I am prescribed a medication to increase acetylcholine called pyridostygmine by a specialist to treat my ME/CFS. So this knowledge is out there, just not common yet. And as always with these conditions, research funding is virtually non-existent.

“Nicotine, of course, is the substance in the tobacco in cigarettes which makes them so addicting – and nicotine withdrawal, we know, is no joke.”

I don’t buy this, and I don’t believe you’ll find anything that actually proves it. Patches and gum have an abysmal success rate, and I’ve never heard of anyone ever becoming addicted to either… The addiction may involve nicotine, but it’s nicotine in tobacco that’s addictive, and you only see the “crack fiend” level of addiction in cigarette smokers.

A pipe smoker, or a cigar smoker, can be, and often is, someone who doesn’t consume tobacco at work, or in their car, they can and do limit it to their home. That’s an absolutely absurd concept with cigarettes for the vast majority who use them.

The assumption that cigarette smokers are addicted to the nicotine is exactly that, an assumption.

Why are there no gum addicts? Why do so few people vape long term? Why aren’t cigar or pipe smokers constantly smoking their cigar or pipe? Why do some people stack 2 or 3 max dose nicotine patches, and then still want a cigarette? We describe the patches as ineffective, we say “they’re just to reduce cravings”, but If it’s the nicotine they really crave, why do the patches succeed so infrequently?

Cigarettes were engineered and developed over an entire century, to be as addictive as they possibly could be made to be.

Nocotine as a treatment (if it actually treats anything) probably carries less risk of addiction than a lot of treatments we’ve been using for decades. Not saying cigarettes are good, I’m just saying that nicotine in and of itself is being slandered :)