Nicotine is a deeply emotional issue for most people, mainly because many of us know someone who’s died from cigarettes. This leads to very tight associations between nicotine and cigarettes.
The only problem is that it wasn’t necessarily the nicotine that killed the smoker. It’s really the tobacco leaf that has the carcinogens in it, which is very unhealthy when you breathe it. They’re two separate substances, and they have very different behaviors and effects on the human body.
John Coogan, founder of the controversial nicotine brand, Lucy, thinks that when nicotine products are formulated correctly, they can potentially have very, very low cost to the user’s health.