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Good. These e-cigarettes are the worse thing to happen to health in a long time. Just as smoking rates started to decline, out come vapor cigarettes which are i

• Zikes 11y ago
  It's all pretty ludicrous even on the surface. A lot of vaping proponents try to argue the relative safety of water vapor to smoke, but in the end it's still just a delivery method for various chemicals including nicotine. Not to mention the vapor is just as obnoxious as smoke.
  • sneak 11y ago
    It's not water vapor, it's glycerin and propylene glycol, primarily. You'd be right, except that the vapor condenses in seconds and the effect on others nearby is below the threshold of measurement, whereas secondhand smoke lingers for minutes or hours and is extremely measurably harmful to anyone in proximity of a smoker. Nicotine itself isn't that harmful.
    • Zikes 11y ago
      Nicotine is basically a synonym for addictive.
      • tptacek 11y ago
        Ever had a week of migraines from quitting coffee?
        • Zikes 11y ago
          Can't say I have, no.
          • tptacek 11y ago
            Caffeine is very addictive. Should we regulate it too?
            • Zikes 11y ago
              When people start selling caffeine patches and joining support groups to quit drinking coffee, maybe we can visit that topic.
              • tptacek 11y ago
                First, lots of people do have very real problems quitting caffeine. Second: the support groups and meds for quitting smoking are there because smoking actual cigarettes is harmful. Take the burning cigarette away and you're not very far from the situation we're in with caffeine.
                • Zikes 11y ago
                  "Caffeine addiction, or a pathological and compulsive form of use, has never been documented in humans." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine_dependence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine_dependence
              • sophacles 11y ago
                They sell caffeine pills, and: * http://caffeine.supportgroups.com/ http://caffeine.supportgroups.com/ * http://articles.latimes.com/1995-02-06/news/ls-28802_1_coffee-people http://articles.latimes.com/1995-02-06/news/ls-28802_1_coffe... * http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/caffeineaddicts http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/caffeineaddicts
              • rDent 11y ago
                Excellent, here's a support group http://caffeine.supportgroups.com/ http://caffeine.supportgroups.com/ and here's some caffeine patches http://www.caffeineinformer.com/spot-on-energy-the-caffeine-addicts-patch http://www.caffeineinformer.com/spot-on-energy-the-caffeine-... Personally, I'm all for anything that reasonably reduces risk and improves health care outcomes.
      • trhway 11y ago
        > Nicotine is basically a synonym for addictive. the same is for caffeine, addiction hits at very low level of consumption : http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/research/BPRU/docs/Caffeine_Dependence_Fact_Sheet.pdf http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/research/BPRU/docs... Now imagine if every cup of your coffee came with a spoon of asbestos mixed with cadmium and radon powder. The problem with nicotine and its addiction isn't the nicotine or the addiction itself - they are basically harmless, like coffee. The problem is that typical nicotine delivery method - tobacco cigarette - causes people to inhale whole slew of carcinogenic chemicals. The vaping eliminates all those bad factors thus converting a very harmful habit into a habit of mild relaxation (basically the only effect of low levels of nicotine). The best one thing a government can do right now to improve health of the nation (and decrease Medicare expenses) in near future is to give away the e-cigs everywhere where tobacco is sold. To the Wikipedia link in the comment below - with all the respect to Wikipedia, my link above is from John Hopkins.
        • Zikes 11y ago
          "Caffeine addiction, or a pathological and compulsive form of use, has never been documented in humans." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine_dependence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine_dependence
          • sophacles 11y ago
            There are big problems with addiction studies in general - in this case because needing a cup of coffee to start your day is considered just fine, whereas needing a drink to start your day is considered pathological. Being grumpy because of lack of coffee is generally understood and sympathized with. Being grumpy because you haven't had a bump today is considered a cocaine problem and compulsive behavior. There is so much socialization and stigma around various substances, that terms like compulsive and pathological are hard to use objectively.
            • Zikes 11y ago
              Starting your day with bacon & eggs is just fine, too, unless you ask the vegans.
