>The 2017 Monitoring the Future survey on adolescent drug use found that 11 percent of 12th graders, 8.5 percent of 10th graders and 3.5 percent of 8th graders had vaped nicotine in the previous 30 days. Of those high school seniors, 24 percent reported vaping daily, which the study defined as vaping on 20 or more occasions in the previous 30 days
I'm sorry, but is <10% of high schoolers an "explosion"? Obviously e-cigarettes are more appealing than tobacco products, but regular cigarette use was 15.8% in 2011 [1]. Marijuana use is at close to 6%, so not that big a gap from the apparent "explosion" of kids vaping.
Yes. That means that in a school of of 360 kids (30 students * 3 classes * 4 grades), ~36 of them are now nicotine users through vaping. You may as well dedicate an entire classroom to holding detention.
The US was slowly reducing the number of middle schoolers who smoke cigarettes. According to the CDC, cigarette use dropped from 4.3% in 2011 to 2.2% in 2016. [1]
This would be a 5x reversal in less than a year. That's huge.
Ah, whelp. I forgot that high school is 9th-12th grade.
Re-reading the high school numbers cigarettes are down 15.8% -> 8.0% (2011-2016) but eCigs are up 1.5% -> 11.3% (2011-2016).
The gains in eCig usage still appear to cancel out the reduction in cigarette usage ("(20.2%) reported current use of some type of tobacco product"). But definitely a less dramatic effect than I originally claimed.
Cigarettes cause high rates of lung cancer, killing tons of people. It makes sense to heavily discourage teenagers from using them. As far as I am aware (I am not an expert about or user of any of these products) the risks from vaping are much less severe.
Is the concern just that the activity is nominally unlawful? Or that it will be a “gateway drug” (is there any evidence of that)? Or that it is a waste of students’ time? Or ...
Or are we worried about stimulants in general? Or is there still some significant cancer risk from vaping? (Are people freaking out about high school students drinking too much coffee?)
If students are just replacing cigarettes with vaping, that seems like an unambiguously positive development.
Yeah I don't endorse vaping especially for young kids but it's better than smoking, and that was even allowed at my high school (in specific places).
We've eliminated all the really worrying stuff but people like to worry about kids so now we're down to sugar and vaping. Of the two I'd bet sugar is a lot worse, long term. Though since vape juice is unregulated and kids probably buy the cheapest they can find, I'd wonder what kind of chemicals are actually in it.
The good thing is that kids mostly use high quality vapes. For example, the Juul is cited as the most popular in the article. Other popular ones are Junos, Phixes, and Suorins. All of these have their own juices manufactured by the companies, and all these companies are pretty reputable to my knowledge. The Juul has succeeded in part because they designed their own pods that nobody else was producing, so they could guarantee high quality juices.
My concern would be around the long-term effects of inhaling vapor from heated metal alloys. I doubt that we have enough safety data, given the newness of the tech and (I assume) the variety of metals being used. That being said, I’m no expert so please chime in if you have information around this concern.
I don't understand exactly what you're afraid of. I often prepare the food I eat in a contraption of "heated metal alloys". We know perfectly well how to make such things safe.
Different metals are in use, at different temperatures, and inhalation rather than ingestion.
Vape coils are typically kanthal, the same material as in my ceramic kiln wires, and were not designed for food/smoking purpose before people started using them for that.
I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to sell a pot made out of unsafe materials and market it as a cooking implement. I'm also quite confident that it's technically possible to make a safe vaping device. So the issue would be a lack of regulation?
Definitely, there is a lack of meaningful testing and regulation. Also, everything about vaping is too new to know the long term effects on human health.
Okay, but so is standing near combustion-engine vehicles, cooking, soldering, shopping at stores full of air freshener, and many other things. There are many other common activities that have even higher risk of death/injury.
When walking around town with my 1.5 year old, I commonly see people smoking cigarettes outside freak out and start apologizing, worried that they might blow one puff of smoke in the general direction of a baby. But at that point we are talking about a ridiculous level of concern for a trivial risk.
As they say, the dose makes the poison. We should make public policy based on careful risk analysis, not absolutist reflex.
I speculate that standing near existing (heavily regulated) combustion vehicles, going to existing (heavily regulated) restaurants, cooking using existing (regulated) methods and tools, etc. has a decent chance of being a greater health risk than breathing nicotine alone. I am not an expert though, so would love to hear some actual evidence about it.
We have now had decades of (publicly beneficial) propaganda effort driving home the “frequent smoking = deadly” message. In many peoples’ minds that message has been broadened by association “frequent smoking = deadly” ⇒ “any smoking = deadly” ⇒ “breathing any second-hand smoke in any context for any amount of time = deadly” ⇒ “any use of nicotine = deadly”, so there is a natural inclination to reflexively ban the use of vaporizers as well.
But if the vaporizers are largely being used as a replacement for (orders of magnitude more dangerous) cigarettes, that seems like an unambiguously positive development which should be applauded, not restricted. Fears about second-hand smoke from vaporizers in well-ventilated spaces seem likely to be entirely baseless.
It’s a bit wearying to hear the old chestnuts trotted out here of all places. It seems like bad arguments and FUD never really change, they just finds new adherents.
This seems like you are being argumentative for no good reason. You may have misread the above post.
It seems to me that jacobolus was not defending vaping but merely wondering if we're all being a bit over-reactive at this point.
That position is not so much comparable to your referenced four-dog-defense as it is to something like "you've got a better chance of being killed by a lightening bolt than killed in a terrorist attack".
Long before that publication, however, Wright SC (et al) published a paper still referenced today in toxicology textbooks entitled "Nicotine inhibition of apoptosis suggests a role in tumor production"
[ FASEB J. 1993; 7:1045-1051 ]
As someone who's never smoked, but has stood next to people who have, I would guess it does quite the opposite. I imagine most people who don't smoke think this.
The first times you do it, it feels pretty good. Really good, in fact. However, like any drug, you develop a tolerance and a dependence. Before long, you require it to feel normal, not to feel good.
Couldn't this be explained by a substitution effect? The numbers from the CDC article discuss only the changes from the period starting in 2011 until 2016; where do you justify "a 5x reversal in less than a year?"
Explosion refers to the increase rate in those percentages, not to the percentages themselves. Example: expecting in a relatively short amount of time, say, 0.1% and getting 4% qualifies as explosion to me.
It's a public health concern, so it's prudent to sample how much it's consumed.
> Obviously the rate increased, it's a fairly new device.
It's not necessarily so that "new device" therefore "rate increase." It could be flat or declining since earlier surveys. The fact that it isn't flat means that it's popular and likely warrants further study and/or intervention. The descriptor "explosive" applies here because many other similar public-health-impacting behaviors which are studied by similar researchers change much more slowly over time.
