I’ll start off by saying that I detest smoking. The stink, the elevated risk of accidental house fires, the additional cleaning costs, the stink, the expense, the sheer ugliness. I’ve had to clean up after too many family members who were long-term smokers, and I’ve lost too many to smoking-related diseases.
But it occurs to me that most of my objections are to, specifically, smoking, not to nicotine addiction itself. I saw a news report after the Colorado marijuana legalization showing that pot was being made available in edible form as well as smokable. (Can drinkable or vapable be far behind?)
I’ve wondered why nicotine isn’t easily made into edible or drinkable forms as well, but my question isn’t really about that. I’m wondering, rather, how much of the bad effects of smoking tobacco are due to the smoking, rather than the nicotine? If my father had somehow consumed as much nicotine as he did in two packs of cigarettes a day, but by some other way than smoking it, what would the effects of the nicotine addiction be?