Mmm...Nicotine

This is something I, with the vast information resources available to me, ought to just look up, but my lunch break is almost over, so I don't have time to get really into it: how bad is nicotine/tobacco for you if you're not smoking it or holding it in your mouth for long periods of time?

I ask because of this Healthbolt post on a new nicotine-delivery method that's being developed: dissolvable, flavored tobacco in the form of strips or tablets. Yum!

The post raises the question of whether this would appeal to children, and certainly something that's a bit like candy or those dissolvable breath freshener strips seems intuitively to be a lot more kid-friendly than a cigarette. I could see it working for grown-ups too, though, since one could unobtrusively use such a product in a way that you can't just unobtrusively light up in public places in the U.S.

So I wondered, is it really super terrible if it does attract users who might not be able to use cigarettes? I mean, I'm not saying "run out and imbibe substances, kids!" but how bad for you is the nicotine/tobacco itself? Isn't it inhaling smoke or holding chewing tobacco in your mouth all day that's really awful?

Maybe getting people interested in this non-smoking, non-spitting product will be better for them! Maybe we should be cheering this new health triumph! Go R.J. Reynolds!

This is when we must turn to research. Doing a quick and dirty PubMed search for ("Nicotine/adverse effects"[Mesh] NOT "Smoking"[Mesh]), one finds interesting references to SIDS, "neuroprotective and neurotoxic effects," effects on renal function and bone repair, and plenty more...

Plus of course from the MeSH definition: "Nicotine is highly toxic alkaloid." Yum?

So there's definitely a lot going on with nicotine in addition to the smoking and chewing, and it may well be that it's a terrible idea to make it available to young people in a tasty candy.

Nevertheless, I'm not convinced flavored tobacco is the worst idea anyone's ever had, if only because I don't enjoy smelling smoke or getting tobacco juice on me (not that this happens often), and if people are going to do nicotine as their drug of choice, they might as well do it in a way that inconveniences me personally as little as possible.

Yeah, it is all about me, thanks.

Seriously, though, I'm curious about this product, and could see its ultimate health effects, if it were brought to market and made widely available, being potentially either good (if it were associated with decreased use of smoked tobacco) or bad (if it were toxic to the body in the way that cigarettes are).

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