Facing Addiction
Tobacco has been legal ever since the birth of America. It contributes to 480,000 U.S. deaths per year; University of Washington notes that the count is more than “alcohol, illegal drugs, fires, motor vehicle accidents, homicide, suicide, and AIDS — combined.” Although the tobacco industry has faced increased governmental regulation, nicotine (tobacco’s addictive substance) addiction remains a serious problem.
Most Americans who smoke wish to quit, but the chance of relapse is 94%. Tobacco remains legal, despite plenty of studies showing how lethal and addictive cigarettes are. Meanwhile, certain illegal drugs, scientifically proven to have low addictive properties and contain great medical benefits — psychedelics and marijuana — have remained Schedule I drugs for over four decades.
Nicotine is addictive because it has a psychoactive effect on the brain. There is an endogenous (naturally occurring) neurotransmitter in the brain called Acetylcholine. Nicotine has a similar enough structure to Acetylcholine that it binds to the same receptors as the endogenous molecule normally does. This creates a rise in dopamine activity, which is attributive to smoking’s addictive properties. Also contributing to nicotine’s insidious nature, the body metabolizes the substance fast and its desired effect quickly dissipates.
Martha Rosenthal, (a psychology professor at Florida Gulf Coast University) notes that “[w]ithdrawal onset occurs rapidly, and tobacco users often seek out the drug to ease their withdrawal symptoms” (Rosenthal 248). At the onset of habitual smoking, the hippocampus becomes hypersensitive; the area starts to associate smoking with environmental cues and actions. Rosenthal notes that “[s]moking becomes a conditioned habit that often is associated with rewarding behavior — after a meal, while drinking, out with friends, after sex. Smokers associate the setting and circumstances with smoking, which leads to learned rewards” (Rosenthal 248).
It’s evident that nicotine is addictive but Rosenthal notes that “it is one of the most addictive substances discovered to date”.
Philip Morris Company, the largest tobacco company in America, found evidence of nicotine’s addictive properties in the 1980s. Rather than releasing the findings to the public, they fired the people who conducted the study and increased nicotine levels in their tobacco products. Studies linking smoking and lung cancer were first conducted in the 1950s. However, cigarettes have never ceased to remain legal.
Rosenthal notes that “dangerous drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are excluded from the Controlled Substances Act [or CSA]. This exclusion is due, in part, to the fact that when the CSA was established alcohol and tobacco already had specific tax provisions, but also because of the strong political influence of the tobacco and liquor lobbies. If they were not excluded, alcohol and tobacco might certainly be classified as schedule I or II” (Rosenthal 14).
Nicotine’s therapeutic index is 200–300. The therapeutic index of a drug is determined by the amount that is lethal to the average person divided by the typical dose. The lower the number is, the more lethal the drug. For perspective, heroin has a therapeutic index of 5, marijuana over 1,000 and alcohol’s 10. Marijuana and alcohol’s numbers only accentuate the political influence of nicotine’s legal status. Tobacco company marketing strategies further shows immoralities regarding laws on cigarettes.
Confidential company statements turned public include statements from Philip Morris and Lorillard Tobacco: “Today’s teenager is tomorrow’s customer” and “The base of our business is the high school student”.
The tobacco industry has succeeded in this marketing strategy considering nicotine consumption is on the rise amongst youth — due to electronic cigarettes.
Although combustible cigarette use has consistently been declining for young people since the ’90s, e-cigarette use has been increasing since 2017. The highly technological aspect of e-cigs, an ability for the gadgets to blend in with the environment without looking like a drug, and various fruit and dessert flavors are huge selling points for young people. E-cigs have managed to create a whole new generation of nicotine addicts just as combustible cigarettes were becoming notorious for being toxic.
So, what does this implicate for the near future and onwards? Long-term smoking has severe chronic implications. These include:
prematurely aged skin
fertility issues
heart disease
acute lung conditions
and cancer.
The list continues…smoking can contribute to heart disease due to artery restriction, reducing oxygen delivery to the heart. Similarly, smoking deprives the skin of oxygen, leading to wrinkles. In addition, tar ingestion proves devastating to the lungs. Not only does tar buildup lead to decreased airflow, the lungs sustain functional damage such that they cannot sweep out toxins one may breathe in from the air.
There has been a plethora of evidence linking cigarette smoking to cancer.
