but if you could lay out an easily understood framework for how to assess the impact of smoking a single cigarette vs a single joint, I would be impressed.

Yeah..... Because you've framed a request for something that cannot be assessed accurately within those conditions. That doesn't mean we can't reasonably presume with the data we have that smoking cigs is much more harmful than cannabis.

Just the addictive nature of nicotine and it's effects on the circulatory systems alone makes it much more hazardous than cannabis.

All I'm saying is that Tolkien wrote the books with tobacco in mind, which was way more popular during his time, and we don't need to pretend that they were smoking cannabis instead as some sort of some great societal PSA against the dangers of tobacco.

Has nothing to do with my rebuttal.

If we want to get really nitpicky, you don't even inhale pipe tobacco smoke, whereas you'd never do the same with cannabis or you'd miss out on the effects. Obviously there's a risk factor for mouth, nose, and throat cancer

Again, putting aside the dangers to the lungs. Tobacco itself is a much more dangerous than cannabis. Even without combustion tabacco is potent carcinogenic, which is not the case with cannabis.

If you want to nitpick there are safe ways to avoid any of the potentially systemically harmful properties associated with cannabis, like extracting the THC into an edible. This isn't possible for tobacco as the material itself is a carcinogenic, and the drug you would extract from the plant itself is just as damaging to the body as the cancer.

western societies agree that adults should be informed of risks and allowed to make their own mistakes.

I haven't made any comments about people's right to imbide in dangerous activities, that an entirely different debate. What I agree with in this statement, and what is relevant to are current dispute is being properly informed.

Which includes confronting people who are trying to downplay the harm of tobacco by equating with a less harmful drug. Even though you attempted to say they aren't exactly as harmful, the rest of your response was an attempt to muddy the facts. Which is that tobacco bis just inherently much more dangerous than cannabis in just about every conceivable way.