The rate of tobacco consumption overall is what's important. So we would do a comparison like high school upperclassmen who smoke cigarettes in 2010 (or maybe even a bit earlier) to high school upperclassmen who smoke cigarettes and/or vape in 2018. The difference would tell us what we want to know.
> 8.0% reported in 2016 that they smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days—a decrease from 15.8% in 2011.
The CDC report doesn't report clearly on the overlap between modalities, but if e-cigarette uptake is cancelling all the reductions in non-e-cigarettes, it's quite alarming that nicotine consumption isn't being reduced as previously though.
Just above that in the article it states that 45 percent of the students at the Boulder school admitted to vaping. So yes, I would consider that an explosion.
Maybe it is region dependent? I have some younger relatives and high school/middle school and they make it seem like almost every at their school is vaping (mostly the new juul things)
Juuls are incredibly common in a lot of schools. At my school, the number of high schoolers that use a juul more than once a week is at least 20%. (Small school)
I think it is very important for everyone to keep in mind that vaping is probably safer than smoking. But it might not be, we don't know for sure. And it is certainly worse than not consuming any tobacco product. So trying to encourage active smokers to switch to vaping is probably beneficial, but increasing overall tobacco consumption rates is bad.
My father's been smoking for over 50 years. I got him to switch to mostly vaping last year. The difference in his health has been profound. It almost eliminated his coughing, increased his ability to walk distances. His doctor was amazed at his last checkup. She said she couldn't recommend it to patients due to the uncertainties, but encouraged him to keep doing whatever it is that he's doing.
Edit: I bought him the vape after a friend that's been smoking for a long time made the switch and raved about the benefits. I don't doubt that the best course of action is to quit altogether, but a 50+ year addiction is pretty difficult to quit. It can be done but you really have to want it. I don't think my dad really wanted to quit. I know that seems silly, but given his circumstances I can understand.
The UK's NHS says "particularly if you've already tried other methods of quitting smoking without success, you might want to give e-cigarettes a go" and "according to current evidence on e-cigarettes, they carry a fraction of the risk of cigarettes."
Why is this even controversial? Vaping removes almost all of the known dangers from smoking. We know smoke inhalation itself is incredibly bad for health. It was never about the nicotine. Wood smoke and general pollution is highly associated with cancer and bad health and no better than tobacco smoke. There's some evidence humans have been evolving resistance to it since the invention of fire. Suggesting it's actually been a significant source of death in our species. Smokers houses are covered in foul smelling yellow residue, of course it's hurting their lungs. Smokers are actually exposed to more radiation from tobacco than the legal limit for radiation workers.
It's controversial because smoking has become the 20th century temperance movement, at least in the US.
Some people are so offended by the idea of smoking that even doing something much less harmful, like vaping, is enough to cause them to panic for the future of our children.
Don’t half of smokers die of heart disease, not lung disease? Vaping has no effect on that - it might be even delivering more nicotine and jolting the heart more than a normal cigarette. Not sure how much heart damage comes from the stimulant decreasing blood oxygen and how much is from lung damage decreasing blood oxygen, and so forth, but it seems likely vaping is bad for your heart.
Yes, but what is the evidence it's the nicotine that's damaging the heart? The heart is part of your respiratory system. Inhaling regular wood smoke damages your heart:
>There is no amount of wood smoke that is good to breathe. It is at least as bad for you as cigarette smoke, and probably much worse. (One study found it to be 30 times more potent a carcinogen.) The smoke from an ordinary wood fire contains hundreds of compounds known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and irritating to the respiratory system. Most of the particles generated by burning wood are smaller than one micron—a size believed to be most damaging to our lungs. In fact, these particles are so fine that they can evade our mucociliary defenses and travel directly into the bloodstream, posing a risk to the heart. Particles this size also resist gravitational settling, remaining airborne for weeks at a time.
I agree smoking could harm your heart in other ways. However all stimulants, including caffeine,
pseudoephedrine, cocaine and amphetamines, constrict blood vessels that deliver blood to your heart, and nicotine is a stimulant with vasoconstrictive action. I’m not a medical professional but i’m sure this has been researched and reported on since it is where I got the notion.
From what I can find, research has mixed results. Other things about coffee may mediate that effect (antioxidants). I would bet if you were smoking pure caffine, it would be less healthy for your heart than drinking coffee.
I smoked for about 18 years and I made the switch to vaping a few years ago. I haven't completely given up tobacco smoking but I have cut back tremendously.
I tried to quit several times, I tried the gum, the patches, Chantix and cold turkey. None of them allowed me to successfully quit. Vaping was good enough to temper the nicotine cravings enough that I could otherwise function without regular smoking. I have cut back on nicotine content over the years. Now, I'm using the lowest nicotine content liquid that I find readily available. The next step is to mix it with 0 nicotine liquid until I can make another attempt at quitting.
I agree that non-smokers (especially children) shouldn't do it because it can lead to nicotine addiction but for smokers, it's a miracle product.
Three weeks no tobacco. Stepping down nicotine today. I don’t like vaping much. But it has made it much easier to ramp down.
I still want a cigarette every once in a while, but I think that’s going to pass in the next month or two. At least enough for me to quit the vape as well.
I’d never recommend one to a nonsmoker. But, for me, it has been an effective way out of a vice. If anyone wants out, it has been working for me. Definitely worth considering.
The key is moderation. 1 mg of nicotine can provide really positive benefits, making it a nootropic with a decent risk profile. Granted, the downsides are addiction and temporary downregulation of dopamine receptors. A spray or lozenge is better than vaping though, mainly because we don’t know the long term effects of inhaling chemicals like propelyne glycol, for instance.
oh yes. yes there are better ways to ingest nicotine. I, however, don't have the self control to avoid smoking a pack a day. If you're the kind of person that can handle small situational doses to improve whatever you're optimizing for, go for it. Me, on the other hand, i'm a chump. Lozenges didn't really meet the need of the vice i'd set up for myself. No plans for long term vaping. In the short run, i haven't screamed at anyone. I quit once before long ago and used an ssri. Of the set lozenge, patch, gum and ssri, this seems the least painful. It's effective without me checking out from reality. The ssri's made me kind of disconnected from reality. That worked, and worked well, but the blast radius was quite a bit little larger than i really wanted. this feels much more like i can separate the specific smoking impulse without affecting my other impulses.
so, yeah. n=1. not data, just an observation. I think unrestrained smoking will kill me. Perhaps the damage is done, at it will kill me regardless. That said, continuing smoking only expands the risk profile. Vaping likely narrows the risk profile. Even if it does not, vaping is a temporary thing for me. I'll be done soon.
Another benefit I've seen a number of times is that people seems to have an easier time quitting. (Based on my sample of < 5 coworkers that switched to vaping.)
The pattern, as explained to me and IIRC, was as follows:
Started vaping insteadof smoking.
Tried vape with less nicotine. Worked equally well.
Tried with half strength.
Tried with even less. Also worked.
At this point it just felt silly so they just stopped.
Cigarette companies devote significant resources to building the positive feedback loop to increase the addictiveness of their products (the experience of unwrapping the cellophane packaging is a classic example). Vapes are a much more straightforward delivery method that lack these enhancements.
Of course there's some parallels there for the software world, like the endless A/B testing social-media sites do to maximize the amount of time people spend glued to their product.
I also think it's kind of a controlled dose thing. When one smokes a cigarette it tends to be the whole cigarette, whereas with a vape you can take a couple of hits, get a fix and put it down.
When looking for this I think it's useful to note that immediately after switching the amount of vaping can be huge. I was actually experiencing nicotine rushes and nausea in some cases when I first started
The problem I had was that a cigarette has an obvious stop point - it runs out - whereas a vape will go on as long as you have juice and power.
Over the 6 months or so getting used to it I've been vaping it's started to fizzle out. I know, n=1, but I think it's something worth noting in case people see an increase in nicotine intake immediately after switching
When I first tried a disposable cigalike this happened to me. I was previously smoking just under a pack a day, but without an obvious stopping point I found myself using the whole thing in a few hours, when it was supposed to be equivalent to a pack. Because of this, when I started using a sub-ohm tank, I only bought 3mg liquids (the lowest available). I could vape it as much a I wanted and it took pretty much constant vaping for 10 minutes to feel slightly unwell from the nicotine, so this worked very well for me.
That is basically how it went for me. I tried vaping, liked it, and substituted it for cigarettes. I liked the effect but found it easier to forget about. Eventually I bought some juice I didn’t enjoy, and simply stopped using it.
> I don't doubt that the best course of action is to quit altogether, but a 50+ year addiction is pretty difficult to quit. It can be done but you really have to want it. I don't think my dad really wanted to quit. I know that seems silly, but given his circumstances I can understand.
Much as your physical health is probably best by quitting, mental health certainly has to be considered as well.
got my mom had a device, before she had a heart attack, then she stopped smoking for a while, but she hates tech so much, she got back to smoking instead of vaping to fill nicotin craves.
it's hard to convince people some times (also not helping that things are still fuzzy and depending on your friends, you can also hear horror stories like lung cancer due to weird vaping byproducts ..)
Yeah, I'm highly skeptical it's overall safe. You have all sorts of metals, liquids, plastics, flavoring compounds, wicks, etc. Some people try to select 'healthy' choices (like organic cotton for the wick); maybe that's healthier, maybe it's not. But then you also have tons of cheap devices on the market, made in China, with who knows what as the cheapest metal/fabric, and then literally tons of unregulated flavoring compounds on top of PG/VG. Any one of those components could be harmful.
> You have all sorts of metals, liquids, flavoring compounds, wicks, etc
Metal content is negligible unless you dry hit. No one likes that so it's pretty much a self-limiting problem.
Flavoring compounds, though... there are liquids out there that contain diacetyl (a "buttery" flavoring). It's relatively common in foods, but is known specifically to cause issues when heated and inhaled.
ETA: I just saw that this is mentioned in the article.
> Any one of those components could be harmful.
Yep. The best harm reduction strategy at the moment seems to be to stick to well-known and establish manufacturers of eliquid.
While I certainly tried to avoid any flavorings, or vendors that couldn't tell me what was in their flavorings when I did use a vaporizer, the diacetyl scare is overblown. Regular cigarettes contain diacetyl in orders of magnitude greater concentrations.[1]
We're talking about exposures to ten micrograms in various e-liquids, versus 7,000 micrograms for smokers. On a daily basis, in both cases.
Even more curious, traditional smoking has not been shown to be a risk factor for bronchiolitis.[2] Should those flavors be avoided? Yeah, but I honestly wouldn't get hysterical over it. We're talking about fractions of micrograms in the end product. You certainly are exposed to far more diacetyl in second-hand smoke than a vaper is exposed to in a day, on average, in liquids that contain this flavoring.
FYI: I quit smoking completely using e-cigarettes, and quit using e-cigarettes last year. I wrapped my own coils and built my own atomizers at one point, so I'm probably biased, but the numbers speak for themselves.
To say nothing of my opinion on the hysteria over nicotine, which has never been shown to have strong reinforcing properties in any study. Nicotine, by itself, has simply never been shown to be more addictive than caffeine.[3]
> Flavoring compounds, though... there are liquids out there that contain diacetyl (a "buttery" flavoring).
That name rang a bell; diacetyl is the compound behind "popcorn lung", so called because its use for its buttery taste in microwave popcorn was common but is damaging to the lungs if the fumes were inhaled; e.g. https://nyti.ms/2h7ls4G. Interesting to see that it's being used as a vaping flavorant.
Oh my god, popcorn lung is real! I thought that was a name for some fibrotic illness thst made your lungs look like popcorn, but it’s actually from popcorn.
If you vape also consider making the liquid yourself. The base is just 2 ingredients and you can carefully source your flavoring agents. Making your own can be 50-100x cheaper than buying premade.
But as other people here said - diacetyl / popcorn lung has been known on the popular vaping scene for almost a decade now. Not to speak in absolute terms but I think it would be hard to find a retailer these days that carries any liquid with diacetyl in it.
Sorry to be "that guy", but could you explain what you mean by metal content being negligible unless you dry hit?
I assumed when people were talking about metal content, they were referring to metal vapors from the heating elements or something, but I'll admit that I don't know enough about this, or what a dry hit is vs. normal use, or how we know when metal vapors or whatever are/aren't a concern.
You're not "that guy" at all. It's quite the opposite. Most people (myself included) have no clue what a dry hit is as well. In fact, people who vape often have the reputation of being "that guy".
I don't know enough about how these things work to verify his comment that metal is only a concern if you dry hit, but a dry hit just means it ran out of juice and you didn't notice, so you accidentally inhale a disgusting taste of burnt metal/fabric, rather than vaporized liquid. Normally though, you have liquid sitting in a tank touching metal, glass and/or plastic. Maybe glass and good metals don't leach into the liquid, but there are tons of cheaply made devices out there, and I wouldn't bet my health without seeing better studies that some sort of metallic or plastic compounds couldn't leach into the liquid, to then be vaporized and inhaled.
My understanding is that the metal doesn't get hot enough to bind to end up in the vapor in any quantity as long as the heating element is immersed in liquid. A "dry hit" is when you take a drag on the device when there is no liquid or not enough liquid in contact with the heating element. It tastes terrible, burns out coils faster, and burns your throat.
