thing for one's cardiovascular system, even leaving out the tar, volatiles, and plutonium that come with tobacco smoke.
Then there's the whole dance it performs with neurotransmitters and multiple addictive centers in the brain. I recall some researchers speculating that it may be so addictive at least in part because it activates multiple centers associated with addiction, whereas most drugs only activate one or another of those centers.