Her reaction during withdrawal was terrible yes, but what does that show? The fact is, she can't get through one day without a smoke. I don't know if I'd like to be in a state where if I was without my smokes, I'd go through hell ... how is that normal?

Being dependent and the resulting symbiotic relations fulfilling these needs is what life is about. You are dependent on thousands entities in your environment. Just consider how many technological connections you have with the external networks (forming our technologies & sciences). You don't notice them until your internet goes down, or you computer won't boot, or your power, water, phone... go out.

You start intertwining and forming dependencies with the surrounding networks the moment you are born, first by learning within first few minutes how to breathe air, which you didn't do or need until that point, then after some months, how to eat food and drink water, again the stuff you didn't need until then. All of that becomes part of you. Then you learn to read and write, which intertwines you with cultural and other social networks. You form friendships, business relations, family... All these are forms of mutual dependencies which make up your life. Take all of them out, and there is nothing left of "you".

Hence, the existence of "dependence" or "intertwining" is not a criterium by itself whether such dependence is good or bad for you. It is by their fruits, as it were, that you know them. Becoming dependent on air, veggies, water,... spouse, children, relatives, friends, employers,... are all generally good dependencies (even though in some instances they may turn out harmful).

Whether tobacco dependence is good or bad is determined by what it does to you, not by the fact that you are dependent on it (or that its existence is dependent on you finding it useful). All by itself, it is neither bad or good, but just another intertwining between your biochemical network and those around you that make up your life. The fact that you depend on it is by itself no more a bad thing than the fact that you are dependent on air or water or myriad other things. To evaluate it, you need to account pluses and minuses for each "partner" of the intertwining.

In the present-day antismoking zeitgeist, the instilled guilt and the witch doctor effect are certainly harmful to your health. The tobacco itself is an ancient and sacred medicinal plant. It is most certainly good for your health as not just tradition but all the hard science indicates (my earlier links in this thread point you to further info in support of this evaluation).

Therefore, the net evaluation of tobacco dependence may be positive or negative for different people, depending on how strong is each of these opposing effects in a given instance -- the antismoking indoctrination (harming you via the witch doctor effect: different people have different sensitivity to such influences) vs the numerous health benefits of the tobacco smoke proper (different people, depending on genetics & environmental factors may need it to different degrees, or not at all).

Of course, once you shake off the antismoking indoctrination and its "death curse" (by critically examining the fraudelant "science" used in its support), what is left is only the positive contribution of the sacred plant itself, which in the worst case you don't need at all for your health problems (e.g. rare as it may be, you might not have a health problem for which tobacco is medicinal) and the only real harm to you is to your pocketbook, while your health would be neither better nor worse.

There are drugs, such as various illegal and legal drugs, which do harm you biologically or impair your performance at work, while providing certain benefits (such as pleasure) in return.

But tobacco is not such a drug. Tobacco smoke improves many forms of performance, including mental, physical and sexual. Note that this is not the same thing as saying that "smokers perform better than non-smokers" in these areas. Namely, consider statement that "breathing tube improves your oxygen supplies". That doesn't mean that users of breathing tubes have better oxgen supplies than non-users. In fact, they will likely have worse oxygen supplies.

Or similarly, when you say that "aspirin reduces headaches" that doesn't mean that aspirin users have fewer headaches than aspirin non-users (they will likely have more headaches, that's why they use aspirin in the first place). Or, that "sunscreen protects skin against sunburns" does not mean that sunscreen users will have fewer sunburns than non-users (again, the opposite is likely true, since the sunscreen use itself is an indicator of a combination: skin sensitivity to sun and sun exposure, while non-use is an indicator of a combination: greater tolerance to sun and low or no sun exposure).

What the tobacco statement above does mean is that, for example, if you were to take 2000 smokers and randomly pick 1000 as the "quit group" , take their cigarettes away (and perhaps replace them with nicotine & antidepressant combo), then test the two groups over time, the "quit group" will perform worse in all those areas. Conversly, if you take 2000 non-smokers, and pick randomly 1000 as the "smoking group", teach them to smoke over some time, then after few months or years test the two groups, the smoking group will perform better in those same areas (that's why smoking was compulsory for students in the elite boys schools of British Empire, and why the armies throughout history have provided free or very inexpensive cigarettes, or tobacco in other forms, to their solders -- they simply do better all that they're supposed to do).

To compare someone giving up smoking, to having a tube pulled out on someone needing oxygen is the most is hardly worth even commenting on. We need oxygen and food to survive.

Survival is only the most extreme point in the spectrum of human needs. But it certanly is not the sole point of that spectrum as you imply above. There is nothing wrong with a "need" to be happy or free from pain or discomfort or depression.

The labeling of some needs as "addiction" is an emotional labeling (the emotion being a hate by the one doing the labeling) of certain ways of fulfilling those needs that you happen to disapprove of. It is not an objective or a scientific property of the need itself or of a method fulfilling it. Such labeling of needs is simply an indicator of how you feel about it, and not an objective property of the need itself or of its fulfiullment methods. The latter properties are objective and independent of how someone else feels abut them.

