Sure, and tons of people think they can't sleep without melatonin, wake up without caffeine, handle pollen without zirtec, handle stress without nicotine, relax without alcohol, etc
Doctors can give good advice about all these things. They don't legally get to make the decision for you. Doctors are also stretched thin, and making them responsible for making the vast overwhelming majority of personal decisions about what drugs someone can use is a huge part of that. Also, sending cops after people clearly isn't making addicts stop wanting drugs, as you point out, nor is it helping those addicts. It is, however, creating a vastly powerful police state with a constant justification for surveillance, more and more every time someone sees a drug problem and somehow nonsensically thinks despite trying this for 50 years the answer is still more enforcement
Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs anyone takes. It's incredibly habit-forming, often the standard against which psychopharmacological analysis compares addictiveness of other drugs. Withdrawal symptoms hit quickly, and include extreme cravings, brain fog, and irritability. Still, you only see the kind of desperation and violence around it you see with other drugs in places where it's not readily available, like prisons and warzones. Sure, people struggle with addiction. I have. I no longer use nicotine, despite finding it a very useful drug, and the process of quitting was greatly aided by being able to ask my doctor and various people around me for support and advice. I still will tell people close to me if I'm thinking of buying a vape, and often they'll help talk me out of it. Stigma and fear of legal reprisal prevents many addicts from seeking help from these avenues when the drug is illegal
The carceral approach to drugs does zero good and lots of harm to regular citizens, both in individual and systemic ways. It is entirely for the profit of police, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies
given the explosion in popularity of vaping and nicotine pouches (like Zyn) since this article was written, I think we now know this is false. Tons of people have become addicted to pure nicotine without ever touching tobacco.
Fair. I think how the nicotine is delivered is essential as well. Although I tried vaping for 3 months and it didn't take at all which I found interesting.
There are lots of very addictive drugs I could never get addicted to. For example, I find most kinds of painkillers range from kind of annoying to godawful for me. Opiates especially make me nauseous. Like can't even keep down food on morphine and codeine isn't much better. When prescribed them I've had to get off them quickly, well before I run out or sometimes even before the doctor thinks I should. And it's not just stuff I hate either. I have good memories of drinking and enjoy alcohol socially occasionally, but I'm never really inclined to drink to excess or even half the days of the week, as some people consider fairly normal. On the other hand, I've had really bad caffeine habits at various times and had a real struggle quiting nicotine. I think people vary a lot in how they respond to different stuff. I'm sure some people have tried lots of addictive stuff and never had it take, and some people try weed once and then smoke it every day, despite it being less habit-forming on average than nicotine. When I say nicotine's among the most addictive drugs, that's referring to a really broad aggregate, over which the individual variance is quite high and the combinatoric space of factors is staggering
Doctors can give good advice about all these things. They don't legally get to make the decision for you. Doctors are also stretched thin, and making them responsible for making the vast overwhelming majority of personal decisions about what drugs someone can use is a huge part of that. Also, sending cops after people clearly isn't making addicts stop wanting drugs, as you point out, nor is it helping those addicts. It is, however, creating a vastly powerful police state with a constant justification for surveillance, more and more every time someone sees a drug problem and somehow nonsensically thinks despite trying this for 50 years the answer is still more enforcement
Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs anyone takes. It's incredibly habit-forming, often the standard against which psychopharmacological analysis compares addictiveness of other drugs. Withdrawal symptoms hit quickly, and include extreme cravings, brain fog, and irritability. Still, you only see the kind of desperation and violence around it you see with other drugs in places where it's not readily available, like prisons and warzones. Sure, people struggle with addiction. I have. I no longer use nicotine, despite finding it a very useful drug, and the process of quitting was greatly aided by being able to ask my doctor and various people around me for support and advice. I still will tell people close to me if I'm thinking of buying a vape, and often they'll help talk me out of it. Stigma and fear of legal reprisal prevents many addicts from seeking help from these avenues when the drug is illegal
The carceral approach to drugs does zero good and lots of harm to regular citizens, both in individual and systemic ways. It is entirely for the profit of police, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies