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Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

137 points by Zeta_Function 8y ago

neaden 8y ago
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.
- lemonberry 8y ago
  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.
  - LordKano 8y ago
    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.
    - jfoutz 8y ago
      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.
      - ShabbosGoy 8y ago
        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.
        jfoutz 8y ago
        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.
      - LordKano 8y ago
  - reitanqild 8y ago
    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. (Note that these where young people.)
    - paulmd 8y ago
      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.
    - lemonberry 8y ago
      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.
      - corobo 8y ago
        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
        miragle 8y ago
        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.
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    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." https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/smoking/Pages/e-cigarettes.aspx https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/smoking/Pages/e-cigarettes.aspx
    - refurb 8y ago
      Wow. Hats off to the NHS. Is vaping harmless? Unlikely. Based on current understanding is it likely much less harmful than smoking tobacco? Yes.
      - Houshalter 8y ago
        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.
        code_duck 8y ago
        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.
        Houshalter 8y ago
        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: https://samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/ https://samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/ >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. And Heart disease is associated with pollution from burning fossil fuels: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/MyHeartandStrokeNews/Air-Pollution-and-Heart-Disease-Stroke_UCM_442923_Article.jsp http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/MyHeartandStro...
  - mathgeek 8y ago
    > 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.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    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 ..)
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  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-abstract/2634377?redirect=true https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abst...
  - notvplez 8y ago
    As someone who quit smoking thanks to vaping I cannot fathom why anyone would go the other direction. Why not just continue vaping instead?
    - DanBC 8y ago
      They enjoy the experience of nicotine, and don't realise that the habits of smoking make it a bit more psychologically addictive than vaping.
      - notvplez 8y ago
        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.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
      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.
      - shermanyo 8y ago
- bspn 8y ago
  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.
  - neaden 8y ago
    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.
  - Domenic_S 8y ago
    > The concern [is] kids getting addicted to nicotine Non-snarky question: why is that a concern? Nicotine -- in the absence of burning tobacco -- isn't bad for you.
    - YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 8y ago
      I don't think it's quite that clear – however, I think it is considered clear that nicotine is nowhere near as harmful as tobacco smoke.
      - Domenic_S 8y ago
        We currently think that nicotine has a protective effect on the brain. Research is spotty but promising. Google “nicotine protects brain” to get started!
        YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 8y ago
        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.)
- berberous 8y ago
  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.
  - LyndsySimon 8y ago
    > 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.
    - babygoat 8y ago
      If I had a vaping problem, a "buttery" flavoring would probably make me sick enough to quit.
    - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
      > 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 https://nyti.ms/2h7ls4G. Interesting to see that it's being used as a vaping flavorant.
      - cctt23 8y ago
        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. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans#Diacetyl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans#Dia... I... I... need get to bed.
- overcast 8y ago
  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.
- draw_down 8y ago
  I don't think tobacco is involved with vaping, so I don't see why it would contribute to overall tobacco consumption rates. Unless there is some proven effect that people who vape smoke more or dip more, which I suppose could be the case.
- 013a 8y ago
  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.
  - LordKano 8y ago
    I get your point but as I understand it, the source of the nicotine for those liquids is tobacco.
    - 013a 8y ago
      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.
    - melq 8y ago
      To his point, the source of the caffeine in coke is coffee.
      - LordKano 8y ago
        The caffeine is coke is synthetic. Using synthetic caffeine is cheaper than extracting it from coffee. To the best of my knowledge, the only place where they still use caffeine from coffee is Japan.
        melq 8y ago
        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.
      - portofcall 8y ago
        Caffeine is cheaply synthesized, and that’s almost certainly what soda manufacturers use in their products.
- epmaybe 8y ago
  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. https://www.drugabuse.gov/funding/supplemental-information-nida-e-cig https://www.drugabuse.gov/funding/supplemental-information-n...
- jessriedel 8y ago
  > 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.
  - jgalt212 8y ago
    probably the #1 or #2 reason girls in my HS smoked (back in the dizay)
- jordan801 8y ago
  Vaping isn't tobacco, though.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  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
tabeth 8y ago
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.
- ebbv 8y ago
  The tobacco companies have bought into the vaping industry, along with a lot of random other corporations and small businesses. But there's certainly NO reason to vape other than "monkey see, monkey do."
  - moate 8y ago
    What broad reasons do teenagers have to vape exactly?
    - ebbv 8y ago
      Nothing other than what I said; "monkey see, monkey do." / peer pressure. Same as adults. It's just a really stupid fad.
- matt_wulfeck 8y ago
  Why is it arbitrary? They are vastly different mind-altering affects and chemical addiction levels.
  - tabeth 8y ago
    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] [1] http://www.csdp.org/research/1238.pdf http://www.csdp.org/research/1238.pdf
- kurthr 8y ago
  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.
truculation 8y ago
What should the vaping kids do instead of vaping?
- neaden 8y ago
  Preferably just breathe normal air? As in don't replace it with any other drug.
  - truculation 8y ago
    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?
    - neaden 8y ago
      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.
      - truculation 8y ago
        It's because you've never consumed it that you don't miss it.
        neaden 8y ago
        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.
aje403 8y ago
"Young hormonal teenagers seeking to rebel perform risky behavior with addictive substances" Maybe they should just sit in the chair and do what they're told instead
- rco8786 8y ago
  Assuming this is TIC?
- FrozenTuna 8y ago
  Too true. "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?
  - aje403 8y ago
    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.
- xena 8y ago
  Not everyone is gifted with long-term attention. Our society is helpfully breeding that quality out of us.
nradov 8y ago
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.
- swiley 8y ago
  (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.
- bungie4 8y ago
  Nicotine is a stimulant, not a depressant. Do you take Meth to 'even out'? Me, I just quit smoking entirely 3 years ago.
  - lemonberry 8y ago
    The biggest lie of cigarette smoking: that it relaxes you. When you're a nicotine addict and crave it you get anxious, nicotine fixes that.
    - Jare 8y ago
      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. That was one of the appeals of smoking.
      - lemonberry 8y ago
        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.
alecco 8y ago
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. Let's fix this recurring problem.
- knieveltech 8y ago
  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?
- moate 8y ago
  ...wut?
- portofcall 8y ago
  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. Edit now the third page. 8 min later, 4th page.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - alecco 8y ago
    And we got downvoted to hell. Yeah, this was by "fans" alone.
    - portofcall 8y ago
      Credit to the mods who brought it back to the front page though.
julienmarie 8y ago
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.
- verylittlemeat 8y ago
  I always find it interesting to remember that smoking tobacco was unknown in Europe until the colonization of the Americas.
mchannon 8y ago
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.
- ams6110 8y ago
  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.
  - danisth 8y ago
    My high school had an on property smoking area until around 2003. The east coast of Canada can be pretty backwards I guess..
  - pducks32 8y ago
    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.
- rconti 8y ago
  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.
Proven 8y ago
Haha, more alarmist nonsense. It’s always something - the meddling into people’s lives never stops.
ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
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.
- Zak 8y ago
  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.
- jogjayr 8y ago
  > 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.
- ben509 8y ago
  Why is it so important that our motivations be concern for future generations? We're people, too.
wonderflpancake 8y ago
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.
- xena 8y ago
  Ask your doctor, not us.
- surrogatekey 8y ago
  Well done you. 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.
bob1029 8y ago
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.
- troncjb 8y ago
  > 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?
qwerty456127 8y ago
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.
SnowingXIV 8y ago
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!).
013a 8y ago
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.
- mrob 8y ago
  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.
  - adrusi 8y ago
    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.
TheBeardKing 8y ago
>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. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/youth_data/tobacco_use/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/yout...
- extrememacaroni 8y ago
  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.
  - TheBeardKing 8y ago
    Obviously the rate increased, it's a fairly new device. Nintendo Switch must've went nuclear. Pokemon Go caused utter annihiliation.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
      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.
    - dajohnson89 8y ago
      switch and Pokemon can't be smoked inside a school
      - 8y ago
billfruit 8y ago
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.
- richsherwood 8y ago
  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.
- mrob 8y ago
  I'm not aware of any common vape that uses pure water as the carrier fluid. They typically use glycerol or propylene glycol, so it's not just "steam".
foreigner 8y ago
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?
- Eric_WVGG 8y ago
  Sure I mean a minimum age to buy cigarettes definitely kept teens off smoking for the past 50 years Sorry for the sarcasm, but, like, what?
  - foreigner 8y ago
    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.
    - Eric_WVGG 8y ago
      Thank you for the clarification. Amusing idea.
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philip1209 8y ago
> Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion I find this title confusing - I thought it meant that vapes were physically exploding.
- corobo 8y ago
  Yeah that is exactly why I clicked into the comments
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
Paid bullshit campaigns.
loeg 8y ago
> 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. [0]: https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2016/12/teen-substance-use-shows-promising-decline https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2016/12/...
thedirt0115 8y ago
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.
Rapzid 8y ago
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.
kevindong 8y ago
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.
- bottled_poe 8y ago
  > I never understood why anyone young would start smoking. Because nicotine feels good. It's really not that complicated.
- am_i_legal 8y ago
  not a smoker, but asked a lot of smokers on why they smoke. reasons: 1). exclusive social 'networks' - see smokers gathered during 'smoking breaks' 2). looks cool seriously, someone should make a e-cigarette that looks exactly like a cigar... ps: as for all those non-smokers, pretend to cough when someone is smoking on public space. tell them it looks shit when someone smokes.
- duxup 8y ago
  While I don't doubt that social aspects play a part. I wonder how much of it is some sort of self medicating with the nicotine.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "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.
  - bonesss 8y ago

