*Sigh* Yes, our (un)friendly neighborhood troll has fallen into the generalization trap. The Attorney General announced in 1988 that nicotine is "as addictive as <those drugs we can't name on ECF>" What he meant was that in talking with recovering addicts he learned that those addicts found it as difficult or more difficult to give up smoking than it was to give up their illicit drug.
But there is more to the definition of "addiction" than simply having difficulty giving up a practice. And maybe the reason it's more difficult to give up nicotine is because of its beneficial effects. In my case, when I gave up nicotine I became as impaired as someone actively using <those drugs>.
Many members of the general public, and perhaps even many health care providers, mistakenly began to believe that there were exact parallels between addiction to <those drugs> and nicotine. However, they fail to take into account that nicotine is not intoxicating, that nicotine does not impair the user's judgement and memory, and that therefore using nicotine does not have the same impact on the user's life as using <those drugs>.
For example, people who regularly get high on alcohol or <those drugs> often start to miss work or to show up at work but perform poorly because they can't concentrate and can't remember what they should. They also sometimes become violent and injure themselves or others. Ironically, you only see these things happening with nicotine withdrawal, not with nicotine use.
The "crippling financial burdens" sounds like something straight out of the addiction literature. A daily habit of <those drugs> can run hundreds or thousands of dollars a day. But all of the profits from <those drugs> are going to the world of crime, whereas
tobacco users are paying higher prices due to the government looking to make a buck off the weakest and poorest group in society. Troll might be referring to the high costs of health care for smoking-related diseases, but again falls into the generalization trap by believing that the health consequences of smoke-free alternatives are the same as the health consequences from smoking.
There is no "crippling financial burden" to the use of smoke-free alternatives, unless the government changes all that by taxing them as much or more than cigarettes.