The only study I've seen that shows that heavy metals in vapor is an issue used conditions that are unlikely to occur in "real life" because of this. The argument seems to be that one could become accustomed to it through the cravings associated with nicotine withdrawal, but I honestly find that unlikely. In reality, you'd burn your coil up in short order, and if you can afford a new coil you'd have been buying more liquid in the first place.
It's almost always easy to spot deliberate cherry picking and dishonest statistics in order to come to an alarmist conclusion.
"For their study, the researchers selected five leading brands of so-called first generation e-cigarettes, which are referred to as cig-a-likes because they resemble traditional cigarettes. (Newer ones look like small cassette recorders with a mouthpiece. In the newer devices the liquid is added from a dispenser prior to use. In contrast, the liquid in first generation e-cigs is stored in the cartridge together with the coil, which increases the liquid’s exposure to the coil even in the absence of heating.) The five brands are sold across the United States in big-box retail stores, convenience stores and gas stations, as well as online. Three of the five brands constituted 71 percent of total market share in 2015. If a brand came in more than one flavor, the researchers chose one flavor for consistency’s sake."
Almost no one uses this piece of junk cig-a-likes. Try and find a person using one on the street, compared to people using proper high powered mods, which their "market share" statistic most certainly does not include.
"This study was funded by the Institute for Global Tobacco Control, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health."
Shocking.
I have yet to read a negative study that does not contain obvious blatant lies.
71% of the market of product sold in big-box retail stores, convenience stores and gas stations, as well as online. That market is perhaps 10% (that's being generous) of the overall ecig market, because those tiny things suck.
I'm less worried about metal leeching in higher end mods, the juice doesn't sit for months on end with significant surface area touching metal as the juice is typically vaped in << 24 hours, and the physical designs are quite different.
That said, there is still an element of unknown risk, both with the metals used, as well as the wicking materials, but it seems reasonable to expect high end products where they have better margins and more concern with reputation to put much more emphasis on safety and quality.
EDIT:
I think I will have to eat some crow, after doing some googling it seems there are in fact thorough real studies being performed on real world equipment:
I mostly just skimmed this article, figuring out whether these detected levels are beyond what is considered "safe" or how they compare to both regular cigarettes and background environmental exposure I suppose would be nice to know, but based on this article I am going to change my stance to believe that yes, in fact I am exposing myself to heavy metals even when using a high end mod. I think I'm going to do some more research later as I would expect this report would have gotten a fair amount of publicity in the enthusiast community, will be interesting to see how honest their reaction is to this.
You could say the same about food and the equipment used to cook it; how do you know the food you buy is safe?
Maybe there aren't enough regulations around vaping ingredients? If so, the solution is to regulate it (much like food). In the meantime, it's up to the buyer to find reliable suppliers who use good ingredients. This isn't impossible.
I agree that for traditional tobacco smokers it is likely a net-positive, and it is potentially a tool they can use to reduce their nicotine intake and even eliminate it altogether. The concern with the latest explosion in schools, however, is the significant number of kids getting addicted to nicotine who may not otherwise have tried smoking traditional cigarettes. The nicotine level in a Juul pod is incredibly high, and it doesn't take long for these kids to get hooked. That's something we should be concerned about IMO.
I definitely agree with this, the ideal would be current tobacco users switching to vapes while no non-tobacco user touches them. I just am not sure how we can get to that ideal and how to balance encouraging smokers to switch without encouraging kids to think of vaping as safe.
In general, there are pretty good reasons for suggesting that people avoid addictions before they're at an age where they'll make decisions about it that they'll be happy with over the long term.
> 18 and 25 are a continuation of the process that starts
> around puberty, and 18 year olds are about halfway through
> that process. Their prefrontal cortex is not yet fully
> developed. That's the part of the brain that helps you to
> inhibit impulses and to plan and organize your behavior to
> reach a goal.
If nothing else, there's a monetary cost, a possible convenience cost, etc., and people should choose maturely whether that's something they want to take on.
(And there are some plausible health risks still with vaping, as others have noted.)
Reading between the lines of the various pieces on vaping I've seen, there seem to be two common assumptions at work: 1. vaping is like cigarettes, therefore must be unhealthy or 2. this is a new substance being ingested and therefore must be unhealthy.
I'm entirely supportive of people who want to study this stuff, but the impulse that any new product should be illegal until it's been proven safe to fairly arbitrary standards seems unreasonable to me. And I think there's a bit of a baptist-bootlegger coalition between the medical researchers and tobacco companies.
We currently think that nicotine has a protective effect on the brain. Research is spotty but promising. Google “nicotine protects brain” to get started!
Oh, I'm certainly under no impression that nicotine might not have any health benefits, but with various inconclusive research it's hard to assess the complete picture and net effect. I think it's partly this way because nicotine has been studied quite little disconnected from tobacco research. (It is my understanding that there is indeed no conclusive evidence of nicotine being greatly harmful to health, and I do use nicotine products myself.)
Just to be very clear on your use of language: Vaping has nothing to do with tobacco. Period. Calling "vape" a tobacco product is equivalent to calling coca-cola a "coffee product". They essentially share a single active chemical (nicotine), and even then many vapers elect to vape nicotine-free liquid.
That is generally true; the nicotine in e-liquid is commonly extracted from tobacco. But at the point it is mixed into an e-liquid, assuming we're talking about a reputable organization, it is a completely pure nicotine solution. The only thing it shares with the tobacco it came from is the nicotine itself.
Ah, didn't realize this. I used to work at a coffee roaster and at the time was told the caffeine removed from decaf beans via the swiss water method was then sold to soda companies.
> And it is certainly worse than not consuming any tobacco product.
I don't think we know this. routine use of Nicotine alone is one of the world's most effective and safest appetite suppressants, with robust evidence of sustained weightless. It's quite possible a small decrease in the obesity rate means its net effect is positive.
Also wanted to point out that the NIH is rolling out a standardized e-cigarette for research, so that all the results in future papers can be compared with one another. The settings otherwise are just too variable otherwise.
The unfortunate side effect of getting smokers off of cigarettes, is that non-smokers see it as a safe option to start. It's an unintended consequence, but pretty predictable. With that said, youth will be youth, and I'd rather they experiment with vaping, rather than cigarettes at this point.
There's the risk that ecigs are an on ramp to actual cigarette smoking. That reflects my experience, first using a friends vape now and then to bumming the occasional cigarette to actual smoking. There's a symmetry we don't like to acknowledge between what makes vapes good for quitting - you can slowly ramp your nicotine - and what makes vapes good for starting. See this study: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abst...