137 points by Zeta_Function 8y ago

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.

lemonberry 8y ago
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.
- LordKano 8y ago
  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.
  - jfoutz 8y ago
    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.
    - ShabbosGoy 8y ago
      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.
      - jfoutz 8y ago
        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.
    - LordKano 8y ago
- reitanqild 8y ago
  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. (Note that these where young people.)
  - paulmd 8y ago
    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.
  - lemonberry 8y ago
    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.
    - corobo 8y ago
      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
      - miragle 8y ago
        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.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  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." https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/smoking/Pages/e-cigarettes.aspx https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/smoking/Pages/e-cigarettes.aspx
  - refurb 8y ago
    Wow. Hats off to the NHS. Is vaping harmless? Unlikely. Based on current understanding is it likely much less harmful than smoking tobacco? Yes.
    - Houshalter 8y ago
      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.
      - code_duck 8y ago
        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.
        Houshalter 8y ago
        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: https://samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/ https://samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/ >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. And Heart disease is associated with pollution from burning fossil fuels: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/MyHeartandStrokeNews/Air-Pollution-and-Heart-Disease-Stroke_UCM_442923_Article.jsp http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/MyHeartandStro...
- mathgeek 8y ago
  > 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.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  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 ..)
frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
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-abstract/2634377?redirect=true https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abst...
- notvplez 8y ago
  As someone who quit smoking thanks to vaping I cannot fathom why anyone would go the other direction. Why not just continue vaping instead?
  - DanBC 8y ago
    They enjoy the experience of nicotine, and don't realise that the habits of smoking make it a bit more psychologically addictive than vaping.
    - notvplez 8y ago
      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.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
    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.
    - shermanyo 8y ago
bspn 8y ago
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.
- neaden 8y ago
  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.
- Domenic_S 8y ago
  > The concern [is] kids getting addicted to nicotine Non-snarky question: why is that a concern? Nicotine -- in the absence of burning tobacco -- isn't bad for you.
  - YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 8y ago
    I don't think it's quite that clear – however, I think it is considered clear that nicotine is nowhere near as harmful as tobacco smoke.
    - Domenic_S 8y ago
      We currently think that nicotine has a protective effect on the brain. Research is spotty but promising. Google “nicotine protects brain” to get started!
      - YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 8y ago
        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.)
berberous 8y ago
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.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  > 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.
  - babygoat 8y ago
    If I had a vaping problem, a "buttery" flavoring would probably make me sick enough to quit.
  - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
    > 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 https://nyti.ms/2h7ls4G. Interesting to see that it's being used as a vaping flavorant.
    - cctt23 8y ago
      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. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans#Diacetyl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans#Dia... I... I... need get to bed.
overcast 8y ago
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.
draw_down 8y ago
I don't think tobacco is involved with vaping, so I don't see why it would contribute to overall tobacco consumption rates. Unless there is some proven effect that people who vape smoke more or dip more, which I suppose could be the case.
013a 8y ago
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.
- LordKano 8y ago
  I get your point but as I understand it, the source of the nicotine for those liquids is tobacco.
  - 013a 8y ago
    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.
  - melq 8y ago
    To his point, the source of the caffeine in coke is coffee.
    - LordKano 8y ago
      The caffeine is coke is synthetic. Using synthetic caffeine is cheaper than extracting it from coffee. To the best of my knowledge, the only place where they still use caffeine from coffee is Japan.
      - melq 8y ago
        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.
    - portofcall 8y ago
      Caffeine is cheaply synthesized, and that’s almost certainly what soda manufacturers use in their products.
epmaybe 8y ago
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. https://www.drugabuse.gov/funding/supplemental-information-nida-e-cig https://www.drugabuse.gov/funding/supplemental-information-n...
jessriedel 8y ago
> 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.
- jgalt212 8y ago
  probably the #1 or #2 reason girls in my HS smoked (back in the dizay)
jordan801 8y ago
Vaping isn't tobacco, though.
agumonkey 8y ago
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

tabeth 8y ago

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.

ebbv 8y ago
The tobacco companies have bought into the vaping industry, along with a lot of random other corporations and small businesses. But there's certainly NO reason to vape other than "monkey see, monkey do."
- moate 8y ago
  What broad reasons do teenagers have to vape exactly?
  - ebbv 8y ago
    Nothing other than what I said; "monkey see, monkey do." / peer pressure. Same as adults. It's just a really stupid fad.
matt_wulfeck 8y ago
Why is it arbitrary? They are vastly different mind-altering affects and chemical addiction levels.
- tabeth 8y ago
  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] [1] http://www.csdp.org/research/1238.pdf http://www.csdp.org/research/1238.pdf
kurthr 8y ago
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.

