It's the Brian Lear Show on WNYC.

I'm Matt Katz.

I used to be a reporter here at WNYC, and today I'm sitting in for Brian.

Smoking cigarettes will eventually kill you. We've known

this for years. It's settled, but these days cigarette use, because of that, is at an 80-year

low, but for vapes, e-cigarettes, and nicotine pouches, health risks are a lot muddier. And

boosters of these products tout all kinds of potential benefits and say they're a lot better

for you than cigarettes.

At the heart of all of this is nicotine, the famously addictive chemical, but just how harmful

is it?

Answering that question is sort of difficult, so joining us to explain why is Nicholas

Florco, a staff writer at the Atlantic

who covers how business and policy affect our well-being. His new article in the Atlantic is

headlined, What's So Bad About Nicotine? Hi, Nicholas. Welcome to WNYC. Hi, thanks for having me.

Okay, let's start by saying when I mentioned at the top that the science

is very settled on cigarettes. Eventually they'll kill you, but you're right, smoking is so deadly,

not because of nicotine per se, but because of tobacco. Can you just walk us through the distinction

there in the science? Yeah, absolutely. So nicotine is really what people are seeking when they

smoke a cigarette or they hit a vape. It's the chemical that gives you that buzz from the product,

but there's a lot of misconceptions about the risks in and of itself. So even among doctors,

we see surveys showing that they believe nicotine causes the most troubling harms of smoking,

so things like cancer. But that's actually not true.

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