It’s coool, just like smoking was when I was a kid. But for fuck’s sake, adults, if you’re looking for a nicotine alternative, use the gum or the patch.
There’s also this: (warning: satire)
FDA Investigating Link Between Vaping, Looking Like A Total Cheese Bag
If it is vaping that lets you quit smoking, then go for it.
One death, vs 500000.
Yes, it does.
What it does not do is eliminate usage.
You get less overall usage (some people are deterred by the illegality, others by difficulty of obtaining the drug and/or expense prior to becoming addicted) but the usage that remains is more damaging.
I’m not terribly schooled on the issue but, anecdotally, every damn kid I know vapes and they all think it’s safe. According to FDA, overall tobacco use has increased among teens significantly:
Chronic lung problems years down the road? No, not me. And I can quit anytime I want.
If this truly is a situation where vaping is the Big Solution for smoking cessation (and the jury is still out on that), then the vaping companies (including tobacco giants who’ve gotten into the market in a major way) should have no problem limiting access to prescription only.
Does anyone think there is more than a lottery winner’s chance at winning of vaping being more dangerous than smoking?
Fundamentally, vape smoke is primarily 2 much less harmful (than cigarette smoke) ingredients. Most of these possibly toxic compounds are in relative small amounts, compared to a lungful of burning paper and tar.
Even chewing tobacco turns out to have half the death rate from smoking.
I would assume the limiting case - the worst case, the perfect storm of unexpected health consequences - would put the risk of vaping at somewhere less than that of chewing tobacco. At least half the risk of smoking, probably more like 5-10% like a hundred credible papers on the subject tend to estimate.
Sure, but I have heard that many more adults are quitting using vaping.
The comparison for the many many kids who are now vaping is not between all of them smoking or vaping. It is between a very small and up until the vaping explosion long term decreasing number of kids and young adults being smokers (with that small number at long term high health risk), and the same or it seems MORE becoming smokers as a consequence of vaping and also a new overwhelming majority, perhaps even a true order of magnitude more being exposed to the more moderate but still very real health risk harms of vaping itself as well.
In that comparison vaping is a huge net harm.
The argument that vaping can help successful cigarette smoking cessation better than gum or patches is reasonable, but if vaping is then to be an ongoing habit, not quit itself later, then its longterm risks compared to those methods need to be better understood, and flavors and overall marketing that appeal to children cannot be allowed. Serious efforts to prevent this new explosion of addiction in children and young adults shuld be made.
Yes, if that is true. But what we need is to find the facts- is vaping getting more kids hooked (who then start tobacco) or is it letting more smokers quit?
However, i certainly agree that studies and programs designed to stop kids from vaping should be pursued.
I am not sure about laws designed to ban vaping, however. Lets ban cigarettes first.
At least, that’s the theory…
The recent outbreak of lung injuries connected to vaping is extremely troubling. It might connected to a particular device, a particular batch of juice, to a particular company, or even to particular “home brew” recipes for vape-juice. More investigation is called for.
Still, remember, smoking kills five hundred thousand (500,000) Americans a year, fifty thousand of them by second hand smoke.
There would have to be vapers keeling over in droves to beat that.
and there’s no such thing as *death by second hand vape.
*
The counter is that we don’t want to make vaping to be appealing to non-smokers, as while vaping is safer then smoking, neither is safer then vaping. What we want to do it create a Maxwells Demon, were only smokers will be given easy access to vaping but make it hard for non-smokers to take up vaping (and smoking). One answer seems obvious, make vaping as hard as smoking, thus the smoker is already used to the restrictions so no hinderance in itself, but does raise some barriers to entry for the non-vapor.
It is just about harder to vape as it is to smoke. Back a few years ago, I used to vape at work, but it was just me, my sister (who vaped), and my friend who smoked. Vaping indoors wasn’t something that bothered anyone. Now that I have employees, though, vaping is outdoors only, just like smoking.
I don’t know how hard it is for a minor to get vaping material, but when I was a minor, it’s not like it was hard to get cigarettes. I’m all for restricting underage sales and use, but, as I’m one of those people whose life may have been saved by vaping, I have a hard time advocating to make it harder to switch.
People still take up smoking every day. Why? I dunno. My reason is that I was already addicted living with two chain smoking parents, and so I would actually go through withdrawal whenever I was out or at school until I secured my own supply. As long as people are taking up nicotine, I prefer that they take it up as vaping, for both their health and that of those around them.
My theory is people crank them up too much. I recently had to get a new vape because I couldn’t find batteries for my old one anymore. You can turn the wattage up so high I can’t hit it. At my normal setting, when I exhale, it looks like exhaling on a cold day. Not like the pic in this article.
It depends on your mix. More VG will make more smoke, in general. I generally prefer a higher VG percentage as it is less harsh on the throat, but I am aware that it makes for more vapor, and take that into account when I use it.
Hopefully we will learn more about these deaths and illnesses, but I suspect that it will be from some sort of adulterant in the mix, whether it be intentional or through negligence. This would mean that this news doesn’t make vaping any less inherently safe than reports of e coli outbreaks makes kale any less safe.
Still, know where your supply comes from. Vaping is still a new and unregulated industry.
Hang on. Let’s take the limit of your statement.
Let’s say vaping is 10% as harmful as smoking. (many estimates are on the order of 5%)
Let’s say 100% of Americans start vaping. So this would be the same thing as a U.S. population of 10% smokers…15% of Americans are smokers.
So this would be a net reduction in harm. (50% less death and illness from “smoking”)
Let’s say vape smoke turns out to have some toxic ingredient that causes long term damage and eventual death. Unlike cigarettes, because combustion isn’t involved, a vape juice maker has far more control into what goes into the product. Only 2 ingredients - the glycol forming the smoke and the nicotine - are essential. So as long as those 2 specific ingredients are not found to be super harmful, it would be possible to reformulate the product to avoid causing harm, if necessary. (licensed manufacturers who document what goes into the product and use pharmaceutical style process controls is an important step forwards)
I don’t see a rational claim here that vaping is causing a net harm to public health. You’re going to need more support than vague claims that the stuff might be too harmful or the fact that kids are doing it.
If you use a small discrete vape like a Juul, you can basically do it anywhere, as long as you keep the vapor sucked into your lungs and don’t exhale big clouds of it. Nobody will know or care.
I’m the owner, so I like to set a good example for my employees.
While I don’t think that second hand vape has any potential for harm, it is not my place to expose people to it, or allow others to do so. I can’t have a no vape policy if I do it myself. That said, I am here by myself sometimes, and I will vape then, where I would never smoke.