With all the public banning of smokers, they’d be a nice club to join. It’s a social activity and commonality that I believe would be very useful.
I don’t smoke, but will go on smoke breaks with other people at work. You make friends. I’d expect it to be more generally useful to be able to join the little smoking islands in public.
Well, those particular two aren’t actually less dangerous to me, on account of a latex allergy.
(I don’t know if the gum -actually- contains latex, but it sure as hell tastes like it. Problem there is that nicotine tastes like an allergic reaction to me; both “taste” like needles stabbing into my tongue. Either way I’m staying well away from the gum, and using the patches, which merely cause me skin irritation, sparingly; mostly I use them for lucid dreaming, as they’re the only reliable mechanism I’ve found for inducing strong dream states.)
Trying to get accustomed to e-cigs, but they’re pretty harsh.
Nicotine patches seem to often contain latex, explaining your skin irritation, but the one gum I found docs on the issue, Nicorette, specifically says there is no latex in it.
I also wonder why you’d find e-cigs harsh—I was under the impression they were just water and nicotine and possibly a suspension like glycerol, which seem much milder and less irritating than the witch’s brew of tobacco smoke.
Either way, I’m not putting the gum in my mouth. Teaching myself to ignore the warning signs that could lead to my throat closing up doesn’t seem like a good idea. :-)
Lozenges are okay, albeit expensive. My favorite nicotine delivery system—although hard to find—is actually dissolving strips that stick to the roof of your mouth. (The only brand I’ve found thus far is NicoSpan.) Significantly cheaper the way I buy them, around five cents apiece compared to forty for the lozenges—I grab them on discount when they’re near the expiration date. Only issue is that the supply is very irregular. (Speaking of which, I should probably order more now, since Amazon actually has a couple of boxes right now.)
It’s not uncommon, actually—part of the issue is that you have to smoke them differently. (The draw is slower and softer.)
I haven’t. I did switch to a pipe, however, which works marvelously at delivering nicotine, in addition to smelling better, and carrying better social connotations. (Like snuff, it does carry a higher risk of oral cancer, but that’s not -quite- as deadly.)
Note, according to my 30 seconds google scholar search, it is dipping/oral snuff that causes a higher risk of oral cancer. Nasal snuff seems safer (or perhaps less well researched).
Just remember that you look like a character from a william gibson novel when you smoke them. I can’t wait to smoke e-cigs while using an occulus rift.
I discount that for several reasons—first, I’m not guaranteed to survive to that point. Second, lung cancer survival rates continue to improve (it’s still a minority that survive, mind, but over my lifetime I expect that figure to improve still further). Third, lung cancer is a pretty predictable mode of death—in terms of cryogenics, my really long-term survival could be considerably improved over other, less predictable forms of death, such as heart attack or stroke.
Additionally, two cigarettes a day for 10 years produces only a marginal increase in health risk. In fact, you have to consume 5 pack-years (1 cigarettes a day for 20 years is a pack-year; the relationship is strictly linear with both respects, so 1 cigarette a day for 40 years is 2 pack-years, and 2 cigarettes a day for 10 years is 1 pack-year) before you start to see substantial health risks from smoking.
At present, I consume 1-3 cigarettes a day, and skip many days, and frequently skip weeks. (I am currently using them to try to train good behavior into myself.)
I will also add that smoking reduces my sinus response to allergens quite considerably, which has reduced the number of sinus and chest infections I get, as well as the severity when I get them. (This is apparently at odds with what most people experience, but it’s been consistent my whole life—when my parents stopped smoking is approximately when I started having severe allergy problems.)
Nicotine does seem to activate a lot of the neurologically-controlled anti-inflammatory reflexes (while also indiscriminately poking at all the other autonomic reflexes that use the same neurotransmitters connected up to different fibers, thus the vasoconstriction and the like). Hence smokers not getting inflammitory bowel disease. I do think there are probably better methods of getting it in you than inhaling burned leaves, though perhaps not cheaper.
I semi-regularly drink vaping nicotine (aka “e-liquid”) diluted in water. It is extremely cheap. I obtained 60ml of 25mg/ml strength nicotine for $10 online. It comes diluted in either vegetable glycerin or propylene glycol. A cigarette delivers around 1mg, so I usually dilute to 1-2mg in a full glass of water. To get this dose I first use a 1mg dropper to deliver 2mg of the solution to 50ml (approx. 1⁄2 cup) of water measured with a Pyrex glassware measuring cup. I then use the 1ml dropper to add doses of this 1mg/ml solution to a glass of water.
At 60x25=1500 cigarette-equivalent doses with no need to inhale smoke, I think “inexpensive” is an understatement. It also appears to be safe (water, nicotine, and tiny amounts of VG or PG).
Smoking has improved the quality of my life thus far. But I’m very cautious with it, and take frequent breaks.
What does smoking do for you that something less dangerous like nicotine gum or patches would not?
With all the public banning of smokers, they’d be a nice club to join. It’s a social activity and commonality that I believe would be very useful.
