Can Nicotine Gum Be Used to Help Drug Addiction?

Question by Amber: Can nicotine gum be used to help drug addiction?
Just curious as to whether you could use nicotine gum to help drug addiction. I think it could keep your mind off craving drugs and help with withdrawal symptoms maybe? By drugs I mean illegal addictive drugs like ice, etc.

Best answer:

Answer by ZaneyJ
Well if ice was nicotine then yes, but since crack and nicotine are nowhere near the same thing, I highly doubt it.

Answer by Barney Blake
As an ex-smoker, I used Nicotine Lozenges to help me to quit smoking. I haven’t smoked in 4 and a half months. It was my second time quitting smoking, I had quit 4 years ago using the Nicotine Gum, didn’t smoke for 2 years, then started again. I’m hoping this time around to have the willpower to make it permanent.
As for your question, I wouldn’t think that Nicotine would be a good substitute for any sort of drug addiction. Let’s say heroin, for example. Heroin attaches to certain receptors in the brain that make the person feel a certain way, and cause the person to remain addicted. Nicotine attaches to different brain receptors, and, although it does cause addiction, it is in different way because it is attached to different brain receptors. And, Nicotine causes the heartbeat and blood pressure to increase, and a variety of other biological responses, where as heroin causes the heart beat, blood pressure, and respirations to slow down, as well as other biological responses. Cocaine, meth, crack, acid, shrooms, pot all affect the brain in different ways than nicotine would.
So, in other words, while Nicotine might make a person psychologically believe that they might be being helped through the withdrawl, in reality, it isn’t doing anything for them.
Admittance to a hospital detox unit, using Librium and other detox meds, might be a wiser idea.