Well they're dumb kids for one. But also smoking feels better than vaping. From what I've looked into it seems that tobacco smoke contains not just nicotine but also MAOIs which amplify the addictiveness and pleasure of the nicotine. Do note that I've quit now, through cold turkey though.
I disagree from personal experience. Smoke is harsh and never tasted appealing to me. Vaping at a low nicotine level is a much more enjoyable experience.
Sure, but that first cigarette you light up is going to taste absolutely disgusting, whether compared to vaping or not. I just don’t get why anyone would think it would be better to continue smoking instead of vaping, unless they’re somehow into the taste of campfires.
Not sure why people are downvoting w/o commenting. It seems like the study concluded what you are saying - that vaping / eCigs do increase the likelihood you will start smoking actual cigarettes.
Right, which was that parents point - that it cuts both ways. There are people who get off cigarettes by moving to vaping, which is great! But you don't often hear people talking about the opposite, that vaping can also lead people to smoking cigarettes.
beside some deep science the biggest risk is eliquid content, but so far, beside relying on internet boards and users I couldnt find a standard test for safety
A generation ago these kids would've gotten busted for smoking old-fashioned cigarettes ("Smokin' in the boys room"). Two generations ago it was legal to buy (at some states at age 16) and legal to possess and use, except on school grounds. Three generations ago it was legal even in doctor's offices and hospitals.
California and Massachusetts (and oddly enough, Mississippi) are stoking up a new hysteria with public health spending in an effort to keep people of all ages from switching from conventional cigarettes to e-cigs.
I see six-figure earners on the sidewalks of San Francisco smoking old-fashioned cancer sticks and very few vaping. I wonder- did my tax dollars dissuade them from upgrading their habit? Second-hand smoke is substantially safer from vaping, but actual health of nonsmokers must not be these states' priorities.
There are rumblings about regulating nicotine content in real cigarettes. If they were to regulate vape juices (like limit the worst precarcinogenic bases), I think that's a much better (and cheaper!) place to devote public resources.
Only a generation ago smoking was still allowed at many high schools. It was at mine (1980s). There was a designated outdoor smoking area for the kids that smoked.
I wonder if they had one now, only for cigarettes, how many kids would do it and withstand the social humiliation that exists with teenagers around smoking cigarettes.
You must know that smoking rates have tanked all across California and particularly in urban areas. Maybe the advertising is meant to get ahead of the vaping 'problem', to get people to quit cold turkey rather than switching to vaping, or to prevent kids from vaping.
The fact that you see a few people smoking cigarettes outside an office building doesn't mean both of these campaigns didn't work.
I never understood why anyone young would start smoking. Throughout my K-12 education, I was told every single year that smoking is bad and all that jazz (i.e. shown pictures of what a smoker's lungs look like, shown documentaries on the negative effects, etc.).
It definitely isn't for lack of trying of my school district's part, and yet high single digit percentages of my peers in high school were using some form of tobacco/nicotine when I graduated in 2015.
It's well settled science that using these types of products cannot possibly be good for you. It baffles me why anyone would intentionally create an addiction/habit that, at absolute best, is neutral for your health.
> I was told every single year that smoking is bad and all that jazz
If someone tells me not to do something, it makes me want to do it. I smoked for a while when I was 18, back before I believed anything could really harm me. It was fun and upset all the people I wanted to upset.
"I never understood why anyone young would start smoking"
To look cool.
No, seriously, that's one of the main reasons. To look cool in front of one's peers. You might not have cared about such things, or feel pressure to engage in them. If so, I'm happy for you. But that doesn't mean others don't.
Superficial habits are also an easy substitute for personality, something teens are eagerly trying to develop. Everything from hair dying to wearing bow ties are 'normal', vices carry all kinds of extra social signaling.
kids who are not raised well are usually the ones who turn to things that are not looked upon well by their community and society. or kids who have some kind of festering problem. there are a some kids who are given zero guidance by their parents in school or life, or who are sabotaged by their parents, and if those kids are not exceptional in some way they will fall behind socially and academically. in this society, falling behind socially and academically to the point where you feel like you cant catch up is sort of like being handed a death sentence. so if you have no future, or you are convinced that you dont, then what is the point of avoiding cancer? what is the point of anything?
FYI smoking and diabetes have about the same negative effect on life expectancy so I wouldn't say neutral. Adult on set diabetes can be avoided with diet and exercise yet people still eat poorly.
A lot of those kids are probably self medicating with nicotine for stress / anxiety / ADHD. I've never been a user myself but it seems like for many people who get nervous and have trouble focusing, a little nicotine helps steady them out.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not recommending that anyone, especially children, self medicate with psychoactive substances.
(I'm a college student, not a highschool student) among my friends that smoked it wasn't self medication, it was an excuse to socialize. In some environments these can be hard to come by so smoking is an artificial one that lonely people sometimes pick up.
It's more complicated than that, but I have had multiple smokers espouse to me that it is more difficult to regulate consumption with a vape than with traditional cigarettes.
I'm not sure what the new vapes can do, but old vapes didn't have the ability to put a ceiling on dose for a single session (ie turn off after x pulls). With a cigarette, the act of burning through the cig acts as an indicator to stop. With a vape it's more difficult to understand when to stop because there is no physical indicator.
In my experience, when I had regular or constant anxiety, the nicotine crave blended with it but smoking calmed both. It is very possible that a non-nicotine method of relaxation would have also worked on both, but those are rarer and/or less quick and convenient.
Interesting. I should have written that was my experience. Anxiety isn't something I typically experience unless I've drank too much coffee or, when I was a regular smoker, needed a cigarette.
I take it you're a non-smoker now. I wonder how a vape would affect that.
Yeah after 20 years smoking, I had minor (unrelated) surgery and had to stay at home for a couple weeks, so I just cold stopped smoking and that was that. I am curious too but I refrain from experimenting.
Smoking per se has been a behaviour for thousands of years. As much as there will always be effects on health, vaping has been a god send for me. I have been smoking 1+ pack a day for nearly 20 years, until I switched to vaping 9 months ago. I feel incomparably better. My resting heart rate went down by 20%, I breathe better, am way less tired, and it doesn't stink . Plus, there is a geeky aspect with what we call RDAs ( rebuildable vapes ). Yes, we do not know the long terms effects, but the chances to be worse than cigarettes are close to 0.
Also, this article is full of references to studies that have been flagged as partisan and not seriously conducted.
Not smoking / vaping is better, but for an ex-smoker, this is a godsend.
