Is Nicotine The Next Big Smart Drug?

[Fit_Four_Life]

There’s a lot more to nicotine than smoking and addiction. Like caffeine, it’s a powerful smart drug, and when you get it at low doses in its pure form – without toxins and carcinogens wrapped around it and rolled into a cigarette – nicotine can be a formidable (if occasional) biohack. Based on my experience with it, and on history, I predict that nicotine (not smoking) will become much more popular for performance and cognitive enhancement. After all, about 99% of great works of literature in the last 200 years (p > .05) were written under the influence of coffee and nicotine! But just how safe is it?

Is Nicotine the Next Big Smart Drug?

 

[smacuser]

I've heard of Bulletproof on one of my favorite Libertarian podcasts.

I've been doing my part.

 

[Tommy-Chi]

Maybe. We need to see what the FDA does.

 

[Runamok3x]

Good find, interesting read!

 

[Hans Wermhat]

I'd be more impressed with it if it didn't mention the possibility of heavy metals in e-cigs. But it's a step in the right direction for undoing the bad publicity on nicotine.

 

[Alien Traveler]

...After all, about 99% of great works of literature in the last 200 years (p > .05) were written under the influence of coffee and nicotine! ...

Is Nicotine the Next Big Smart Drug?

You forgot to mention toilet paper. Are you denying its role in writing fine literature? And what about hard liqueur, unsafe sex, and absence of cell phones?

 

[Hans Wermhat]

A lot of what is considered "great literature" was often written under the influence of things we can't discuss here too.

 

[rico942]

I've posted this before, but ...

Look at the engineering drawings for nearly any technological advancement up to about 1980, and you will find vellum sheets with coffee stains and cigarette burns around the edges ...

Drafting tables once came with a cup holder and ashtray attached ...

The indoor bans on tobacco and the demonizing of caffeine resulted in a slow decline in innovation in the engineering world, at least in the US ...

Coincidence ? I think not ...

 

[EJAB]

Nicotine is poison. We just vape it in a diluted state.
FACT: Nicotine=vasoconstriction=increased blood pressure=increased work-load on the heart

 

[WattWick]

Nicotine is poison. We just vape it in a diluted state.

Oxygen is lethal. We just breathe it in a diluted state.

 

[Bunnykiller]

seems that just about anything in its pure state can do harm

 

[happytree]

Technically anything is a poison. Its the dosage and purity that determines whether or not it is toxic to the body. Vape wisely and everything is fine.

 

[WattWick]

seems that just about anything in its pure state can do harm

Indeed! To help the thread back on topic I will make the following assessment:

Pure nic --> Darwin Awards
Diluted nic --> Nobel Prize in Literature?

 

[choochoogranny]

Water can drown me, but I swim. A car can run over me, but I drive/ride one. I can fall down my stairs and break my neck, but have 4 sets of stairs I climb most every day. Asprin/Tylenol can do me harm, but I take them when I have a headache/body pain. Pfizer settled class action suit in 2014 for well over 550 deaths from taking Chantix, but it's still on the market curtesy of the FDA.

 

[AndriaD]

Water can drown me, but I swim. A car can run over me, but I drive/ride one. I can fall down my stairs and break my neck, but have 4 sets of stairs I climb most every day. Asprin/Tylenol can do me harm, but I take them when I have a headache/body pain. Pfizer settled class action suit in 2014 for well over 550 deaths from taking Chantix, but it's still on the market curtesy of the FDA.

Indeed! And some of us need caffeine and nicotine just to HAVE a blood pressure!

Andria

 

[EJAB]

Oxygen is lethal. We just breathe it in a diluted state.

I was just answering the OP from the medical aspect and not claiming that diluted nicotine = a Nobel Prize in literature. I better leave now, because it's getting pretty deep in here and I didn't wear my boots today

 

[WharfRat1976]

A lot of what is considered "great literature" was often written under the influence of things we can't discuss here too.

See Freud, Sartre, Kierkegard and many of the greats.

 

[DC2]

More good reading...
Nicotine, the Wonder Drug? | DiscoverMagazine.com
Science is conclusive: Tobacco increases work capacity - Klaus K blog
WADA to move towards declaring nicotine a performance-enhancing drug

However, Big Pharma can not capitalize on this fact yet.
They have to wait until electronic cigarettes have been taken out of the picture.

 

[AndriaD]

More good reading...
Nicotine, the Wonder Drug? | DiscoverMagazine.com
Science is conclusive: Tobacco increases work capacity - Klaus K blog
WADA to move towards declaring nicotine a performance-enhancing drug

However, Big Pharma can not capitalize on this fact yet.
They have to wait until electronic cigarettes have been taken out of the picture.

Just wait till they get the idea to come out with a pharma version of WTA, if you think that stuff's expensive now... instead of $21 for a 15ml bottle of 24mg, it'll be ten or a hundred times that much.

But they probably won't -- it might hurt sales of SSRIs.

Andria