And the good news is they'll be able to correct that brain disorder with just one little pill.
...That only kills a few percent of it's users....and leaves the rest dazed wandering zombies.
Yay pharmaceuticals! </sarcasm>
Yes, that is a problem. I listened to a Harvard professor drone on and on about how smokeless products prime the dopaminergic system so that the smokeless user wants to go have a cigarette. This is a wonderful illustration of how "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Many researchers are all hung up on the fact that dopamine affects the pleasure center. So their bright idea is "Let's block the dopamine receptors so that they don't have that wild surge of pleasure when they ingest nicotine."
That would be fine, I guess, if dopamine had no other effects. Too little dopamine, however, has devastating effects on cognitive functioning, and it also brings on Parkinson's disease. Furthermore, I feel really cheated because nicotine doesn't give me a
thrilling
sense of pleasure.
Even back when I was a teenager who only smoked a few puffs every couple of months, I experienced a brief, fraction-of-a-section tingle in my head with the first puff, after which, nothing.
Even that disappeared once I become a regular smoker.
Also, Mr. Harvard Professor is full of soup about this primer thing. He doesn't believe that snus has had any effect on smoking rates in Sweden. He thinks Sweden is a country full of "dual users."
Because after all, if you use the smallest bit of non-smoked nicotine, you won't ever be able to resist lighting up a cigarette.
I guess my point here is that before they go running off dreaming up what they believe is the perfect way to make us stop using nicotine, they need to fully understand the consequences for us.
And I think that they think that they are saving us from wandering around as dazed, confused zombies, when the reality is that if you take away my nicotine, I turn into that dazed, confused zombie...and that's without their little pill!