I think we have a bigger problem with stimulant abuse in general. The perception of caffeine and nicotine (and god forbid the various amphetamines) as "safe" is incredibly deceptive. I have seen the differences in myself in terms of productivity, sleep quality, etc. which cannot be fully-quantified on some medical study or quarterly performance reviews. We have an entire generation of young people entering the workforce who cannot go 30 minutes without taking a vape break outside. Sure, this doesn't directly impact the individual's health or immediate perceptions of work effort, but over time the impact is gradually discovered. The individual cannot sit still in a chair and focus on a complex/deep-dive topic long enough to reach an actionable conclusion. The other extreme is the individual is hyper-focused on one task (usually the amphetamine users) to the extent that they begin to ignore all sense of context and lose focus on the bigger picture. For most employment, this is usually not a concern, but for those who have to dive incredibly deep into complexity on a daily basis (engineers, programmers, architects, etc.), I feel it can be the difference between getting something done in 4 hours and getting it done in 4 weeks. This perception is also something incredibly hard to quantify, but I have witnessed several anecdotal examples (some in myself) which I am confident can be attributed to excessive use of stimulants.
> We have an entire generation of young people entering the workforce who cannot go 30 minutes without taking a vape break outside
This is the most absurd hyperbole I've heard so far this week. Granted it's Monday so you had a lot working against you. An entire generation? Every thirty minutes?
Who does this stuff even benefit? The seemingly arbitrary lines drawn between marijuana, alcohol, tobacco and other "drugs" is so weird. So much moral righteousness.
The people selling it... (often illegally) to kids, who then have trouble getting a basic education and develop habits, which are long term destructive to their ability to operate within society.
Mid 30s adult here who used an e-cigarette for a year or two when alone in the car for funsies (flavors smell nice).
What, exactly, is the problem with kids vaping/using e-cigarettes if they don't contain a controlled substance (THC or nicotine, in these cases). We don't ban kids from consuming caffeine, so what's the problem with inert vapors? I agree that the liquid to be vaporized needs to be regulated to prevent health issues, but that's no different than the FDA regulating food safety.
The problems that I see with that are.
1. Vaping still isn't that healthy for you even if everything is ideal. Heating something up and inhaling it is never going to be that healthy. Add in possible contamination in the liquid, issues with not cleaning the vape etc. and you are always going to have some health problems.
2. It makes it easier to then switch to nicotine once they have the vape pen since the psychological and financial switch is less to just try it out once.
3. It makes it harder for schools/parents to know who is consuming a banned substance vs. an unbanned inert vapor.
I think a blanket ban on vapes for everyone under 18 and a ban on tobacco for 21 and older would probably have beneficial public health impacts.
> Heating something up and inhaling it is never going to be that healthy.
Just to add to this. Your gastrointestinal tract has evolved for millions of years to deal with all sorts of crap you can throw at it. It's always the safest route. Snorting or inhaling compounds is a quick way to the bloodstream, but an unsafe route since the sinuses and lungs aren't as good at protection and general healing as the stomach and gut.
> I think a blanket ban on vapes for everyone under 18 and a ban on tobacco for 21 and older would probably have beneficial public health impacts.
That's a fair compromise, although I'd like an outright ban on cigarettes. If someone wants to vape to get their nicotine, or chew gum, fine (I am a supporter of safe recreational drug use). But smoking has been proven to be downright ruinous to your long term health.
Disclosure: I am putting a Kickstarter together to use GMOs to eliminate tobacco long term.
> Disclosure: I am putting a Kickstarter together to use GMOs to eliminate tobacco long term.
Could you elaborate on this? It sounds interesting, but it also sounds kind of "Scorpio-like" [0] like you are some Bond villain plotting to take over the world's tobacco supply with a genetically modified super-tobacco that will strangle other tobacco at the roots unless farmers pay you for weed killer. [1]
It sets up distance to seriously dangerous things way too short for teens:
- few drops to get little high, teens love to experiment because they can show how cool/adults they are, and they're hooked in no time
- concentration of nicotine in nic shots is way too high, spill in your pocket or just having your hands "dirty" with 18mg can end up in emergency room or even death, if teens have younger siblings the risk goes up, bit of liquid from a tiny bottle of nicotine shot can easily kill an infant (and they love to catch and suck random things)
- comparison with cigarettes sometimes doesn't make sense, you can't accidentally eat a pack of cigarettes in few minutes, with liquid nicotine it's enough to spread it on the skin (not even ingesting it) which absorbs it extremely well and it's hard to wash off.
etc.
Funny story: About 20% of the time, I now get carded when buying a pack of Five Hour Energy. It's definitely not an area law, as far as I can tell, but it seems like there's an interest in monitoring youth purchase of energy drinks.
Not sure if this might be a self-interest thing where the store just doesn't want to be on the hook if a kid drinks too many. (The bottle specifies not to drink more than two a day, "several" hours apart. Kids who drank six have ended up in the hospital.)
The article is about nicotine vape (Juul) which is addictive and (in some states) illegal to sell to children. The problem is in the title "I can't stop", and the solution is to put them on nicotine gum?
"You must be at least 21 years old to purchase products on JUUL.com.'
There's some evidence that young people who start vaping, who've never smoked before, are converting to cigarettes, and that this is including young people who would not have gone on to smoke otherwise. That's worrying. Smoking is very harmful and young people don't really have the prefrontal cortex needed to be able to make that decision.
There's also evidence that smokers find vaping useful as a cessation tool. So we need a way to balance the harms and benefits.
It doesn't help that vape suppliers in England will sell to children who've never smoked, despite the code of conduct telling them not to. This small number of bad actors will attract stricter regulation.
If it's not arbitrary, what are the criteria for legality? If there are no set criteria (whether it's amount of deaths, addictiveness or otherwise) then isn't it arbitrary by definition?
EDIT:
Regarding my comment earlier about whether or not tobacco is worse than alcohol: Looks like tobacco is actually the #1 cause of death [1]
I'm pretty against the pro-vape movement because I believe there are plenty of kids now who now choose to vape who would have never smoked anything in the first place previously. It seems a lot easier to convince someone to vape because it appears safe and they already know all the risks of cigarettes which eliminated that of being a possibility (good!).
Reading these comments its obvious that Vaping is forcing us to confront an uncomfortable truth.
Vaping might not be that much healthier for the consumer, but its widely popular because its so much nicer for the non smoker.
How much of the campaign to stop smoking was out of concern for the health of future generations? And how much of it was out of the annoyance of second hand smoke?
Even if Vaping proves to be equally dangerous to cigarette smoking, our desire to stop it just isn't in the same ballpark.
I'm OK with that. I believe people have a fundamental right to make their own decisions about what to put in their bodies, but not to expose others to harmful or unpleasant substances.
I'd like there to be more information on the health effects of vaping so that people can make better-informed decisions, but I doubt it would have a big impact. The health effects of smoking have been well-known for decades, but I think we didn't see significant declines until it became less socially acceptable.
