It's quite reminiscent of how long it took people to associate smoking with emphysema and lung disease. In hindsight it seems so obvious! But building evidence for even obvious conclusions can be surprisingly hard.
> It's quite reminiscent of how long it took people to associate smoking with emphysema and lung disease.
It was obvious even back then.
The difference was that the crap you breathed in from air pollution as well as the garbage you were breathing in from working the mills and mines was likely to kill you before the bad effects of smoking kicked in.
Once we had the EPA and got rid of the other garbage, suddenly smoking actually mattered to your mortality.
> 2. It isn't chemically addictive or habit-forming for most people.
I've never understood why people claim it's not addictive when there are well established symptoms experienced when withdrawing. Disruption in sleep quality, vivid dreams, insomnia, etc.
I was a nightly smoker for a long time (only after 8pm, never during the day) -- it took extraordinary effort and multiple attempts to quit. Perhaps there isn't a specific biological addiction that can be defined precisely, but it's definitely addictive nonetheless.
If you were a nightly smoker you were already addicted. Most cannabis users don't use it daily. In that way it's like alcohol. This is in contrast to tobacco users, who use it like caffeine.
