Reflective fisherman, his cigarette and nicotine

I paddleboarded an ebbing tide out the canal in Lewes on a warm August morning. Halfway out Roosevelt Inlet, a fisherman on the rocks of the jetty near the yacht club caught my eye. He held a fishing pole in one hand, had a cap on his head, and smoked a cigarette with his other hand. He calmly looked northward, out across Delaware Bay. That image fixed in my brain and made me think. “That man is enjoying the morning and enjoying his cigarette. What’s in that cigarette that makes him feel good?”

A couple of weeks later I noticed an ad in the Gazette announcing mini-grants available from the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program of the Division of Public Health. And then in conversation my friend Jennifer said she read something about nicotine - always associated with tobacco - being called the normalcy drug. “It can make you feel relaxed when you’re jittery; give you a lift when you’re feeling sluggish.” So what’s that all about?

I put a call in to some folks at the Division of Public Health and did some research online. One article in a magazine called Discover presented findings from a number of studies related to nicotine and tobacco. It’s a wide-ranging article, but my sense from reading is that scientists are taking a close look at possible therapeutic uses of nicotine - particularly related to Parkinson’s disease - because of its relationship with the neurotransmitting substance known as dopamine. In a nutshell and only from this layman’s assessment, nicotine can help people with their focus and short-term memory and help them from being easily distracted. It can increase the amount of dopamine that crosses between nerves, and in so doing help with uncontrollable movements. “In short,” says the article, “the drug seems to work by helping users shut out irrelevant stimuli so that important information can come to the fore.”

As far as addiction goes, at least one of the studies quoted notes that it’s nicotine in association with many other substances in tobacco that can make tobacco so addictive. Another article on line said taking nicotine and the other tobacco substances into the lungs via smoking is one of the most efficient ways of getting that drug into the system and realizing the effect from the release of dopamine, which can make a person feel good. That of course is where the danger comes in, because all of those other substances taken into the body via the smoke in the lungs has lots of deadly effects, not the least of which is lung cancer.

So, I don’t smoke. But I am easily distracted in this age of over-electronic media stimulation and find myself forgetting stuff. I chalk a lot of it up to the calendar as I make my way through my 66th year and I wonder: “If I chewed some Nicorette gum or put on a mild nicotine patch, would I get the benefits of greater focus and less distraction without risking the addiction that comes with smoking?

“And how about vaping? Could that deliver the potential nicotine benefit without the downsides of tobacco?” I posed that question to Emily Knearl, a spokesperson for the Delaware Division of Public Health who is also involved in the tobacco cessation program. “Nicotine is fundamentally addictive,” she said, “and people do it to get a feeling.”

I asked her whether she felt that nicotine might be beneficial for me to deal with lack of focus and distractedness if I could get it without using tobacco.

She wrote a polite answer:

“I can confirm that DPH would never recommend smoking nor the use of nicotine. ... There is no question that cigarettes and other tobacco products are addictive and that people seek them out because of how such products make them feel. They are also very harmful.”

She also noted one of the most disturbing trends identified in a recent survey related to cancer:

“Up to 40 percent of Delaware teens admit to trying electronic cigarettes.” And she provided other information from the nation’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Nicotine is a naturally occurring toxic chemical found in tobacco plants. It has a fishy odor when warm. Cigarettes, cigars, other tobacco products and tobacco smoke contain nicotine. ... At one time, nicotine was used in the United States as an insecticide and fumigant; however, it is no longer produced or used in this country for this purpose. Nicotine affects the nervous system and the heart. Exposure to relatively small amounts can rapidly be fatal.”

Stern warning that. Not to be taken lightly.  Still, it will be interesting to see what the next several years bring us as more studies test the potential benefits of nicotine, isolated away from tobacco and in carefully controlled doses.