Just recently I explained to my boss that I drink iced tea all day because if I drink coffee it gives me the jitters. She said, "well, actually, tea has more caffeine than coffee." 🤦♂️
Anyway, I liked the point that the addiction isn't really the issue, it's the harm it causes. I have heard of some people--Marc Maron, comes to mind--who become addicted to nicotine gum or lozenges. My initial thought was they were just substituting one addiction for another, so what's the point. But it's important for me to remember that they aren't equivalently harmful. When people started dying of vapes in the US, it seemed to justify a fear of vaping. My wife works in a school and Juuls were becoming a big issue. But that story disappeared. I only recently found out that it was apparently some chemical used in black market vapes causing the deaths. I think that should have been a big story. In many places they made nice-flavored vape liquid illegal, and who knows how many people went back to smoking thinking, "Well, I may get cancer, but that's a long way off. people are dying of vapes right now"
Just recently I explained to my boss that I drink iced tea all day because if I drink coffee it gives me the jitters. She said, "well, actually, tea has more caffeine than coffee." 🤦♂️
Anyway, I liked the point that the addiction isn't really the issue, it's the harm it causes. I have heard of some people--Marc Maron, comes to mind--who become addicted to nicotine gum or lozenges. My initial thought was they were just substituting one addiction for another, so what's the point. But it's important for me to remember that they aren't equivalently harmful. When people started dying of vapes in the US, it seemed to justify a fear of vaping. My wife works in a school and Juuls were becoming a big issue. But that story disappeared. I only recently found out that it was apparently some chemical used in black market vapes causing the deaths. I think that should have been a big story. In many places they made nice-flavored vape liquid illegal, and who knows how many people went back to smoking thinking, "Well, I may get cancer, but that's a long way off. people are dying of vapes right now"
Good science plus a little humor