Swedish outfit Nicoccino has moved into the world of poker sponsorship, but is that a good or a bad thing?
My father has smoked cigarettes for 50-years. They are slowly killing him. There will be no graveyard humour when he dies. The slow motion implosion has already taken care of that.
So when I learned that Joe Beevers, Sin Melin and Scott O’Reilly were being sponsored by a company that creates nicotine patches, I was initially furious. I have spouted often enough about the need for online poker companies to affiliate with healthier sponsors, but I didn’t think of the players.
Nicotine?
That can’t be a good idea.
Can it?
I am an avid listener to Bulletproof Radio.
It’s founder, Dave Asprey, is a fountain of knowledge, but there are times when he annoys me. One of his more caustic moments happened when he started to extoll the virtues of nicotine as a way of boosting his brain power.
Despite making it crystal clear that he wasn’t pushing the value of smoking cigarettes, he cited recent studies that showed that nicotine alone could improve brain power, and even used it himself.
This reasoning sent me to my pain cave because you walk a fine line when promoting this type of product. In one sense, it can be viewed as a great transitional product, if a soon to be cancer sufferer can manage to drop the sticks of death and instead consume a nicotine sheet.
On the other hand – and I feel the same way about vapes – it’s not inconceivable to imagine people moving towards cigarettes after an initial foray into the use of nicotine-only products.
I smoked cigarettes for eight years before quitting when my son was born. There were times when I was smoking between 20-40 per day. I read The Easyway to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr and quit instantly. In the next 14-years that have followed, I have never had a single craving, nor have I missed the supposed hit that nicotine provides.
Nicoccino is a Swedish company, and their product passes US pharmaceutical guidelines. The Formaldehyde, Arsenic, Acetone, Ammonia, Butane, Copper, Benzene, Hydrogen Cyanide and Carbon Monoxide are all gone. Instead, you get a hit of nicotine along with some seaweed and natural oils.
The product is a film that you place under your tongue, or around your gums, and it dissolves to give you a nicotine high supposedly the equivalent of smoking a single cigarette. You can purchase a pack of 10 for £4.99, 30 for £14.99, or 90 for £39.99. That means, back in my day, these things would be costing me close to £100 per week for a slight buzz measuring whatever on the Richter scale.
My mind is half open on this one.
I need to take one myself to feel the full effects of the supposed hit. I remember a few years ago at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) a similar product being rolled out called Sheets. I bought a pack, tried them out and thought they were…sheet.
But…
If it costs me £100 per week to prolong my father’s life, then I guess I will be Nicoccino’s biggest fan.
Nicoccino will be sponsoring Joe Beevers, Sin Melin and Scott O’Reilly, to play in the remaining Genting Poker Series (GPS) UK events, and other significant events such as the World Poker Tour (WPT).
Call me old fashioned but I think I will stick with fruit, vegetables, exercise and reading for my brain buzz.
