
The king of smokers - mrtndavid
http://www.thomas-morris.uk/the-king-of-smokers/
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tree_of_item
> To quiet nervous rest; to soothe a ruffled temper; to favour calm and
> partial thought; to steady and clear (not to cloud) a confused, overworked
> brain; to counteract the effects of physical exhaustion—these are just the
> things which tobacco does

Sure, tobacco is pretty bad for you in general, but all of these things are
pretty much true. Do people not believe that tobacco has positive psychoactive
effects or something? Kinda weird to see this put in a sarcastic light.

~~~
bigpeopleareold
What they said in that day is true today. But, it is not tobacco per-se that
provides the benefit. It is easy to get carried away with tobacco (with pipes,
tongue bite, with cigs...addition), so it is important to respect yourself and
what the substance is to gain its benefits (taste mostly for me.)

Pipe smoking should be done slowly, methodically and with full consideration
of what tobacco is. The last thing I need is turning something pleasurable and
calming into an addition.

In the end, tobacco is probably bad, but so is the air in most major cities in
the world. :P

~~~
brianwawok
But the air in cities you need to breath. You don't need to breath the pipe.
Minimizing risks and all...

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taurath
One thing to note is that the purported health effects of smoking are almost
all mental or neurological in function rather than physical. I imagine that
before the modern era, where one could argue that mental disorder was far more
uncommon, having tobacco to "modulate" mood and nerves would be seen as a
legitimate boon to the user and society in general - especially when a person
is liable to die from other physical illness than cancer (which takes a long
time to develop). With reduced amount of mental illness a society can start to
concentrate on the long term effects - people are more likely to get to the
long term.

~~~
sorokod
> One thing to note is that the purported health effects of smoking are almost
> all mental or neurological in function rather than physical

How is "mental or neurological" not physical?

~~~
taurath
I meant to infer that it was a primarily psychological benefit.

~~~
sorokod
well yes, derived to a large extent from altering the body chemistry.

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susan_hall
A dear friend of mine quit smoking, cold-turkey, and she went completely
berserk for 3 months, with dangerous mood swings and outbursts of violence.
She had previously suffered a mild depression, which now emerged as some kind
of dark nightmare of rage and guilt and hatred and also self-hatred.

This is what struck me: of all the SSRIs she'd had ever tried, none had ever
worked as well as tobacco. Tobacco moderated her depression and mood swings
more effectively than any modern drug that her doctors had prescribed for her.

So I when I read this passage, what strikes me is how much truth there is
still in this, even in the year 2016:

"its virtues rarely get a hearing, and yet the latter are many and great. To
quiet nervous rest; to soothe a ruffled temper; to favour calm and partial
thought; to steady and clear (not to cloud) a confused, overworked brain; "

~~~
cwkoss
Tobacco contains MAOIs. This is why many smokers don't find vaping to give the
same buzz. Also MAOIs are prescribed as anti-depressants.

~~~
susan_hall
Thank you for explaining why tobacco has such a powerful effect.

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Bartweiss
The "clever calculator" mentioned in the post is perhaps a bit less clever
than suggested.

500,000 quarts of beer, spread evenly over an 80-year drinking career, still
amounts to 34 pints per day. However great his appetites, I'm a bit skeptical
of that number.

~~~
ableal
There must be an order of magnitude error there, possibly an extra zero in the
printed number.

The smoking of four tons looks feasible, for sixty years at about 180g/day
(enough tobacco for 9 packs of cigarettes, but used in pipes ).

~~~
Bartweiss
An extra zero seems plausible. 3 to 5 pints of (likely weak) beer daily isn't
out of the question.

~~~
gist
I thought also that back in the olden days beer was preferable to water
because it wasn't contaminated.

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buzzdenver
Thanks partly to the anti-smoking campaign, I was expecting to see an article
on the cooking equipment, not cigarette smokers.

