There seem to be a few people who have unfortunately believed the anti-vaping propaganda.
If you think that vapes are more harmful than smoking in any way, this is for you. I’ve been following the actual science on this for almost 15 years and have peer reviewed the studies.
Every single study in the US that produced negative results either had methodologies designed to only produce negative results, or the negative results were orders of magnitude lower than OSHA levels, or even lower than atmospheric levels.
The only things the anti-vaping campaigns can rely on is bad science and purposefully misrepresenting study results. Well, that and the “think of the children” bullshit.
There’s also a belief that nicotine is highly addictive and very harmful. This is incorrect. Nicotine on its own is actually less physically addictive than caffeine (shorter withdrawal period), and actually has heath benefits.
Now, to the “think of the children” bullshit. For one, children can’t legally purchase nicotine in most countries. If you want to say the flavors attract children, then we need to ban any sort of flavored alcohol. Also, children can buy as many energy drinks as they want, which are actually harmful to them.
The real reason that vaping is being demonized is because the state governments are losing tobacco tax revenue faster than they planned, and they’ve already budgeted the money they expected to get. But, instead of imposing a reasonable tax to fill the gap, they tried to make a 30ml bottle of eliquid (normally ~$10-20) cost upwards of $100.
Don’t bother asking for sources, because I won’t Google for you. I am educated on the topic, and this isn’t a formal debate.
Don’t strawman the argument to “vapes are worse than smoking” - vaping is actually dramatically less harmful than smoking. If you have a nicotine addiction it’s quite beneficial to switch to vaping.
BUT both of them are quite harmful to you and vapes were popularized with candy-like flavors that attracted young adults in droves… and continuously use deceptive marketing to play down health effects. Tobacco is a product you shouldn’t use every day in any form, full stop.
If this is a medical device for ending addiction, do we really need to have fruit/candy flavors lining the shelf in colorful bottles with cartoon mascots?
People weren’t smoking fruit/candy cigarettes. Those were banned and nowadays only barely exist. No reason to have vape flavors beyond cigarette flavors, if they are a medical tool.
Just looking at vape products on a store shelf is proof that the producers do NOT think about their product as a medical device. That entire argument, that it is primarily a tool for breaking a smoking habit, should be categorically dismissed. If it were a BTC or prescription-only product for breaking a smoking habit, no reasonable person would have negative opinions about it.
The reality is, vaping’s primary purpose is as a drug. An addictive drug that makes the user feel good to use and has certain provable short- and long-term side-effects.
I think people should be able to buy and use drugs. But only with informed consent. So long as the information is so poor around vaping, the consent isn’t informed and we need regulations. And if this is a drug, it should be getting sold in an appropriate dispensary by trained, knowledgeable staff and not from corner stores, bodegas, and sketchy website that don’t even properly screen out teen buyers.
Oh give over. Nice flavors are one of the things that get people off of cigarettes. If it stank of tobacco one of the big benefits for switching (not stinking all the time) would be gone. Adults like fruits too.
I agree the advertising needs to be cut back to a similar level as cigarettes. Plain white boxes with brand and flavors for example. But to outright ban flavors is a knee jerk reaction that sounds good but would cause more harm than good. I don’t think it needs to be licensed dispensaries either. Vaping is way less harmful than alcohol yet we sell that in corner shops.
Cutting down on selling to kids needs to be done for sure. How exactly that can be done effectively is tricky. It was very illegal to buy cigarettes when I was at school yet hundreds of kids managed to pull it off anyway. Short of requiring ID at point of sale and unique barcodes to identify which products were sold to whom by whom I reckon kids will find a way to get alcohol, drugs, vapes, and all the other shit we wish they didn’t have.
Putting in measures that mean fewer adults switch is guaranteed to lead to more deaths from smoking related illnesses. Harm reduction should be at the core of any policies around smoking and vaping. We don’t want to lose the gains we’ve made in cutting down on tobacco use because of some moral panic about strawberry flavours.
You’ve applied an argument I didn’t make to what I said.
If these are medical devices used to ween off cigarettes, they don’t need to be flavored. The alternative is cigarettes. People aren’t grabbing the next cigarette because they love the strawberry daiquiri flavor. The fact that they are basically all flavored is proof that anti-addiction is not their primary purpose.
I didn’t say they shouldn’t be flavored. I said the flavors are proof of what they are.
Harm reduction should be at the core of any policies around smoking and vaping
What if the outcome of that analysis is that the people being brought off cigarettes are not being outweighed by the people being brought into vaping? That vapes should be prescription medical devices for people who need them and not OTC feelgood drugs? Would you still make the same argument that harm reduction is foremost? I have a feeling you won’t.