Also, mercury toxicity. There are some who get mercury out and get far worse, withdrawal and detox are not pleasant. Would you suggest that really it's cruel to take mercury out of them, they need it?

Mercury is another one of those double-edged dependencies, like various illegal drugs. Healthwise, I would say it is certainly harmful. You don't need to weasel-word statistcal associations (as done by antismoking "science") to prove how bad it is -- you just have test animals breathe mercury vapors, and not long after that they get ill and die without much ado. You do the same experiment with tobacco smoke, and the smoking animals live longer and healthier, and the more they smoke the better off they are (well beyond the equivalents of 3-5 packs a day).

But, mercury was also an integral part of medicine and dentistry for a long time, hence it does have a positive side. The balance against it is growing, though, since all its previous uses have found better and safer substitutes.

With tobacco smoke that is not the case. It is not unsafe in the first place (statistical associations notwithstanding), and the pharmaceutical substitutes are generally worse (e.g. compare a chain smoking schizophrenic refusing neuroleptics with another one, non-smoking and on neuroleptics -- the latter one will not only be turned into an overweight drooling idiot few years later, but will also have nearly double the rate of most cancers, including lung cancer, more heart attacks and strokes, while the former will be healthier and skinnier, but much less docile and "managable" by hospital staff, more combative and annoying, a crazy-man, but otherwise fine as far as things that matter to him go).

The cigarettes you smoke, I gather contain some benefits.

All cigarettes containing tobacco leaf in some form (even reconstituted) provide benefits. But the additive & pesticide laden junk cigarettes have downsides and it is a matter of what is the net balance of these positive and negative effects. This is no different than eating supermarket fruits, meats, milk, veggies... you do need and benefit from many of them, but pesticides or some additives may also be harmful to you. There is nothing special about figuring out similar balance of pluses and minuses with tobacco.

Having experimented at some point with just about every form and brand of tobacco out there, I have found that additive free, organic tobacco used in hand made filterless cigarettes, smoked through cigarette holders, is the most benevolent and beneficial form for my particular needs (work stress, focus, long work hours, frequent need for creative or quick solutions,...). Some of these needs have to do with offsetting the side-effects of mercury toxicity and will decrease as I detox (using DMSA & ALA). But many will remain, including weight control, higher metabolism, handling of work stress, creativity & mental stimulus, anti-inflammatory and general detox (glutathione), hormonal benefits (testosterone & DHEA upregulation, along with increased CoQ10),... and many others.

<img src="http://karlandkinggeorge.com/images/Big_Pharma.png"> <img src="http://www.daviddeen.com/artwork/witch_doctor.jpg">

While the fine-tuning of a tobacco and methods of smoking was helpful, the most noticable and striking health difference was due to breaking the spell of the antismoking "death curse".

<img src="http://members.iglou.com/perkins/newkpf/2002_07/1198.jpg"> <img src="http://www.thimbleberryjamlady.com/store/images/thimbleberries.jpg">

Lighting a handmade cigarette with the same kind of wholesome feeling (but even more so by virtue of the sacred traditions going back thousands of years) as taking a freshly picked apple or a wild berry, is a vastly different experience than a guilt ridden, hurried sucking of some supermarket junk stick at a building entrance.


You clearly feel they've helped you. I would like to know again, if you don't mind sharing, how many you smoke a day?

There is no prescribed number or counting in my case. How would I or anyone else know what is "The Right Number"? From a detached external perspective, only my cellular networks which are biochemically intertwined in a symbiotic relation with those of tobacco plant, "know" how much and when they need it, and they transmit the signals of such need (e.g. in the form of craving or unease) up the hierarchy of networks at which point the consciously controlled motoric systems engage into the action and reach for another cigarette. This is no different than how they transmit their signals to our consious level about their other needs, such as those for oxygen, water, particular nutrients, heat and cold, particular kinds of interactions and relations with other people,...

Smoking is a symbiotic relation between the two intelligent, self-guided biochemical networks at a lower level than what human senses can perceive directly and who know much better and need no "help" from me or doctors or human experts of any kind in determining how much, when or what they need. They are the experts and true masters of that biochemical realm, while we, humans, are ignorant amateurs there who have no business in making up some ad hoc rules such as "exactly 20 per day" or "0 per day" or some such. Of course, my higher level facilities, the human level mind stuff, depend vitally on the well being and stability of the lower level biochemical networks which are the existential substratum for these higher level facilities. Hence it is in "my" best interest to be attuned to their "signals" (such as cravings of various kinds), to trust them and to perform actions which need to be done at the higher levels to maintain the lower levels as harmoneous and stable as possible.

I simply make them few at a time, then make more when they run out. The actual rate varies greatly depending on what I am doing. I have watched 3-4 hour movies without a need to smoke. But in stressful moments (e.g. our network servers crash, customers calling mad, and I need to get it all up and running as quickly as possible), I will light the next one before the previous one is out. Loking at a longer average from tobacco quantities purchased (1 cigarette uses just under 1 gram of tobacco), it comes to about 20-30 per day.

And sorry to ask again, I'd need to re-read the posts, but what kind do you smoke?

Check the posts above.