Tobacco is a poison, not a drug
Loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fumes thereof, nearest resembling the horrible stinking smoke of the pit that is bottomless
Charles Van Riper
While there is no rational argument for people to have the right to smoke tobacco, it is possible to debate whether adults should have the right to take tobacco as a drug. The problem here is that tobacco is not a drug, it is a poison.
A recreational drug is a psychoactive substance that can induce an altered state of consciousness by modifying perceptions, feelings or emotions. While nicotine fits this definition, it is debatable whether tobacco as a whole does, and the common perceived effect of tobacco is a misconception.
If you ask tobacco users why they smoke most will tell you that it helps them to relax. This is odd because nicotine, the main active constituent of tobacco, is a stimulant. Nicotine is highly addictive however, and the main withdrawal symptom is anxiety. So, when smokers feel that tobacco is relaxing them they are actually going from anxious to stimulated, not stressed to relaxed. The act of smoking can be relaxing though, and smokers will often light up if they are feeling stressed despite not craving a nicotine hit.
Although it is debatable as to whether tobacco fits the definition of a recreational drug, the point is moot. If something fits the definition of both a drug and a poison then it is a poison, not a drug.
The Oxford dictionary defines a poison as a substance that, through its chemical action, usually kills, injures, or impairs an organism. I don’t think there is any doubt that tobacco fits this definition.
Tobacco is a causative factor in many diseases, including emphysema, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and 16 different types of cancer. It is the only legal substance that kills its users when used as directed by the manufacturer, and according to the World Health Organization tobacco kills up to 50% of its users. This is comparable with the mortality rate of the Black Death.1
There is a saying that the difference between a drug and a poison is the dose, but this does not mean tobacco is a drug at the right dose. First, this saying is not true. And second, Paracelsus, the person credited with saying it, did not say it. What he said was that everything has poison-like effects if you take enough of it. This is not to say a drug is a poison if you take too much of it. If you take too much of a drug you have not been poisoned, you have had an overdose. And it certainly does not mean a poison is a drug in low doses.
Tobacco is not just highly toxic though, it is also highly addictive, and in 1988 the US Surgeon General declared nicotine to be as addictive as heroin or cocaine. This is a dangerous combination, as testified by tobacco’s death toll. Tobacco killed 100 million people in the last century, and if current trends continue it will kill a billion people in the twenty-first century. A billion people is 15 times the death toll of both world wars combined. Tobacco is currently killing more than 7 million people a year, including an estimated 1.6 million non-smokers and 50,000 children.1, 2
If you think governments have a duty to protect the public against dangerous substances being sold by immoral bastards after a quick buck, then you should think tobacco should be banned. And if you don’t think governments have a duty to protect the public against dangerous substances being sold by immoral bastards after a quick buck, then you should think all dangerous drugs should be legal, including heroin, LSD, amphetamines and cocaine.
If you think banning tobacco would be too difficult, then you are just plain wrong, because we banned heroin and cocaine, and banning tobacco would be a lot easier. And if you think the bans on these drugs has not worked, guess what? You’re wrong again. Alcohol caused the death of 2.6 million people in 2019, more than four times the death toll of all illegal drugs combined, but it’s not four times as dangerous.3
When we look back over the last few decades it appears that the banning of tobacco is just a matter of time. Restrictions are getting tighter, taxes higher, and public opinion more hostile to the industry. When countries do start to ban it my hope is that they don’t make the same mistake we did when slavery was abolished. When that happened the slave traders were compensated for their loss of property, not the slaves for their loss of wages, not to mention their loss of liberty and the untold suffering they were subjected too. And in some cases, such as Haiti, the freed slaves were forced to pay the compensation to their former owners.
References
- www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco – WHO tobacco fact sheet.
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2636463/#sec1 – Tobacco addictive. https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#:~:text=Smoking%20is%20a%20risk%20factor,4 – Tobacco killed 100 million in 20th century. www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(21)00128-6/fulltext – Passive smoke 50,000 children.
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2636463/#sec1 – Tobacco addictive. https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#:~:text=Smoking%20is%20a%20risk%20factor,4 – Tobacco killed 100 million in 20th century.
- https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/alcohol – Alcohol death toll 2019.