I actually think that e-cigs are generally great and would allow someone to vape in my house. The technology is great for marijuana too. I’ve tried it a handful of times and it’s way easier on the lungs.
This right here is a good reason why - there’s a certain set of vapers who insist that vaping is magical and you have no right to be bothered by it. Most vapor does, in fact, smell, and the only research showing that vape exhaust is non-toxic has been done by the vape industry itself. But this set of people will insist that you are not allowed to be bothered by vape and will insist that it’s completely safe if you say you don’t like it. There’s a whole mythology that paints vaping as practically more healthy than not using nicotine at all, and it gets really old really fast.
This is more of what I’m talking about. E cig vapor does contain nicotine, otherwise it would be useless as a delivery system. Some studies funded by the vape industry showing ‘insignificant’ levels of nicotine, but that’s not the same as none, and the studies that I’ve seen make some hilariously unrealistic assumptions (like every vaper breathing in all of the cloud, holding it for 20 seconds, then exhaling it). The mouth and lungs are not instantly 100% effective at removing nicotine from a cloud of gas, and cloud chasers release vapor that hasn’t even touched their lungs, so it’s pretty obvious even without a study that all vapor released into the air is not 100% nicotine free.
I was at a wedding reception recently. There were signs directing smokers to an area that had been set aside for smoking. I overheard someone mention about the smoking area to a guy who was vaping. The guy replied, oh, I’m not smoking. The first guy looked a bit pissed.
We need to clear up the definitions a bit.
Vaping is certainly a whole lot less unpleasant than smoking.
But… what annoys me about a lot of vapers that I’ve run across boils down to a handful of things:
-
I can’t shake the feeling that they’re trying to skirt all the no-smoking laws and regulations by switching to e-cigarettes. I don’t want to breathe secondhand smoke OR vapor, and switching to e-cigs often seems to me like an attempt to get around having to do the onerous things that smokers have to, like going outside, etc…
-
It seems terribly pretentious and douchey. I think if your average vaper was using a small, unobtrusive e-cigarette that didn’t cause them to emit clouds of vapor or smell the place up, there wouldn’t be too much hate. But a lot of the ones I see are using something that looks like a 3-way between a clarinet, a lightsaber and a 19th century scientific instrument, and there are noticeably visible vapors coming out of them, as well as a recognizeable, noticeable odor. And there’s always some guy trying desperately to look cool while doing so, and that’s just kind of irritating.
-
There’s a sort of arrogance about some vapers- they seem to be more defensive about their habit than smokers are; maybe society has just beat smokers down more? But like **Pantastic **says, there’s a lot of vapers who have a very arrogant attitude about it- like “it’s not illegal, so fuck off.”
So when taken in combination- you have someone looking and acting douchey, who’s being perceived as trying to get around regulations that most people agree with, and then they’re assholes about it, it’s easy to hate on vapers.
I have read thousands of pages of research on this subject over the years.
Independent research tends to show toxic chemicals from vaping to be just about indistinguishable from normal background – like amounts of nicotine similar to those a person would ingest by eating a couple slices of tomato. Mucous membranes absorb nicotine very quickly, so little is actually blown out by a vaper.
The studies that tend to show all sorts of toxins are nearly always sponsored and funded by anti-tobacco activists like the California university system and the WHO (not the band). Their methods tend to be strongly criticized by independent researchers – things like testing using unrealistic, humanly un-vapable temperatures (many current generation ecigs use temperature control), using unspecified eliquid from unspecified sources, etc. – one of them was so outrageously flawed it found metal pellets in the vapor.
For example, PG (propylene glycol) is one the worrisome chemicals often mentioned in anti-ecig literature. It has been used for a long time in many products; it is in your shampoo, your hand lotion, all kinds of things in your bathroom. They say “but that doesn’t mean it’s safe to inhale”. PG is the main ingredient in most inhaled medicines for asthma and other breathing difficulties – and it has been being vaporized and pumped into hospital ventilation systems since the 1950s for its antibiotic properties. They say “PG is anti-freeze”, and indeed PG is used in certain types of anti-freeze – those where it is important that the product be non-toxic, such as airplane de-icing and marine engines.
A bit more about big tobacco: One of the dirty tricks big tobacco is pushing for in the upcoming FDA regulations is to have only “first generation” ecigs permitted to be sold – like the brands they bought a couple of years ago. The new generation is a whole different ball game. Big tobacco wants to stop innovation in ecig technology so they can continue to sell their outdated products.
And yes, cloud chasers are a problem.
Why?
In order to learn about the subject and not be ignorant. Why else read scientific studies?
Why such a douchy post?
Reading thousands of pages of research on this one topic goes beyond just having an interest in the subject, it seems to me. Do you have a professional interest in this matter?
I like vaping if only because it means my parents will get some higher quality older years without being hooked to an oxygen tank. I much prefer visiting them on a sunny retirement beach rather than visiting their tombstone or ICU.
I think he needs a smoke.
If the problem is that vapers are vaping in places where smoking is not allowed, than I agree, those people are assholes that should take their vaping outside. I don’t vape anywhere in public that I didn’t use to smoke.
