Edit: note, I haven’t smoked myself, so this is second hand info
Like seriously
Short term it
calms you
let’s you focus
feels good
can be used fairly consistently while leaving you capable to do work
is minimally intensive to use, just requiring cigarettes and a lighter/match/fire of some sort
Compare that to alcohol or drugs and such. The only thing comparable is tea/coffee.
Long term it
gets you seriously addicted
Gives you over a dozen different cancers and other diseases
massacres your lungs
And so on, not to mention what it does to underage smokers.
And I get why it happens medically, and I’m not denying it [obviously]. But it’s almost on par with those random creeks filled with brain eating amoebas. Like, if there is a god, why did they decide to design earth like that?
We can probably do this exercise with most drugs/psychoactives. No matter what you use, our bodies are designed to find homeostasis, so we will always get used to whatever we use regularly. Although we can use almost all of these things for a little while without doing too much (permanent) damage, it is always better to try and find a way to live without them. Unless prescribed by a good doctor to treat a condition that is worse than the side effects, of course.
There is no amount of many drugs that is healthy, safe, or acceptable.
Cigarettes, meth, heroin, benzos, cocaine, and even heavy liqour among many other drugs, have immediate deleterious effects on the mind and body that can cause issues that persist for months if not permanently.
That’s also not taking into consideration that the body’s homeostasis is not static, which is the entire mechanism through which addiction functions.