> How much of the campaign to stop smoking was out of concern for the health of future generations? And how much of it was out of the annoyance of second hand smoke?
Aren't they often the same thing? You don't want your kids breathing other people's smoke at restaurants, parks, museums, and ballgames.
One problem I think the industry has right now is the "gas station disposable" ecigs, like Blu, Vuse, Juul pods, etc. These things have massive amounts of nicotine, sometimes as high as 30mg/ml which puts the hit right up there with cigarettes. Combine it with the fact that they taste like candy and can be vaped indoors with no ill effects, and its a recipe for addiction.
More traditional e-juice can range in nic content from 0mg/ml to as high as 40-50mg/ml, but the most common variants you see are 3mg/ml and 6mg/ml. Relatively low compared to the gas station stuff.
Its also worth saying that the two aren't directly comparable due to the action of vaporization. Gas station ecigs are pretty bad at generating vapor, which means you get less vapor on each inhale, which means less actual nicotine. Reusable, higher tier vapes that you use with usually lower nic juice produce significantly more vapor. So its hard to compare.
Which comes down to the biggest problem in the world: regulation and standardization. Its a complete wild west. You have no idea what standards the e-juice manufacturers hold themselves to. The "brands" on many juices are hidden behind flashy flavor names like "Quadruple Laser Berry". There's an advertised nic content, but who knows if that's actually what's in there. Often you can purchase nic strengths that are absurd, like 40-60mg/ml, that would make any reasonable person instantly puke. Physical stores will often card, especially if you look young, but there are many online retailers where you can buy whatever you want with no verification. There are states where you can't legally buy this stuff online, but most online retailers don't care.
Seeing as nicotine is a known risk, but the carrier fluids and flavorings are a mostly unknown risk, isn't higher nicotine concentration better? You can get the same dose with less exposure to the unknown risks.
Nicotine wears off very quickly. While it can remain detectable in your system for days, the feeling it gives only persists for 10-15 minutes after inhale, if that. Varying the dosage only really affects the intensity, not duration.
Speaking of intensity; if you don't have a tolerance, high levels of nic can be physically and mentally uncomfortable. Someone who can comfortably inhale 3mg/ml of nic might get slightly nauseous and uncomfortable even at 6mg/ml, definitely at 9mg/ml, unless you have a counteracting agent in your system like alcohol (which is why "leveling out" is a thing).
The chemically addictive properties nicotine has is only one part of the story. There's also the "throat hit"; the feeling of inhaling something warm and slightly uncomfortable. That's a major part of the addiction.
It also tastes great. And its "something to do"; kind of like a fidget spinner, it keeps you busy.
>Someone who can comfortably inhale 3mg/ml of nic might get slightly nauseous and uncomfortable even at 6mg/ml, definitely at 9mg/ml
That only makes sense if there's a standardized inhalation size, which there isn't. I've seen people using vaporizers specially designed to make huge clouds, and they're obviously using low concentration. If they used a stronger concentration they could get the same effect with a smaller inhalation size.
In any case, so little nicotine goes into the juice compared to the amount of solvent that increasing the nicotine concentration even to very high levels had a negligible impact on the amount of solvent. And manufacturers aren't going to put less flavoring in.
I'm not sure of the chemistry in this specific case, but it sometimes happens that adding more solutes just causes a solution to get denser, so it doesn't decrease the mass of solvent per unit volume.
The user titrates the dose by feeling. They don't vape a specific volume, they vape until they've reached their desired blood nicotine level. 1/10th the nicotine concentration means 10 times the solvent inhalation.
> In his four years at Cape Elizabeth, Mr. Carpenter says he can’t recall seeing a single student smoke a cigarette.
Golden age syndrome. It happened, you just forget about the negative parts.
Anecdote: when I was in highschool quite recently (2004-2008), many students were regular smokers or dippers (chew tobacco). At this point, the health effects of smoking (and to a lesser extent, chew tobacco) were obviously well understood. Nevertheless, students picked up smoking etc.
Picking up vaping nicotine probably isn't great, but it beats cigarettes (and probably chew tobacco).
The important thing to remember is that overall drug and alcohol use among American teens is down, and trending down. "According to a major longitudinal study of teenagers called Monitoring the Future, high schoolers’ use of alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs (other than marijuana and vaping) have dropped to the lowest levels since the survey began in 1976."[0]
Notably, from the above December 2016 article:
> E-Cigarettes (Vaporizers): The rate for e-cigarettes among high school seniors dropped to 12.4 percent from last year’s 16.2 percent. Of note: only 24.9 percent of 12th graders report that their e-cigarettes contained nicotine (the addictive ingredient in tobacco) the last time they used, with 62.8 percent claiming they contain "just flavoring." (emphasis added)
> Attitudes and Availability: This year, more 10th graders disapprove of regular use of e-cigarettes than last year. For example, 65 percent of 10th graders say they disapprove, up from last year’s 59.9 percent. In addition, more 10th graders think it is harder to get regular cigarettes than last year; 62.9 percent said they are easy to get, compared to 66.6 percent last year. This represents a dramatic shift from survey findings two decades ago, when 91.3 percent of 10th graders thought it was easy to get cigarettes.
Schools are for educating, not for prohibiting or judging. If you believe vaping is bad for kids or whoever - educate them about why do you think so and let them decide for themselves.
When I was a schoolboy everybody believed kids that smoke don't grow as they get older, nobody wanted to become a gnome :-)
If there is a real health threat we are to be able to explain it to the children, if there isn't - we probably should just let the do what they want.
Why not just set the minimum birthdate to buy nicotine products at 2000, so only 18 year olds can buy it this year, and future generations cannot? Seems like that would sidestep the whole "removing people's rights" argument and gradually just phase it out completely? Has any jurisdiction done that?
I'm not suggesting a minimum age, I'm suggesting a minimum birthdate. So the minimum age will advance automatically - this year it will be 18, next year 19, etc... Put another way, people born on or before 2000 will continue to be able to buy nicotine, but people born after 2000 will never be able to buy it. Over time the percentage of the population which can buy nicotine will gradually dwindle to zero, and there will be no more excuses for stores to stock it.
AFAIK that approach hasn't been tried anywhere. I think I heard a while back it was discussed in Russia but never actually happened? I don't see any good argument for not doing this.
I wonder how accurate these surveys are. In high school, kids I knew who actually did drugs wouldn't admit to it (even on an anonymous survey), and some other kids would answer that they do meth every day because it sounded funny to write that.
Looking past the safety concerns, I personally have zero interest in vaping nicotine as an ex smoker.
A lot who have smoked and quit probably understand the pschological aspect; the constant need, the schedule, the loss of enjoyment from taking a deep breath of fresh air.. I don't want to be addicted to inhaling nicotine in any form.