I do vape in my house and car where I did not use to smoke, but that is because the vapor does not stick around and make everything reek of tobacco like cigs do.
There is confirmational bias. I have seen several times in this and similar threads “every time I see a vaper…” well that is because every time you see a vaper, it is because they are drawing attention to themselves. You would never notice me. I only vape in places where it would be appropriate to smoke. My “device” is a bit bigger than a cigarette, as cig sized ones die pretty quickly both on battery and on liquid, but I don’t have a giant battery or whatevers that is being complained about. I don’t spew clouds of smoke.
In alot of ways, what is being complained about is kids (people under 30 to me), being disrespectful, which I can agree with. What I don’t agree with, is because they are disrespectful with an item, that that means that that item is forbidden to me.
I started reading about the subject because I was a heavy smoker and public places started banning smoking. I wanted to see if ecigs were safe and whether they were a viable way to be more comfortable in places I couldn’t smoke. (Turned out I ended up outside with the smokers anyway, due to the finger-wagging busy-bodies – there were no cloud chasers in those days, only small puffs that looked like smoke – no problem … I try not to fight battles I can’t win.)
During my research I figured it would be a good business to get in to. I made contacts in China, set up a website, business plan, hired a salesman, etc., and ordered several thousand dollars worth of ecig equipment. The day my order shipped the FDA went outside their authority and passed a rule banning ecigs as “unauthorized medical devices”. My packaging and branding specifically stated that this was not a medical device and was not FDA approved as a stop-smoking device, however, my entire shipment was seized and eventually destroyed by Customs. The legal expenses and aggravation was more than I wanted to deal with at my age, so I just declared myself officially retired … another billion dollar idea down the poop chute.
I still follow the industry to a degree, the research in particular, just because. I am retired and have the time, I read fast, I enjoy learning, etc. It’s what I do – when I am interested in something, I read thousands of page on the subject – I call it my mini-PhD program.
This subject is particularly interesting not just for itself, but for the examples of how the public is lead astray by the media and the agenda driven organizations. For example, take a look at the study linked in a previous post: All E-Cigarettes Emit Harmful Chemicals, but Some Emit More Than Others
Note that is funded by the University of California, an aggressive anti-tobacco organization. They, and most other anti-tobacco organizations, get their funding from the hundreds of billions of dollars available from the government settlement with the tobacco companies. Years ago, when the smokers got down to around 20% and further reductions seemed unlikely the leaders of the tobacco control organizations moved on to other causes, leaving behind only those unscrupulous types who knew how to write government grant requests and who were willing to stoop to total dishonesty to run their operations.
Now take a look at: E-cigarettes around 95% less harmful than tobacco estimates landmark review
This by an organization dedicated to improving public health, with no other agenda.
Enough?
This.
I guess what bothers me (aside from the previously mentioned scents and vast clouds of vapor) is that e-cigs don’t seem to be being used to get people to quit smoking AND wean them off nicotine – it’s being used to establish a brand new vice industry based on a new mechanism for delivering a famously addictive substance to people.
That’s probably true; the ones I know who treat it just like a less deadly cigarette are fine by me; it’s the ones who have the attitude that it’s “not smoking” and therefore we should have to put up with it, who get me annoyed. The addiction component doesn’t bother me too badly- I’m not sanctimonious about that.
That’s a moral judgement, not a scientific one. The dangers of nicotine have been grossly exaggerated for a long time.
Weasel words like “Just about” says it all really. Secondhand Exposure to Vapors From Electronic Cigarettes - PMC found second-hand nicotine at about 10% the concentration of cigarette smoke. While safer, that’s not ‘indistinguishable from normal background’, which itself is not the same as ‘none’. The fact that there is a very vocal contingent of vapers who insist that secondhand vape is just as safe as water vapor in spite of studies and basic reason to the contrary contributes a LOT to the ‘vape-hate’. It immediately brings to mind tobacco companies and their decades-long dismissal of second-hand smoke dangers, which gets ecigs tarred (no pun intended) wit the same brush of distrust that big tobacco rightfully earned.
I’m not sure why there is such a strong movement in the vape community to present their habit as harmless (rather than just ‘safer than cigarettes’), but it really doesn’t help stop the vape-hate.
As opposed to someone who’s still pissed off because he lost out on a “billion dollar idea”? 
I’m not sure how such funding would invalidate the study, but you are wrong. From the link previously provided:
“The research was funded by the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP), which is managed by the University of California and funded by state cigarette taxes.”
An excellent use of tobacco tax money in my opinion.
The “agenda” here is advancing public health. Ooo, evil. :eek:
Oh, and the FDA has not “banned” e-cigs.
Having a low lethal dose is such a nonsense argument anyway. The theraputic dose of nicotine is much lower than the lethal dose. It’s arguably easier to kill yourself with water intoxication. And certainly no easier than with caffeine, which people kill themselves with at a non-zero rate.
When I was a cigarette smoker, I would make great pains to remove myself from the presence of non-smokers before I lit up. Oft times, someone would come wandering (deliberately)in my direction, then start coughing and complaining about my smoking.
Many of these people have moved to “vape-hate.” I agree with the annoyance with people who vape in places where you shouldn’t smoke, but this animosity extends well beyond that.