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HillaryBriss
> _[tobacco 's] virtues rarely get a hearing, and yet the latter are many and
> great. To quiet nervous rest; to soothe a ruffled temper; to favour calm and
> partial thought; to steady and clear (not to cloud) a confused, overworked
> brain; to counteract the effects of physical exhaustion_

Taking this at face value, I wonder what impact such a drug could have on the
productivity of a workforce, especially programmers.

I also wonder what has replaced it as the fraction of the smoking population
declined over the last four or five decades.

~~~
dragonwriter
Note that the listed "virtues" are, in large part, descriptions of the relief
of nervousness, irritability, and lack of focus resulting from _nicotine
cravings_ in nicotine addicts.

Addicts to _many_ drugs experience similar relief when they consume the drug
to which they are addicted.

~~~
tree_of_item
Have you ever smoked tobacco? This isn't really true. Tobacco really does have
psychoactive effects even before you are addicted. Yes, all things considered,
tobacco is basically evil and should be replaced with something else, but it's
not like people are just making shit up about how good it feels.

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defen
Does smoking (or smelling like smoke) keep mosquitoes away? I'm wondering if
some second-order effect, like malaria prevention, led doctors back then to
think that smoking was healthy.

~~~
fallinghawks
No, it doesn't. Back when I smoked I would blow smoke at them and they would
just duck and find a different direction to attack.

~~~
jwdunne
Works better when you blow the direct draw and not post inhale absorption.
Still, its a waste and just drives them crazy so doubles the annoyance.

I don't think the nicotine in a drag is high enough to do much. From what I
remember, much higher concentrations were or are used in ant killer.

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epx
At least died happy :)

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pkamb
What was his cause of death?!

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k-mcgrady
I wonder how much the current 'marijuana is good for you' attitude resembles
the 'smoking is good for you' attitude in the past?

NB: I think all drugs should be legalised so this isn't an anti-drugs post.

~~~
maxerickson
Don't most of the people espousing that attitude acknowledge that the smoking
part has negative consequences? Hence vaping and edibles and such?

~~~
k-mcgrady
I actually expanded upon my comment to cover that and it didn't post. Smoking
it we can all agree isn't good for our lungs. However I wonder about the long
term mental impact on regular users. The only ones I've known (and we're
talking a couple of people so not a big sample) regularly lose focus and zone
out when I talked to them (and they were sober). We look at cigarettes and
alcohol as indulgences. We know they cause damage so we make a choice to
accept that or enjoy them occasionally. Marijuana talk tends to be focussed
around health benefits still and at one time this was the same for alcohol and
cigarettes. For example we don't look at daily marijuana users the same way we
would alcohol users.

~~~
derekp7
I've had the same observation, that the people I know who smoke pot always
seem to have that typical dunceness about them. But then I've wondered if the
cause and effect is reversed -- maybe it is people who already have these
cognitive attributes are more likely to be predisposed to smoking pot?

~~~
throwaway729
_> that the people I know who smoke pot..._

You should re-phrase this as: "the people I know who publicly advertise the
fact that they smoke pot".

In my experience, there are a lot of marijuana users who are otherwise
extremely normal people (and even sometimes on the exceptional end of normal).
But given the legal status of marijuana, an ambitious middle-aged professional
with a young family who also smokes a couple times a month is unlikely to
publicly advertise the fact.

Because you (presumably) don't smoke, those people are extremely unlikely to
confide in you about this particular subject.

~~~
derekp7
Yes, that is what I really meant. My experience is from watching my
significant other's kids and their friends (all in their early twenties by
now, but were teens when they started). So the age could have something to do
with it too. And every once in awhile I run across someone who does mention
occasional pot usage, but they seem normal. In those cases their use is
infrequent. In the case of the teenagers / early 20's mentioned above, I think
a big part of it is heavy usage while their brains were still developing. It
seems that usage during those critical years can put a "pause" button on
development, so once they got off pot they were 25-year-olds that behaved in
many ways like a 15-year-old.

A good counter example is someone I know who didn't start until around age 25,
only indulges occasionally (so it isn't an addiction), and has very high
cognitive ability (currently making 6 figures in the financial industry).

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caub
smoking is the most deadly thing that ever happened in humanity