Rosenthal notes that “[c]igarettes are responsible for about eighty percent of cancers of the lung, bronchi, larynx, and trachea, and fifty percent of cancers of the mouth, esophagus, and bladder. They also increase one’s risk of stomach, pancreatic, kidney, cervical, and testicular cancer” (Rosenthal 245).
Not only are there endless complications for people who smoke, there are adverse implications for individuals who have little to no control over inhalation of cigarette smoke. Rosenthal notes that “About 13.6 percent of pregnant women smoke, compared with 21.4 percent of nonpregnant women of the same age” (Rosenthal 245). This can lead to many physical and mental implications for the baby. Research also links nicotine subjection while in the womb to an addictive personality on the onset of teenage years.
There was research conducted on pregnant rats who were exposed to nicotine. When the rats who were exposed to nicotine — in the womb — became adolescent, they pressed levers to consume more nicotine and alcohol than their non-nicotine exposed peers. Further complications lend to the fact that secondhand smoke has been identified as a carcinogen for close to three decades.
According to the CDC, over 42,000 deaths are each year attributed to secondhand smoke, due to heart disease, lung cancer and stroke.
At the onset of the twenty-first century there have been regulations implemented to reduce risk of secondhand smoke exposure. Rosenthal notes that “[a]s of 2016, 36 states, along with the District of Columbia and many American territories, have laws in effect that require nonhospitality workplaces, and/or restaurants, and/or bars to be smoke free.
Since smoke free legislation has passed, many municipalities have seen a reduction in the number of hospital admissions for heart disease” (Rosenthal 247). In addition, Rosenthal notes that “Pueblo, Colorado enacted a smoke-free law in 2003, and 18 months later hospital admissions for heart attacks dropped 27 percent. Admissions in neighboring towns without smoke-free laws showed no change” (Rosenthal 247).
There was a 2016 Gallup poll conducted, which found 74% of American smokers prefer to quit and 78% have made at least 1 attempt at doing so. However, a mere 6% succeed.
Relapse usually occurs less than half a week from the onset of a quitting attempt. It could be argued that it won’t be optimal to illegalize tobacco because people will experience severe withdrawal, something cigarettes are notorious for. However, if psychedelic therapies become accessible, this will not even be an issue.
Clearly cigarette smoking is a serious issue for the nation (and the world). Pharmacological therapies to help quit include:
patches
gum
nasal sprays
inhalers
lozenge
and e-cigarettes.
These medications are offered for people to wean off nicotine and not be exposed to withdrawal. Combing nicotine patches with hypnosis is another option offered.
Quite frankly, all these therapies are abysmal at best considering 94% of people relapse.
E-cigarettes are also mentioned as one of the so-called “therapies”. However, a 2017 study conducted by University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences found that “[y]oung adults who use electronic cigarettes are more than four times as likely to begin smoking tobacco cigarettes within 18 months as their peers who do not vape. The findings demonstrate that e-cigarettes are serving as a gateway to traditional smoking, contrary to their purported value as a smoking cessation tool” (University of Pittsburgh 1).
There has to be a different approach to mitigate the devastating repercussions smoking results with. And there is. The answer is psychedelics and marijuana. Unfortunately, both substances have faced harsh regulations for many decades; regulations are easing up on the latter, but not the former. When Prohibition came to an end (in 1933) and alcohol once again legalized, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ responsibilities dramatically shrunk. The head of the FBN, Harry Anslinger, needed a new substance to keep his jurisdiction alive.
Marijuana (known as cannabis at the time and widely used and accepted) became the scapegoat. The substance was rebranded and “marijuana” was portrayed as extremely dangerous and likely to make people go mad.
Scientific research in the 40s, 70s and 80s consistently showed marijuana does not pose a physical or neurological threat; the federal government rejected the findings each time. Only the last twenty years has seen some mitigation of laws controlling marijuana.
What is ironic is studies have shown several diseases associated with cigarette smoking can be alleviated with marijuana use, such as Crohn’s disease, diabetes and cancer. Marijuana slows down bowel movements of Crohn’s disease patients, helps regulate glucose levels for diabetics, and mollifies a wide variety of symptoms for cancer patients, including inducing appetite and acting as an analgesic. Nevertheless, obtaining more funding from the federal government to study marijuana remains difficult for scientists.
Concerning psychedelics, Rosenthal notes that a small study found that 80 percent of cigarette smokers had abstained from smoking six months after a psilocybin-facilitated treatment.
To highlight the salience of this statistic, note the Gallup poll’s findings, where psychedelics are clearly not assisted (due to harsh regulations by the federal government).