truculation 8y ago

What should the vaping kids do instead of vaping?

neaden 8y ago
Preferably just breathe normal air? As in don't replace it with any other drug.
- truculation 8y ago
  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?
  - neaden 8y ago
    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.
    - truculation 8y ago
      It's because you've never consumed it that you don't miss it.
      - neaden 8y ago
        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.

aje403 8y ago

"Young hormonal teenagers seeking to rebel perform risky behavior with addictive substances" Maybe they should just sit in the chair and do what they're told instead

rco8786 8y ago
Assuming this is TIC?
FrozenTuna 8y ago
Too true. "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?
- aje403 8y ago
  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.
xena 8y ago
Not everyone is gifted with long-term attention. Our society is helpfully breeding that quality out of us.

nradov 8y ago

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.

swiley 8y ago
(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.
bungie4 8y ago
Nicotine is a stimulant, not a depressant. Do you take Meth to 'even out'? Me, I just quit smoking entirely 3 years ago.
- lemonberry 8y ago
  The biggest lie of cigarette smoking: that it relaxes you. When you're a nicotine addict and crave it you get anxious, nicotine fixes that.
  - Jare 8y ago
    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. That was one of the appeals of smoking.
    - lemonberry 8y ago
      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.

alecco 8y ago

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. Let's fix this recurring problem.

knieveltech 8y ago
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?
moate 8y ago
...wut?
portofcall 8y ago
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. Edit now the third page. 8 min later, 4th page.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- alecco 8y ago
  And we got downvoted to hell. Yeah, this was by "fans" alone.
  - portofcall 8y ago
    Credit to the mods who brought it back to the front page though.

julienmarie 8y ago

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.

verylittlemeat 8y ago
I always find it interesting to remember that smoking tobacco was unknown in Europe until the colonization of the Americas.

mchannon 8y ago

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.

ams6110 8y ago
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.
- danisth 8y ago
  My high school had an on property smoking area until around 2003. The east coast of Canada can be pretty backwards I guess..
- pducks32 8y ago
  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.
rconti 8y ago
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.

Proven 8y ago

Haha, more alarmist nonsense. It’s always something - the meddling into people’s lives never stops.

ghostbrainalpha 8y ago

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.

Zak 8y ago
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.
jogjayr 8y ago
> 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.
ben509 8y ago
Why is it so important that our motivations be concern for future generations? We're people, too.

wonderflpancake 8y ago

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.

xena 8y ago
Ask your doctor, not us.
surrogatekey 8y ago
Well done you. 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.

bob1029 8y ago

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.

troncjb 8y ago
> 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?

qwerty456127 8y ago

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.

SnowingXIV 8y ago

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!).

013a 8y ago

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.

mrob 8y ago
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.
- adrusi 8y ago
  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.

TheBeardKing 8y ago

>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. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/youth_data/tobacco_use/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/yout...

extrememacaroni 8y ago
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.
- TheBeardKing 8y ago
  Obviously the rate increased, it's a fairly new device. Nintendo Switch must've went nuclear. Pokemon Go caused utter annihiliation.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
    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.
  - dajohnson89 8y ago
    switch and Pokemon can't be smoked inside a school
    - 8y ago

billfruit 8y ago

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.

richsherwood 8y ago
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.
mrob 8y ago
I'm not aware of any common vape that uses pure water as the carrier fluid. They typically use glycerol or propylene glycol, so it's not just "steam".

foreigner 8y ago

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?

Eric_WVGG 8y ago
Sure I mean a minimum age to buy cigarettes definitely kept teens off smoking for the past 50 years Sorry for the sarcasm, but, like, what?
- foreigner 8y ago
  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.
  - Eric_WVGG 8y ago
    Thank you for the clarification. Amusing idea.

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philip1209 8y ago

> Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion I find this title confusing - I thought it meant that vapes were physically exploding.

corobo 8y ago
Yeah that is exactly why I clicked into the comments

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

Paid bullshit campaigns.

loeg 8y ago

> 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. [0]: https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2016/12/teen-substance-use-shows-promising-decline https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2016/12/...

thedirt0115 8y ago

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.

Rapzid 8y ago

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.

kevindong 8y ago

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.

bottled_poe 8y ago
> I never understood why anyone young would start smoking. Because nicotine feels good. It's really not that complicated.
am_i_legal 8y ago
not a smoker, but asked a lot of smokers on why they smoke. reasons: 1). exclusive social 'networks' - see smokers gathered during 'smoking breaks' 2). looks cool seriously, someone should make a e-cigarette that looks exactly like a cigar... ps: as for all those non-smokers, pretend to cough when someone is smoking on public space. tell them it looks shit when someone smokes.
duxup 8y ago
While I don't doubt that social aspects play a part. I wonder how much of it is some sort of self medicating with the nicotine.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
"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.
- bonesss 8y ago