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Tobacco and coffee: not as bad as we thought?

Smoking is bad.  But is tobacco?
Smoking is bad.But is tobacco bad too?
Scientific American recently reported on research on the effects of tobacco and coffee on the brain.  It turns out that there's something in tobacco and coffee that helps keep dopamine cells healthy, which means that we may be on the verge of figuring out why coffee-drinkers and smokers tend to have a lower risk of Parkinson's disease.  This reinforces what I've always thought: value judgements suck.

This could be great news for those who suffer from a variety of dopamine-related illnesses, but I think the most interesting bit is that there's something good about coffee and tobacco.  It's not caffeine or nicotine, but there's something else in these substances that seems to be quite beneficial.  This is interesting because of how generally reviled coffee and tobacco are (especially the latter).  It's an important lesson we all need to learn: just because something seems bad doesn't mean there's nothing good about it.

Too often we make foolish value judgements based on how we use something rather than on the thing itself. We drink too much coffee and get sick, so we blame coffee.  And we identify tobacco as a bad substance because we smoke the stuff and get cancer.  This is, of course, ridiculous.  Plants are neither good nor bad.  These are only labels we put on things to make ourselves feel better when we screw up.  We smoke excessively, we ignore the warnings of doctors, we get cancer and die.  And thus tobacco becomes "bad," when rather it's us who are being stupid.  And thus labelled, curiosity about it's potentially beneficial uses are ignored completely.

I have to wonder, if it weren't for the stigma attached to, say, tobacco over the last few decades, would we have found out long ago about the benefits of some elements of tobacco to dopamine production?  And would we now have better medicines for diseases like Parkinson's?

It bothers me immensely that the answers to these questions could very well be "Yes."

We need to stop making value judgements about things, because they make us stupid.

COMMENTS

BLOGGER: 5
  1. I'm not against smoking as long as the smoker is considerate of their surroundings for other non-smokers
    (also the unbearable strong cigarette smell certain people have is as bad as B.O.)

    "Charlie the Smoking Chimp" apparently lived 10 years longer than the 7% that lives past 40

    moderation is key

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the comment.

    One slight issue here: the reported work is NOT about smoking, but about tobacco. That is, there are other ways to get tobacco into your system besides smoking it. Like chewing it.

    (And as an occasional smoker, I appreciate your level-headedness. :-)

    Fil Salustri

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm trying to find a way to appreciate nicotene without the risk of cancer. I'm thinking of putting rolling tobacco in my coffee grinds and seeing how that turns out. I agree, tobacco is useful. As for coffee, I see no harm in moderation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Let us know how that experiment works out.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for the note. I certainly appreciate the thoughtfulness you put into it, and the references you provided.

    I too am a smoker.

    However, I would suggest that we think this way: there's two parts to smoking - the chemistry of tobacco acting in the body, and the delivery system for that tobacco. Since tobacco's chemicals can be introduced in other ways besides smoking, it is reasonable to consider the two parts as disjoint.

    I have not had the time to read the papers you cite, but I would think that any benefits accrue solely from the chemistry of tobacco in the body, and not at all from the act of smoking itself.

    So while I can accept that there are benefits to the chemicals in tobacco, I'm still not convinced that smoking it is necessary.

    I'll see if I can make the time to read those paper.

    Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete

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The Trouble with Normal...: Tobacco and coffee: not as bad as we thought?
Tobacco and coffee: not as bad as we thought?
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