I don’t smoke, but will go on smoke breaks with other people at work. You make friends. I’d expect it to be more generally useful to be able to join the little smoking islands in public.
Well, those particular two aren’t actually less dangerous to me, on account of a latex allergy.
(I don’t know if the gum -actually- contains latex, but it sure as hell tastes like it. Problem there is that nicotine tastes like an allergic reaction to me; both “taste” like needles stabbing into my tongue. Either way I’m staying well away from the gum, and using the patches, which merely cause me skin irritation, sparingly; mostly I use them for lucid dreaming, as they’re the only reliable mechanism I’ve found for inducing strong dream states.)
Trying to get accustomed to e-cigs, but they’re pretty harsh.
Nicotine patches seem to often contain latex, explaining your skin irritation, but the one gum I found docs on the issue, Nicorette, specifically says there is no latex in it.
I also wonder why you’d find e-cigs harsh—I was under the impression they were just water and nicotine and possibly a suspension like glycerol, which seem much milder and less irritating than the witch’s brew of tobacco smoke.
Either way, I’m not putting the gum in my mouth. Teaching myself to ignore the warning signs that could lead to my throat closing up doesn’t seem like a good idea. :-)
Lozenges are okay, albeit expensive. My favorite nicotine delivery system—although hard to find—is actually dissolving strips that stick to the roof of your mouth. (The only brand I’ve found thus far is NicoSpan.) Significantly cheaper the way I buy them, around five cents apiece compared to forty for the lozenges—I grab them on discount when they’re near the expiration date. Only issue is that the supply is very irregular. (Speaking of which, I should probably order more now, since Amazon actually has a couple of boxes right now.)
It’s not uncommon, actually—part of the issue is that you have to smoke them differently. (The draw is slower and softer.)
Have you tried snuff? It smells quite nice and can help clear your nose as well as deliver nicotine.
I haven’t. I did switch to a pipe, however, which works marvelously at delivering nicotine, in addition to smelling better, and carrying better social connotations. (Like snuff, it does carry a higher risk of oral cancer, but that’s not -quite- as deadly.)
Note, according to my 30 seconds google scholar search, it is dipping/oral snuff that causes a higher risk of oral cancer. Nasal snuff seems safer (or perhaps less well researched).
have you tried e-cigs?
Trying really, really hard to train myself to like them. Sigh.
Just remember that you look like a character from a william gibson novel when you smoke them. I can’t wait to smoke e-cigs while using an occulus rift.
The main argument against smoking is that it will make you much less happy in the future, primarily via cancer.
You also stink up the present. Smoke breath is a type of BO.
Also heart disease, stroke, and emphysema.
I discount that for several reasons—first, I’m not guaranteed to survive to that point. Second, lung cancer survival rates continue to improve (it’s still a minority that survive, mind, but over my lifetime I expect that figure to improve still further). Third, lung cancer is a pretty predictable mode of death—in terms of cryogenics, my really long-term survival could be considerably improved over other, less predictable forms of death, such as heart attack or stroke.
Additionally, two cigarettes a day for 10 years produces only a marginal increase in health risk. In fact, you have to consume 5 pack-years (1 cigarettes a day for 20 years is a pack-year; the relationship is strictly linear with both respects, so 1 cigarette a day for 40 years is 2 pack-years, and 2 cigarettes a day for 10 years is 1 pack-year) before you start to see substantial health risks from smoking.
At present, I consume 1-3 cigarettes a day, and skip many days, and frequently skip weeks. (I am currently using them to try to train good behavior into myself.)
I will also add that smoking reduces my sinus response to allergens quite considerably, which has reduced the number of sinus and chest infections I get, as well as the severity when I get them. (This is apparently at odds with what most people experience, but it’s been consistent my whole life—when my parents stopped smoking is approximately when I started having severe allergy problems.)
Nicotine does seem to activate a lot of the neurologically-controlled anti-inflammatory reflexes (while also indiscriminately poking at all the other autonomic reflexes that use the same neurotransmitters connected up to different fibers, thus the vasoconstriction and the like). Hence smokers not getting inflammitory bowel disease. I do think there are probably better methods of getting it in you than inhaling burned leaves, though perhaps not cheaper.
I semi-regularly drink vaping nicotine (aka “e-liquid”) diluted in water. It is extremely cheap. I obtained 60ml of 25mg/ml strength nicotine for $10 online. It comes diluted in either vegetable glycerin or propylene glycol. A cigarette delivers around 1mg, so I usually dilute to 1-2mg in a full glass of water. To get this dose I first use a 1mg dropper to deliver 2mg of the solution to 50ml (approx. 1⁄2 cup) of water measured with a Pyrex glassware measuring cup. I then use the 1ml dropper to add doses of this 1mg/ml solution to a glass of water.
At 60x25=1500 cigarette-equivalent doses with no need to inhale smoke, I think “inexpensive” is an understatement. It also appears to be safe (water, nicotine, and tiny amounts of VG or PG).