Rosenthal states that “[p]silocybin, LSD, and mescaline are classified as schedule I, and so they involve very burdensome procedures for research approval. Finding funding for hallucinogens research is also difficult — both the pharmaceutical companies and the U.S. government are reluctant to fund the research. Although it is an onerous process for American scientists and doctors to study hallucinogens, these drugs have many therapeutic uses” (Rosenthal 136).
By definition: “[a] schedule I drug is one believed to have a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical uses in the United States, and a demonstrated lack of safety, even under medical supervision” (Rosenthal 13). Psychedelics have been scientifically proven to have low addiction potential, help people with addiction of other drugs (nicotine and alcohol), and proven to have long-term positive effects — attributive to life in general; they clearly have a plethora of medical benefits.
A 2006 study by Johns Hopkins University — “Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance” played a key role in what has been a (slow) resurgence with psychedelic research. It looked at psilocybin’s (magic mushrooms) effects on people. The participants themselves (and participants’ kin) noted of positive and profound realizations/changes within the participants even after two months from the study.
There was also a UCLA psilocybin study that looked at whether psilocybin would be effective for reducing depression and anxiety for cancer patients; depression levels did decrease within the next two weeks.
As outlined, psychedelic research has shown psychedelics’ remarkable benefits for people who are not only struggling with substance abuse and other forms of mental complications, but for healthy people as well. Nevertheless LSD, mescaline, mushrooms, DMT, peyote (the list goes on) are all psychedelics under Schedule I. Intriguingly, psychedelic restriction occurred in the 1960s.
Rosenthal notes that “[p]atients on LSD were found to be less defensive and to respond more effectively [than tranquilizers]. By 1965, an estimated 40,000 patients had received LSD in a psychotherapeutic context, and over 1,000 articles — most highly favorable — were published on the subject. Yet, by the end of the 1960s, for political reasons, LSD was considered to be one of the most dangerous drugs in existence.” (Rosenthal 118).
Clearly psychedelics open the mind up in a particular manner, that the government is obstinate about the general public being exposed to. In 1960, Timothy Leary, a 39-year-old clinical psychologist at Harvard University went to Mexico to try psilocybin. Of his experience he recalls
“[i]t was above all and without question the deepest religious experience of my life…I learned more in the next six or seven hours of this experience than in all my years as a psychologist…I came back a changed man…You are never the same after you’ve had the veil drawn”
Leary began conducting clinical studies using psilocybin with graduate students when he came back to Harvard; he was soon after fired. With the introduction of the Controlled Substances Act, psychedelics were faced with the harshest regulation (Schedule I) and research was shut down until the mid 2000s, as aforementioned.
The government needs to reconsider this classification for medical reasons (and non-medical, as outlined) as soon as possible, yet it has remained unchanged for decades. Considering all the medical and holistic benefits outlined from the studies, it makes me think why the U.S. government has classified psychedelics as illegal. Perhaps Terence McKenna puts it best as he says,
“[p]sychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”
Despite lots of evidence showcasing tobacco’s pernicious properties, one may wonder if the government will ever make it a controlled (illegal) substance, instead of widely available for purchase. Although there have been increased regulations on Big Tobacco the last twenty years, tobacco’s legal status to begin with raises concern. The reason of course refers back to money — tobacco lobbies. It has scientifically been found to be extremely addicting and has no benefits — even under medical supervision. It checks all the boxes, by definition, of an illegal substance. Meanwhile, psychedelics have been proven to have low addictive properties and great medical use; it is evident whose best interests the government has at heart.
References
“E-Cig Use Increases Risk of Beginning Tobacco Cigarette Use in Young Adults.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 11 Dec. 2017, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171211090733.htm.
Griffiths, R. R., et al. “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance.” Psychopharmacology, vol. 187, no. 3, 2006, pp. 268–283., doi:10.1007/s00213–006–0457–5.
Grob, Charles S., et al. “Pilot Study of Psilocybin Treatment for Anxiety in Patients With Advanced-Stage Cancer.” Archives of General Psychiatry, vol. 68, no. 1, 2011, p. 71., doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.116.
https://depts.washington.edu/thmedia/view.cgi?section=tobacco
Rosenthal, Martha S. Drugs: Mind, Body, and Society. Oxford University Press, 2019.
“Secondhand Smoke (SHS) Facts.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5 Jan. 2021, www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/general_facts/index.htm.
“Terence McKenna Quotes (Author of Food of the Gods).” Goodreads, Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/9243.Terence_McKenna.
