Smoking is Good For You?

According to Niels Ipsen, an environmental biologist and Klaus Kjellerup, a researcher who analyzed and summarized 40 years of scientific research. The claim is that nicotine boosts brain performance. They do not address the lungs. I guess breathing isn't as important if your brain's on fire.

After 40 years of scientific research on the effects of nicotine, researchers now say that they have sound scientific proof that smoking and nicotine have a significant positive effect on human brain performance.

The brain works better when it gets nicotine - almost like an optimized computer. Nicotine is a "work-drug" that enables its consumers to focus better and think faster. The brain also becomes more enduring, especially in smokers: Nicotine experiments show that smokers in prolonged working situations are able to maintain concentration for many hours longer than non-smokers.

This seems like a paradox considering the smoking bans imposed on workplaces in many countries - but it is nonetheless the picture emerging from hundreds of scientific studies of smoking and nicotine. It seems very unlikely that companies would be able to stop smoking in workplaces with many smokers without experiencing a decline in labor productivity.

Generally nicotine boosts the brain to work 10-30% more efficiently in a number of areas. This is especially true for smoking - but also true when using smokeless nicotine. But at the same time, when smokers and nicotine users abstain, they experience a perhaps equally great decline in the effect. This is called the "withdrawal effect" - a nicotine craving, especially for smokers.

Thus the difference between smoking and smoking abstinence is very pronounced for a smoker - a difference of perhaps as much as 50%. And, according to the scientists, this answers the question: Why do people smoke? The answer is simple: Because smoking boosts their brain power.

There are over 4000 chemicals (many of them, combustion by-products) in store bought cigarettes that include formaldehyde, arsenic and cyanide.  Now, certain chemicals reduce the tar intake. That's a good thing, right? But, to be sure, there are far more bad things.  For one, cigarette manufacturers like to enhance nicotine delivery to increase likelihood of addiction. For example, adding ammonia enables the smoker to freebase nicotine. Moreover, they add other chemicals to keep the cigarette from extinguishing itself. That can't be good.

And if that's not bad enough, fire safe cigarette legislation,  in all 50 states has produced the Fire Standards Compliant cigarette, which is held together with Ethylene Vinyl Acetate - carpet glue!   If this isn't incentive to roll your own...

Ethylene Vinyl Acetate, the product that holds the cigarette paper together, is essentially carpet glue. The product has no accepted internal (ingestion) purpose, and is considered to be highly toxic. In fact, the Material Safety Data Sheet, the “expert” on material uses says the following about ethylene vinyl acetate, “Not considered hazardous under normal conditions of use.” Normal conditions, of course, are those that include gluing a new carpet to the floor. Yuck!

The Data Sheet continues, in the same paragraph stating; “Can release irritating or toxic fumes and vapors if involved in a fire.” Naturally, all cigarettes are involved in a fire, as that is the only way they can be consumed.

What’s in a FSC?
Well, a lot. The health risks are plenty when inhaling the smoke from Fire Safe Cigarettes. FSC’s produced 13.9% more Naphthalene and 11.4% more carbon monoxide than regular cigarettes. Naphthalene is a nasty chemical, the main ingredient in moth balls, and contributes to the following conditions: headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, malaise, confusion, anemia, jaundice, convulsions, and coma.

...that is, unless you want to try the so-called safe alternative, Hookah or water-pipe smoking, that seems to be on the rise, especially amongst teens. Apparently, some think the smoke is filtered by the water;  hence, is safer than regular cigarette smoking. Not true, "a hookah, which is smoked for about 45 minutes, delivers 36 times more tar than a cigarette, 15 times more carbon monoxide and 70% more nicotine.".  The Mayo Clinic agrees.

In conclusion, while scientists have found that nicotine might be good for you in certain circumstances, and  that smoking might help prevent the onset of various dementias (nicotine), and that smokers, in general, are more likely to avoid obesity, smoking still drastically increases your chances of cancer and heart disease.  

Science is conclusive: Tobacco increases work capacity