    • esaym 11y ago
      Propylene glycol? That doesn't sound good: https://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/19870.htm https://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/19870.htm >"Skin: In case of contact, flush skin with plenty of water." >"Inhalation: If inhaled, remove to fresh air. If not breathing, give artificial respiration." I remember in the mid-1990's, there were many articles pointing the finger at propylene glycol in personal care products for increasing cancer rates. Even to this day I use Thai salt for deodorant as I don't want to be slathering propylene glycol all over me. I quick google search for 'propylene glycol' doesn't turn up too much for health risks. But still, I don't want the stuff touching, and I wouldn't want it in my lungs either.... Edit: and to the down voters, I am not anti-vape or anti tobacco. I think both are pretty cool. But as a neat freak, I don't want all my stuff smelling like smoke. And as a health conscious person, I don't want my last days on this earth ending with me on a hospital bed gasping for air from a failed respiratory system.
      • sophacles 11y ago
        Just a warning: if you go tonight clubs, concerts or haunted houses - basically anywhere that uses a fog machine - it's literally the same stuff.
      • rory096 11y ago
        Why did you quote the generic 'first aid measures' section? The 'health effects' section is far less alarming: >Skin: May be absorbed through damaged or abraded skin in harmful amounts. Allergic reactions have been reported. A single prolonged skin exposure is not likely to result in the material being absorbed in harmful amounts. Prolonged contact is essentially non-irritating to skin. Repeated exposures may cause problems. Negative results have consistently been obtained in guinea pigs studies for sensitization. 1,2-Propylene glycol is not considered an occupational skin sensitizer. (CHEMINFO) >Inhalation: Low hazard for usual industrial handling. Inhalation of a mist of this material may cause respiratory tract irritation. Material has a low vapor pressure at room temperature, so exposure to vapor is not likely.
        • esaym 11y ago
          To each their own I guess. Those sound even worse personally. "Inhalation: Low hazard for usual industrial handling." <- Industrial handling probably doesn't include smoking it....
  • trhway 11y ago
    >. A lot of vaping proponents try to argue the relative safety of water vapor to smoke, but in the end it's still just a delivery method for various chemicals including nicotine. and so the coffee for caffeine >Not to mention the vapor is just as obnoxious as smoke. and so the vapor from your hot coffee.
• sneak 11y ago
  Bullshit. Vaping is tremendously less harmful than smoking, both to the user themselves, and more importantly to the people around them that are not being subjected to secondhand smoke. Vapor condenses very quickly, and the secondhand effects are below the threshold of measurement. This is a marked difference from smoking. I'm getting the impression you haven't done any research about this, though, and are just ranting. PS: Smoking kills 50% of its users. What percentage of vapers have had their equipment blow up in their face? (Hint: it's not 1%.)
• tptacek 11y ago
  Did you really just suggest that the risk of an e-cigarette exploding is comparable to the risk of heart disease, emphysema, and cancer from smoking actual cigarettes?
  • Zikes 11y ago
    Whereas elsewhere in this thread you suggest the addiction dangers of caffeine from coffee is comparable to the addictiveness of nicotine?
    • tptacek 11y ago
      I feel comfortable with that comparison, yes. Neither nicotine nor caffeine are carcinogenic. Both are CVD risks in the quantities consumed by addicts; nicotine probably more so, but caffeine has other bad effects on GI health. Downthread, you suggested you were unfamiliar with the notion of having a week of migraines from quitting coffee. I think what's happening here is that you're not very familiar with the downsides of serious coffee/caffeine habits, and that's why the comparison seems silly to you. I don't think it's a silly comparison.
      • Zikes 11y ago
        I'm aware that caffeine can be psychologically addictive (just as anything habitual can be) and that there are physical withdrawal symptoms for some heavy users, but those symptoms last only around a week. Ultimately, anybody can choose to stop drinking coffee at any time. I know people who have tried to make that choice with nicotine and failed repeatedly.
        • dsp1234 11y ago
          Ultimately, anybody can choose to stop drinking coffee at any time. I've seriously attempted to quit intake of caffeine about 6-8 times over the last 2 decades. In each case, I was able to temporarily quit, with withdrawal symptoms being more in the 2-4 week range. However, in each case, a small amount of caffeine at a casual event lead to intake of "normal" (for me) amounts of caffeine immediately. I would love to quit it (as I understand it's health consequences). As a reference, I would say that I would be in the "heavy users" category with a daily intake of about 750-1000mg.
• theophrastus 11y ago
  Here's my experienced-based concern about vaping. I've spent a lot of time in a medicinal/organic chemistry synthesis labs. During which I have often been around synthetic set-ups involving drawing smaller organic compounds over heated metal, (sometimes specifically catalytic), elements in order to render them reactive for the next synthetic step. Oftentimes the assumption is that an intermediate free-radical is thereby generated. Vaping juice has a variety of (poorly regulated) smaller organic solvent and flavor-ant compounds in it, which are drawn over a heated metal element. Free radicals are often implicated as carcinogenic. Of course, i have no clinical data; but you can at least see where my concern comes from.
