Re: Social Drinking??
Peace Hasmat Usmani
The categorisation of makrooh was established before there was enough data on the harms of tobacco products.
It most certainly is harmful, addictive and affects society such as passive smoking and bad smells. There is no reason why it should not be haram with the knowledge we have today. Imam bin Baaz also wrote a fatwa declaring smoking as haram.
Pure nicotine is lethal. It is higher in toxicity than cocaine. Nicotine poisoning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The LD50 of nicotine is 50 mg/kg for rats and 3 mg/kg for mice. 0.5-1.0 mg/kg can be a lethal dosage for adult humans.Nicotine therefore has a high toxicity in comparison to many other alkaloids such as cocaine, which in mice has an LD50 of 95.1 mg/kg. It is impossible however to overdose on nicotine through smoking alone (though a person can overdose on nicotine through a combination of nicotine patches, nicotine gum, and/or tobacco smoking at the same time.) Spilling an extremely high concentration of nicotine onto the skin can result in intoxication or even death since nicotine readily passes into the bloodstream from dermal contact.