# Is anyone who takes up smoking today a friggin' idiot?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-anyone-who-takes-up-smoking-today-a-friggin-idiot/653958>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 25, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-anyone-who-takes-up-smoking-today-a-friggin-idiot/653958 "2013-03-25T22:09:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 8

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**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-anyone-who-takes-up-smoking-today-a-friggin-idiot/653958/141 "2018-02-16T09:16:23Z")

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> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> There are some benefits to smoking.
> 
> Nicotine reduces stress and makes it easier to cope with anger and anxiety, and helps suppress appetite.
> 
> Also for mentally ill people, nicotine helps rebalance their brain chemistry a bit. Hence smoking rates among the mentally ill are higher.
> 
> Granted, all these benefits can be had from safer methods of nicotine administration. Nasal sprays, patches, gum, vape pens, etc.
> 
> Having said that, I’ve never smoked more than a handful of times, but I tried smoking nicotine free flavored vape pens. I just like the flavor, but apparently even those can cause lung problems. So I quit doing that.

there really are no benefits to smoking other than the quick drug-delivery system. Nicotine, however, has a lot of valuable effects. They just need to work on the delivery system.

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**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-anyone-who-takes-up-smoking-today-a-friggin-idiot/653958/142 "2018-02-16T14:34:39Z")

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> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> Nicotine reduces stress …

Well, regular smokers certainly report that. But what it really reduces is the stress associated with a shortage of nicotine for those habituated to regular doses of nicotine.

Its effect on non-smokers is complex, and definitely not accurately characterized as stress-reducing.

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