There’s a perfectly coherent argument that tobacco trends were heading towards extinction until vaping reignited things. All the trends were heading that way. It was largely dying out as a habit among young people. Vaping completely changed that. It’s now a growing sector that has the potential to last for a long time and damage a lot of people. And we are still only in the early days of seeing how harmful it is – but just like with cigarettes, there’s a huge apparatus pushing out an information campaign that they’re Good Actually and Not Unsafe At All ™.
I don’t think you and I really disagree on any particular policy prescriptions here. I bet we want the same things, and want the same level of honesty brought to the debate. I just think we need to be very clear that the “vapes as useful medical devices” argument does not justify the “vapes being sold abso-fucking-lutely everywhere” result we’re currently getting. They are not popular because they are medical devices. Their usefulness as medical devices isn’t a significant part of the business model.
That’s disingenuous. Vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking. To say that the level of harm is anywhere close is a straight up lie.
It’s also not a tobacco product. You wouldn’t call green tea a coffee product because coffee has caffeine in it. There are absolutely companies extracting nicotine from other sources or synthesizing it.
95% less harmful than pretty much the worst habit you can have for your long-term health is still pretty damn harmful, even granting the ass-pull number. And worse, most vape users go around preaching how harmless it is when it is factually and provably harmful, meaning tons of users (especially among teens/youths) aren’t even AWARE the addictive substance they are using is going to damage their long-term health.
Vape juice was always a small business thing until the FDA started fucking with small shops. Now, instead of having someone local mix it, I have to buy mass produced juice off the shelf and my locally owned vape shop has one or two less employees in the store. Or people buy disposables to get the flavor they want.
Fucking small, local business in favor of big corps… how progressive.
There’s also a belief that nicotine is highly addictive and very harmful. This is incorrect. Nicotine on its own is actually less physically addictive than caffeine (shorter withdrawal period), and actually has heath benefits.
Bullshit. Quitting caffeine (multiple caffeinated drinks a day) was far, far easier than quitting cigarettes (a pack and a half a day).
There seem to be a few people who have unfortunately believed the anti-vaping propaganda.
If you think that vapes are more harmful than smoking in any way, this is for you. I’ve been following the actual science on this for almost 15 years and have peer reviewed the studies.
Every single study in the US that produced negative results either had methodologies designed to only produce negative results, or the negative results were orders of magnitude lower than OSHA levels, or even lower than atmospheric levels.
The only things the anti-vaping campaigns can rely on is bad science and purposefully misrepresenting study results. Well, that and the “think of the children” bullshit.
There’s also a belief that nicotine is highly addictive and very harmful. This is incorrect. Nicotine on its own is actually less physically addictive than caffeine (shorter withdrawal period), and actually has heath benefits.
Now, to the “think of the children” bullshit. For one, children can’t legally purchase nicotine in most countries. If you want to say the flavors attract children, then we need to ban any sort of flavored alcohol. Also, children can buy as many energy drinks as they want, which are actually harmful to them.
The real reason that vaping is being demonized is because the state governments are losing tobacco tax revenue faster than they planned, and they’ve already budgeted the money they expected to get. But, instead of imposing a reasonable tax to fill the gap, they tried to make a 30ml bottle of eliquid (normally ~$10-20) cost upwards of $100.
Don’t bother asking for sources, because I won’t Google for you. I am educated on the topic, and this isn’t a formal debate.
I will answer any questions you may have, though.
Don’t strawman the argument to “vapes are worse than smoking” - vaping is actually dramatically less harmful than smoking. If you have a nicotine addiction it’s quite beneficial to switch to vaping.
BUT both of them are quite harmful to you and vapes were popularized with candy-like flavors that attracted young adults in droves… and continuously use deceptive marketing to play down health effects. Tobacco is a product you shouldn’t use every day in any form, full stop.
Yeah we need to find a way to get current smokers onto vapes if they can’t quit, but prevent any new people from gaining nicotine addictions.
In terms of harm reduction they are wonderful! But they are more harmful than not inhaling any smoke or vapour.
If this is a medical device for ending addiction, do we really need to have fruit/candy flavors lining the shelf in colorful bottles with cartoon mascots?
People weren’t smoking fruit/candy cigarettes. Those were banned and nowadays only barely exist. No reason to have vape flavors beyond cigarette flavors, if they are a medical tool.
Just looking at vape products on a store shelf is proof that the producers do NOT think about their product as a medical device. That entire argument, that it is primarily a tool for breaking a smoking habit, should be categorically dismissed. If it were a BTC or prescription-only product for breaking a smoking habit, no reasonable person would have negative opinions about it.
The reality is, vaping’s primary purpose is as a drug. An addictive drug that makes the user feel good to use and has certain provable short- and long-term side-effects.
I think people should be able to buy and use drugs. But only with informed consent. So long as the information is so poor around vaping, the consent isn’t informed and we need regulations. And if this is a drug, it should be getting sold in an appropriate dispensary by trained, knowledgeable staff and not from corner stores, bodegas, and sketchy website that don’t even properly screen out teen buyers.
