Abstract
Opioid addiction has been cast as a “disease of despair.”1 I agree, but I wonder still: If tobacco and opioids were on a spectrum relative to the relief they provide from social, emotional, financial, and other sources of pain in the lives of the disenfranchised, could it be that they are indeed 2 sides of the same coin? For individuals in despair, pain relief is a complicit actor in what will become pleasure seeking and, for smokers, vice versa. Every year, almost as many people are dying by incidentally being near smokers as are dying by accidentally overdosing. Our opioid epidemic has been declared a national public health emergency, though the annual death toll from tobacco is 10 times greater. How should we reconcile this? As is extraordinarily represented in my interview with Dr Harry Lando and as is evident from the range of articles on tobacco control in this special issue, tobacco addiction research draws from every corner of psychology, sociology, philosophy, and other disciplines intent on understanding the human condition.
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