"ABC is a gateway drug/activity/event. It leads to XYZ, which is way worse!"
Sure, so educate them on real consequences and safety and not the external imposed consequences. Also, don't lie about ABC since they'll assume you lied about XYZ as well.
Seriously, who still doesn't see the same 5-10 year pattern at this point?
People like to control others and everyone loves a sensationalist national epidemic for the headlines is what is at the heart of it. I like vaping though. Doesn't appear to do any lasting harm compared to everything else and smart kids will wise up and quit eventually.
For years it was obvious to me vaping was backed by an astroturfing campaign on Facebook/reddit/HN/etc. Same for many other things the online techie in crowd things they came up on their own.
I've participated in many of the online groups you've mentioned. While there have certainly been communities pop up in the places you mention they are, by and large, populated with enthusiasts sharing details about their equipment and preferred vendors, and boutique manufacturers advertising their products. Obvious attempts to shill products manufactured by large corporate firms are roundly rejected by these communities. What evidence do you have to support claims of astroturfing?
If you’re right that might explain why this article was just flagged so much it went from near the top of the front page, to near the bottom of the second.
There was a golden era about 10 years ago where it looked like smoking was finally going to be conquered. The cessation aids were working. Smoking rates were plummeting. It wasn't cool anymore. It was no longer an impossible problem - people could quit and never look back.
Then vaping screwed it all up.
I hate the myth - which I assumed is being propagated by the companies that profit off of it - that vaping was a replacement for smoking, and that people who vape would otherwise smoke. No. There was a clear period of time between when smoking was on its deathbed and when vaping exploded.
But vaping isn't smoking. It's a similar looking, but significantly different activity that carries almost none of the health risks associated with smoking, both firsthand and secondhand.
Humans like mind-altering substances. I can guarantee you that if tobacco disappeared and vaping didn't exist these kids would just be drinking or smoking pot.
I'm not sure that abstinence works. Btw you know of course that many boys are put on officially-sanctioned drugs at school? Should we put them on those drugs instead?
Are you trying to segue into a discussion on over prescription of ADHD medication? I don't really see what the one has to do with the other but sure, they are both problems. But you can't just say two things are drugs so they are equal. I take a drug first thing every morning for my allergies for instance.
Edit: You edited your reply after I started. I think abstinence works fine for something like nicotine. Unlike say sex humans don't have any innate craving for nicotine, I've never consumed it in my entire life and I don't feel like I've missed out on anything.
I think you are being unclear here. I took your remark on abstinence to be a reference to abstinence only sex education, as I think most readers did. If you are asking how we can help teens with a nicotine addiction to break it then there are a variety of ways that have been shown to work in helping someone break addiction, so schools, parents, and healthcare providers can support those.
I don't see how the article disagrees with what I just said. I really think you are being unclear here in what you are trying to say. Are you asking specifically what should schools due to assist nicotine users to quit, or something else?
The success rate of never smoking/vaping in the first place is 100%.
The success rate of quitting is really up to the individual, much like weight loss or other self improvement stuff. But even if it's hard it's the thing you should do.
I'm really not sure what you're arguing. "Quitting is hard and a lot of people fail so .. don't quit." That's some lame mentality right there.
Not OP, but chewing normal non-nic gum is commonly used as in combination with other quitting methods to help appeal to the physical oral sensations associate with smoking (obviously it's not a perfect proxy, but just "something to do with your mouth).
Ultimately, all cessation methods are aiming to require 0 nicotine at their conclusion. As for the "best thing" to do when trying to quit, financial loss seems to be a good incentive. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1414293
Would you please do a better job of following the site guidelines? You frequently either cross the line or straddle it. By doing this, you damage the community in its most vulnerable place. I'm sure you wouldn't do that with other shared resources, and since you use HN, we'd appreciate your helping to take care of it as well, even when other comments are annoying, wrong, or absurd. Especially then.
I think it's sarcasm pointing out how detached from practicality some of the comments here seem and/or how terrible teen mass-intervention programs are in general.
I don't remember the finer details of anti-drug propaganda from school that well anymore, but I do remember my anger at how patronizing, insulting and obviously ineffective most of it was. And how it often used the exact same manipulation tactics that DARE told us drug-pushers would try to use on us. Why, when people grow up, do they not remember the well intentioned but misguided intervention programs they were subject to in their own youth?
To me, vaping appears to be a significantly less harmful to the body than smoking: vaping is just inhaling steam infused with nicotine where as in smoking the fumes of combustion are being inhaled. I also think with vaping there also no risk of passive smoking. I am in amazement of WHO and other health bodies dragging their feet in declaring vaping almost harmless compared to smoking.
I’ve used the odd vape here and there to stop smoking and I 100% agree with you that it’s safer than cigarettes but it’s way to early to say that it’s wholly “safe”. The problem is that if you declare it safe then everyone and their dog will start vaping, (which then amplifies any outlier problems as there are more data sources. Aka teens). The unfortunate thing is we likely won’t see any declarations one way or another for a few years now. The only way to see the true costs associated with vaping is to let time take its course. 15 years from now we will have a better idea of what daily vaping does to the human body and how safe it really is.
Semi-related, maybe there are some nicotine experts here that can help me:
I smoked ~4 years light/social post high school. Dipped Copenhagen Pouches for ~10 years. I've tried to quite with some success with the longest streak being 2 years. It is incredibly hard and all in the mind.
I found ZYN pouches last year and they have replaced my needs. It "... is a tobacco leaf-free nicotine product. The nicotine salt used in ZYN is derived from tobacco leaves, but once the salt is extracted, no part of the leaf remains." The rest of it is says its food-grade.
Obviously the best would be not to use anything. But would anyone happen to know if this is still leaving a lot of risk exposure? My thought is its probably about as safe as I'll ever find, and really just giving me the nicotine I've become used to without the bad stuff, as nicotine itself is not what causes problems. But if anyone has more informed opinions that would be helpful.
In terms of recreational nicotine, Swedish snus has the most established, long term evidence base for very significantly reduced risks.
It's reasonable to expect that a product like Zyn would fare even better than Swedish snus in long term studies because of the lack of tobacco specific nitrosamines. Although Zyn doesn't have a long term, formulation specific evidence base like Swedish snus, there is good evidence for its components.
Pharmaceutical nicotine replacement therapy products like nicotine gum could be options too. Guessing you've already tried that though... but even the FDA now says NRT can be used indefinitely.
I'm sorry, but is <10% of high schoolers an "explosion"? Obviously e-cigarettes are more appealing than tobacco products, but regular cigarette use was 15.8% in 2011 [1]. Marijuana use is at close to 6%, so not that big a gap from the apparent "explosion" of kids vaping.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/yout...