Nicotine by itself doesn’t seem categorically different than caffeine (coffee, tea, yerba mate, guarana, ...) or other stimulants (khat, coca leaves, ginseng, cinnamon, ...). Yes these are generally addictive, but not necessarily life ruining. Dosage, frequency of use, etc. matters a lot.
Frequent long-term use of any stimulant is probably not great for you; e.g. my mother has a pretty severe coffee addiction (she typically drinks 4–8 cups per day), and gets headaches and shakes if she goes a couple days without. But compared to other kinds of drugs, it doesn’t seem like such a huge public health threat that we should freak out about it.