  • sophacles 11y ago
    Most of the flavorings in vaping juice are just the stuff that's added to food for the same flavors. In fact, most of it is sold to be used in food products. Some exotic flavors differ, but mostly its just food flavorings. So how does this differ from using flavored oils in a cooking pan?
    • theophrastus 11y ago
      How does it differ? Well, for one thing you're not specifically repeatedly drawing the vapor from your cooking pan into your lungs; one hopes. For another the oil itself is not generally consumed but left behind after the cooking is done. Or so I gather, i'm no cook, but if oil cooking is done correctly hardly any of the oil remains on the food. Then there are some notable differences between a bit of food which is able to boil off its water content (keeping its own mass from getting to any ionization point) versus a tiny air-borne droplet of glycol or whatever. Anyway, i'd tend to wait at least a decade or so before the research was in. Just think how many years of tobacco smoking was going on before publicly declared a health hazard.
• ggreer 11y ago
  I dislike smoking and e-cigs, but by any accounting, e-cigs greatly benefit public health. Vaping is far less harmful than smoking tobacco, and around 70% of vapers are former smokers. When you plug in reasonable numbers for smoking vs vaping deaths[1]: > ...if a public e-cigarette ban reduces the number of smokers who switch to e-cigarettes by 2%, you’ve just killed an extra 9000 people per year... So if anything, e-cigs should be subsidized, not banned. 1. http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/28/thank-you-for-doing-something-ambiguously-between-smoking-and-not-smoking/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/28/thank-you-for-doing-som...
• m_c 11y ago
  Actually they are massively safer than tobacco cigarettes - around 95% less harmful[0]. At the moment there is no evidence that they act as a stepping stone to cigarettes (and some indication that they don't). So converting smokers to vapers could do a lot to reduce the huge harm done by tobacco. I agree I'd rather not sit next to someone using one on a train but I'd also rather not sit next to someone eating strong smelling food. [0] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/e-cigarettes-an-evidence-update https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/e-cigarettes-an-e...
  • dogma1138 11y ago
    As some one who uses an eCig I wouldn't put much faith into the claims of X% less harmful because we don't know yet. There's just too much crap going on as the scene exploded in the past 2 years I know some people that spend more time engineering their "coils" than what JPL spends on designing mars rovers and vape at with devices that look like a battery pack of a T1000 at like 150W. No one can estimate the current effects of the oily residue in the lungs, the interactions with the flavoring, and other components, as well as the effects of in taking heated vapor, possible metal deposition and what ever wicking media is uses (silicon, cotton, other fibers). Although it appears to be safer because you don't intake tar and the 100000's compounds in a cigarette it could end up being just as much of a health risk for a plethora of other reasons. So it will probably take several decades until we can begin to asses the actual health impact, and considering how many variations of possible variables (liquid base, nicotine level, nicotine source, flavor base, flavor components, wattage, coil type, wick material etc.) are there it might not be a clear cut case either. And I also hate people that "vape" in confined spaces such as trains, luckily in the UK most places put on signs that do not allow you to vape anymore, I've been seeing people do that in the movies and that's probably the most annoying thing to see as the clouds of smoke constantly catch the light from the projector. Vaping should be treated as smoking as far as other people go if you are with some one that would not want you to smoke near them do not vape near them, having separate vaping areas might come in the future but I don't expect to see that anytime soon, sadly the place that is affected the most is the airport, especially those with the "phone booth" style smoke areas which I couldn't stand to enter even when I was smoking.
• rcurry 11y ago
  I see the spirit of Andrew Volstead is still alive and well after all these years. Frankly, I don't care what people smoke, or how they choose to smoke it. I also don't care what they choose to read, or what they choose to drink.
• splawn 11y ago
  I vaped for over a year starting last summer. Over that year I was able to gradually decrease the amount of nicotine in my juice. A few months back I switched to nicotine free juice (Which oddly enough, is exactly the same thing as a fog machine..which I don't really see anyone complaining about.) Anyways I haven't vaped for a month now.. and don't really feel the need to. Bottom line is vaping allowed me to quit smoking and it only cost me half my face. Of course I am just kidding about the half a face thing.... "exploding in peoples faces" ,LOL!! ...let's ban swimming because of shark attacks!