Disapproval as the default

A guilty nicotine user reaches a reluctant conclusion

Imogen West-Knights has been writing for the Guardian about her experience of using nicotine pouches. She is the newspaper’s unofficial nicotine correspondent. Her previous articles include ‘My vaping addiction came out of nowhere – and I’m finding it impossible to quit’ and ‘So Britain’s young people are taking up pipes and cigars? This was a trend I had to investigate’.

Imogen enjoys vaping and used vapes as a way to successfully quit smoking, but as a Guardian journalist her articles about nicotine have to be bathed in guilt and self-loathing. In her latest dispatch - headlined ‘I (regrettably) tried a nicotine pouch. It made me question what I think about addiction’ - she finds herself on a long train journey and succumbs to the temptation of buying some nicotine pouches. She tried one, didn’t like it, and threw them all away.

Each to their own. And it is towards the philosophy of ‘each to their own’ that she finds herself heading as she thinks this through.

Now, I’m not advocating that anyone takes up nicotine pouches, or any nicotine product if you’re not already into one. But there is a moral quandary here. Is it OK that people are dependent on nicotine, if nicotine is not in and of itself bad for you? If all it does is generate the desire for more of an essentially harmless substance? And nicotine pouches especially, as a means of ingesting nicotine that never results in antisocial puffs of flavoured smoke in other people’s faces in public, as vapes sometimes do: are they fine? Is it bad for adults to have access to a mind-warpingly addictive substance that, yes, can be hard on the inside of your mouth, but otherwise has no health consequences?

In other words, is it OK for people to do things that they enjoy and which have no impact on other people? In any vaguely liberal society, the answer must obviously be ‘yes’.

Because of that “mind-warpingly addictive” element, instinctively I want to say no – it’s not fine. One should not be addicted to things. It feels like an instance of big bad capitalism that there are products on the market whose sole function is to create a want for more of the product. And reliance on anything, chemical or otherwise, is worse than total spiritual freedom.

But is a nicotine habit substantially different from a caffeine one, for instance? We’re not, most of us, wringing our hands about the legality of coffee. Am I dependent on sugar? Certainly. If people want to use these pouches, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to do them any appreciable damage.

If it isn’t doing any harm, is it even an addiction, let alone a problematic addiction? Definitions vary, but addiction has been defined as…

A mental disposition towards repeated episodes of abnormally high levels of motivation to engage in a behaviour, acquired as a result of engaging in the behaviour, where the behaviour results in risk or occurrence of serious net harm.

Such a definition has the virtue of exempting season ticket holders and other enthusiasts, but even if you believe in the concept of non-harmful addiction, the case for viewing such activities as matters for the state is greatly weakened by the lack of harm. If there is harm, state intervention would be paternalistic - and that raises enough ethical questions as it is - but without harm, state intervention is almost certain to be harmful since it would prevent individuals from living their best life and enjoying the benefits of consumption (which are not trivial in the case of nicotine). As I wrote in a tribute to my own addiction earlier this year…

Getting a little tetchy when I can’t access nicotine is a small price to pay for the pleasure of using nicotine. In the absence of government intervention, there would rarely be a situation in which I couldn’t access nicotine, so I pin that small downside on the government. Unlike the government, nicotine has never taken away my freedom.

Having pondered this, Imogen reluctantly comes to much the same conclusion…

So it is, arguably, none of my business, and – again arguably – none of the government’s either.

And the truth shall set you free!

I feel uneasy with this conclusion. The reactionary in me particularly balks at the fact that these products are not yet illegal for under-18s to buy. But it stands to reason, albeit of an uncomfortable sort.

Yes, they should be illegal for under-18s, as I have said before. Few people would argue that paternalism is inappropriate in the case of children. But that doesn’t alter the basic conclusion.

But why be ‘uneasy’ and ‘uncomfortable’ with such a conclusion? Why do we start with the assumption that social disapproval and government intervention is the default and then argue our way out of it? In a mentally healthier society, we would start from the assumption that other people’s behaviour is none of our business and reluctantly come to the conclusion that some form of tax or regulation is appropriate if it can be shown that there is direct and unavoidable harm to others.

I am glad that Imogen reached a liberal conclusion, but concerned that it took some hard thinking to get there. I would prefer it if personal freedom were the default and the paternalists were the ones who had to do the work.