What? The average person definitely understands that heroin has more severe withdrawal symptoms than cigarettes. Wtf are you talking about?

Saying substance X is more addictive than substance Y is a fully different statement than substance X has more severe withdrawal symptoms than substance Y.

Alcohol has such severe withdrawal symptoms that it can easily kill people who are severely addicted to alcohol. But alcohol is not nearly as addictive as many other things to the point where far less people ever experience that type of withdrawal from alcohol.

Cigarettes are more addictive than heroin, heroin is more addictive than alcohol. In making that type of statement, no one is ever saying that being a smoker is more consequential than being a heroin addict. People dont often turn to theft or prostituting themselves or lose a job over smoking a cigarette… literally everyone understands that