Oh give over. Nice flavors are one of the things that get people off of cigarettes. If it stank of tobacco one of the big benefits for switching (not stinking all the time) would be gone. Adults like fruits too.
I agree the advertising needs to be cut back to a similar level as cigarettes. Plain white boxes with brand and flavors for example. But to outright ban flavors is a knee jerk reaction that sounds good but would cause more harm than good. I don’t think it needs to be licensed dispensaries either. Vaping is way less harmful than alcohol yet we sell that in corner shops.
Cutting down on selling to kids needs to be done for sure. How exactly that can be done effectively is tricky. It was very illegal to buy cigarettes when I was at school yet hundreds of kids managed to pull it off anyway. Short of requiring ID at point of sale and unique barcodes to identify which products were sold to whom by whom I reckon kids will find a way to get alcohol, drugs, vapes, and all the other shit we wish they didn’t have.
Putting in measures that mean fewer adults switch is guaranteed to lead to more deaths from smoking related illnesses. Harm reduction should be at the core of any policies around smoking and vaping. We don’t want to lose the gains we’ve made in cutting down on tobacco use because of some moral panic about strawberry flavours.
You’ve applied an argument I didn’t make to what I said.
If these are medical devices used to ween off cigarettes, they don’t need to be flavored. The alternative is cigarettes. People aren’t grabbing the next cigarette because they love the strawberry daiquiri flavor. The fact that they are basically all flavored is proof that anti-addiction is not their primary purpose.
I didn’t say they shouldn’t be flavored. I said the flavors are proof of what they are.
What if the outcome of that analysis is that the people being brought off cigarettes are not being outweighed by the people being brought into vaping? That vapes should be prescription medical devices for people who need them and not OTC feelgood drugs? Would you still make the same argument that harm reduction is foremost? I have a feeling you won’t.
There’s a perfectly coherent argument that tobacco trends were heading towards extinction until vaping reignited things. All the trends were heading that way. It was largely dying out as a habit among young people. Vaping completely changed that. It’s now a growing sector that has the potential to last for a long time and damage a lot of people. And we are still only in the early days of seeing how harmful it is – but just like with cigarettes, there’s a huge apparatus pushing out an information campaign that they’re Good Actually and Not Unsafe At All ™.
I don’t think you and I really disagree on any particular policy prescriptions here. I bet we want the same things, and want the same level of honesty brought to the debate. I just think we need to be very clear that the “vapes as useful medical devices” argument does not justify the “vapes being sold abso-fucking-lutely everywhere” result we’re currently getting. They are not popular because they are medical devices. Their usefulness as medical devices isn’t a significant part of the business model.
That’s disingenuous. Vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking. To say that the level of harm is anywhere close is a straight up lie.
It’s also not a tobacco product. You wouldn’t call green tea a coffee product because coffee has caffeine in it. There are absolutely companies extracting nicotine from other sources or synthesizing it.
So vaping is +5% worse for your health than if you didn’t do it. If this were a food additive, people would rightfully be losing their minds.
95% less harmful than pretty much the worst habit you can have for your long-term health is still pretty damn harmful, even granting the ass-pull number. And worse, most vape users go around preaching how harmless it is when it is factually and provably harmful, meaning tons of users (especially among teens/youths) aren’t even AWARE the addictive substance they are using is going to damage their long-term health.
The 95% number is from the NHS, not my ass
Please… keep beating the drum for vapes. It’s not any problem in any way right? Uh huh.
Vapes, chargers, and other ‘invisible’ e-waste are a 9-million-ton problem
Waste is a whole other argument than health. Different types of vapes perform very differently.
My refillable definitely produces less waste than regular smoking.
Single use vapes should be banned or much less accessible than refillables.
Or sent to me so I can harvest the batteries.
Blame the FDA for killing open systems that are actually reusable.
Pass blame? Got it. Very progressive. Not holding corporations responsible for their pollution and greed. Cool cool. Capitalism amiright 🥴
Vape juice was always a small business thing until the FDA started fucking with small shops. Now, instead of having someone local mix it, I have to buy mass produced juice off the shelf and my locally owned vape shop has one or two less employees in the store. Or people buy disposables to get the flavor they want.
Fucking small, local business in favor of big corps… how progressive.
Yea, Juul was really just a mom-n-pop shop. Shop local and save America’s main street and small businesses like Juul!
Bruh I’ve been vaping for 15 years off and on. Used to buy sketchy shit straight from china.
Bullshit. Quitting caffeine (multiple caffeinated drinks a day) was far, far easier than quitting cigarettes (a pack and a half a day).
Re-read the paragraph you just quoted. I clearly specified that the statement was about nicotine only, not cigarettes.
Cigarette smoke contains over 9000 chemicals besides nicotine, some of which are added specifically to increase the addictive properties.
I also said physically addictive, not mentally addictive.