Having been a smoker for nearly 20 years before I switched to vaping about 5 years ago, I can certainly say that, as far as short term health effects go, at least, vaping is far, far, far healthier than smoking. I am much healthier in every way than I was 5 years ago, even though I am 5 years older.
I still use nicotine, and will probably do so until the day I die. I was hooked on the stuff probably in vitro. As a child, just leaving the smoke filled house and going to school caused me to go into detox, nicotine cravings as a kindergartener are lots of fun.
As soon as I was able to, I started smoking cigarettes myself. That helped my anxieties and stress immensely.
I’ve tried quitting. I’ve quit for months at a time, even going for well over a year without a cigarette. But every day, every hour, every minute, I still craved that nicotine. It was a constant stress in my life, requiring a constant state of tension, like having to urinate, and not being able to, being thirsty, and not having water, being hungry, and not having food. Something was missing from my body, and my body told me that with every waking moment. I’d wake up craving a cigarette. I’d drive to work with the same craving. I’d eat lunch, and my body would demand some sweet smoke before it would be happy digesting my food. After dinner was the worst, just sitting there, not smoking, and still not smoking.
So yeah, that was not sustainable, and when I had a serious crisis in my life, and I wasn’t able to deal with the crisis as well as the permanent state of anxiety my withdrawl put me in, I went right back to smoking.
Vaping is different. I still feel nicotine cravings, but they aren’t as intense. I don’t feel the need to smoke an entire cigarette every time I get a fix. If I’m home, I’ll just do a puff or two, and go back to what I was doing. If I’m at work, I’ll step outside to go get the mail or something, and take a couple of puffs then. When I smoked, I certainly didn’t want to waste the cigarette, so I burned the whole thing down, making me less productive in that I’d use 5 minutes on a cig break, rather than the 15 seconds I spend puffing a vape, as well as dumping more nicotine into my system than I really needed at that moment.
I still smoke a very occasional cigarette. If I am out with some of my friends who still smoke, once a month or less, I might bum one off of one of them, and I usually only smoke half of it, if that. When I was a smoker, I don’t know if I ever actually enjoyed cigarettes, so much as “enjoyed” not being in withdrawal. But the very occasional cigarette is actually pleasurable. Back when I was trying to quit, smoking a cigarette a month was not something that was possible, it would just reset my cravings and make it that much harder to stay away.
As far as location, sure, for the most part, I don’t vape where I can’t smoke. The exception would be in my or other’s homes who vape, but don’t smoke. After having my house smoke free for 5 years, I don’t let anyone smoke in it anymore, but I vape, and have no problem with others doing so.
What to do with teens who vape? I dunno, but I see it as more of an educational issue than an enforcement issue. It’s not like people weren’t smoking underage. I certainly was, as was most of my peer group. It was a bit annoying getting ahold of smokes, but it wan’t all that hard. In some ways, I see vapes as being harder to obtain for minors than cigarettes.
But sure, some kids are going to vape, just as they used to (and still do) smoke. I see it as a harm reduction, the jury may be out on some long term effects, but vaping is hands down so much healthier than smoking in the short and mid-term, and I think it will be likely that it will be so in the long term as well.
Can we show that there is a direct increase in underage tobacco use specifically due to vaping? I don’t think so, if nothing else, I don’t think that surveys are very accurate. I smoked for years in school, and several times a year, we were given surveys about our drug habits, and everyone I knew answered that we didn’t have any drug habits. Vaping is more socially acceptable than smoking was, and so can easily account for more people willing to admit it on an “anonymous” survey.
As far as banning flavors, I dunno about that. Not really a deal breaker for me. I will still vape the same. But I do like having flavors to pick from, and I’m not really seeing that it is the flavors themselves that is marketing vaping to kids, but the actual drug itself.
Kids today are under quite a bit of stress. Nicotine helps to relieve those feelings of stress. Unless we choose to medicate them with stimulants like adderall or ritalin, they may choose to self medicate, with stimulants like nicotine, for much the same reasons. It’s not the strawberry flavor that makes them want to take a hit, it is the unrealistic expectations of their family, school, peers and society. I didn’t smoke because Joe Camel was cool, I smoked because I wanted nicotine. “Adults” try to understand the motivations of “kids”, and get it completely wrong. Banning flavors won’t stop teens from vaping. Even flavorless vape juice tastes far better than the nasty, nasty burning tobacco my generation willingly sucked into our lungs.