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Morris's avatar

I have read and tend to believe that nicotine itself is not addictive. However, used in the form of cigarettes the hundreds of other added chemicals are designed to be addictive. I too, was once addicted to nicotine, hence, cigarettes, for many years. My habit started from birth, meaning all my family were smokers. We used to have regular family get-togethers that would include a room so filled with smoke it burnt your eyesto be in the same room! Don't look down on my family, the docs said smoking was a "healthy" thing to do. At age 12 I began stealing from my parents cig packs and was a pack and half smoker for the 40+ years. I used "pouch" tobacco to get my "hit" as a way to protect my lungs since my father had lung cancer earlier. It helped with respiratory (smoker's cough, morning phelm, shortness of breath during exertion, etc.) symptoms which to me seemed a normal part of life. Finally, when I embraced my faith seriously desiring to know real truth, nicotine addiction seemed to be the only thing that troubled my conscience. So I determined to quit, once more, after hundreds of failed attempts over past years. It finally came down to a test of my own sincerity and whether or not I had a faith that would truly deliver. If I believed in a power to ressurect my dead body and the same Word gave testimony that He would give life to my "mortal" body, the one I'm in now, then it was up to me to excercise that faith. Romans 8:11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

With this new found true faith power I quit all tobacoo 10 or 15 years ago. Give God all the glory because I had not the strength within myself until I found this understanding and stepped into His promise. For me, the first three days was the toughest and I reasoned if He could carry me for 72 hours of the worst, I could return my commitment to His promise for less difficult days to come. At this point each day became easier than the ones I had already conquered leaving me with the responsibility to stay the course or else take the responsibility for any failure I might allow. Now, the only thing about smoking that bothersme is not you blowing your smoke in my face or wishing for somethng from the past that I truly enjoyed (but was injurious to me physically and spiritually) but for dirty ash trays. Dirty ash-tray smell makes me want to puke!

I now use chewing gum nicotine on occasion as remedial prevention with covid. I do not like chewing it and have to make myself do this, so I have absolutely no fear of developing a habit.

I hope this helps someone. I feel God may have given us tobacoo for a reason but the greedy capitalist took advantage of it just as they have everything else.

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Moro Balakrishnan's avatar

As a retired industrial organic chemistry researcher ( not drugs, a PhD) with reading interests in medicinal chemistry, the structure of Nicotine has fascinated me as a potential anti viral. I have explained it in many other fora. I used to wonder if smokers were less prone to covid infection and you indicate that some statistics supports this premise. This chemistry applies as well to the vaccine spike proteins too. Its suspected addiction propensity ( not as tobacco) should be a concern if used as a long term course. I think intermittent courses of nicotine products should be, depending on the extent of the symptoms. I have suggested another approach to some researchers, without any response, slightly involved. This is adding one mole of a Cetyl group ( one step synthesis) to Nicotine. There are two moles of Nitrogen - one aromatic (pyridine) and one saturated ring tertiary nitrogen. These two nitrogens then will become partially cationic ( one mole). This will look very similar to Cetyl Pyridinium Chloride ( CPC), the common mouth wash ingredient, known to have killed the virus in seconds. Both will be cationic molecules. The idea here is that this will even improve the performance of Nicotine, without probably the addiction potential, as it becomes a therapeutic drug. If you know any researcher interested in this chemistry and potential, you may put him onto me. I am from India, 9886628784.

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