Sunday 17 March 2024

Tangible Benefits of Social Drugs?

 A simplistic and relatively shallow series of muses here,  prompted by repeated commentary from naysayers, particularly in reference to nicotine.

Social Drugs I shall confine to just three varieties, although many more exist. I shall discuss  Caffeine, Alcohol, Nicotine but not include another very popular Social Drug :-Cannabis, for whatever reasoning. 

Caffeine 

A straight rip from Google yields this commentary 

''Low to moderate doses of caffeine (50–300 mg) may cause increased alertness, energy, and ability to concentrate, while higher doses may have negative effects such as anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, and increased heart rate. [2] Still, the cumulative research on coffee points in the direction of a health benefit.''  < via this 

So just maybe some Health benefits here! 

Alcohol 

again a Google rip 

''Moderate amounts of alcohol raise levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or “good” cholesterol), [37] and higher HDL levels are associated with greater protection against heart disease. '' via here  see Nutt et al here to put into context with other social drugs.

Nicotine 

Interestingly no Google rip is available here to post 

but a multitude of entries are shown via this link 

So can I make any conclusions whatsoever here, other than Google and hence TC Chan who provided the commentary on caffeine and alcohol are not predisposed to writing or recording anything positive about nicotine <Why is this??

I can still recall a commentary from a now retired researcher:- Robert West who I have admired for his published works and Tobacco Harm Reduction conference speeches, however he startled me when he stated there are no benefits associated with nicotine. 

I have no intention of regurgitating the Google link above, but simply refer any long suffering reader of this, to Safer Nicotine Wiki  namely this section here and from New Nicotine Alliance especially this entry  a recent entry by Brad Rodu is well worth a read

Positive benefits of nicotine exist, but seemingly well hidden from the vast majority of the general public, who have been consistently and continually brainwashed for many years  largely because of the association with combustible Smoking. 

It could certainly be strongly argued that alcohol is way more dangerous than any of the safer forms of nicotine consumption, similarly are safer forms of nicotine equally as benign as caffeine, and arguably offer more tangible benefits ?

But of course the obvious must be stated that both Caffeine and Alcohol have far greater public 'acceptance' than nicotine, this is unjustifiable from a risk or benefit point of view, but changing public perception will certainly not happen quickly, if at all. This could be because caffeine and alcohol are used by significantly higher numbers in many Western and non-Muslim societies, compared to nicotine.



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