8 ms·

In synthetic organic labs we often pass relatively small compounds (very much like the favorants in vape juice) over heated elements in order to generate interm

In synthetic organic labs we often pass relatively small compounds (very much like the favorants in vape juice) over heated elements in order to generate intermediate "activated"/free-radical compounds for the next step of a complicated reaction sequence. So no organic chemist i know is a bit surprised that vaping exposes the user's lungs directly to significant levels of toxic compounds like diacetyl. And they are often heard to wonder out loud: "Why has the FDA not stepped in to regulate these? I wouldn't let any of my family do this!"

virmundi 11y ago
What regulations should they put on this? A warning like, Breathing in stuff not air is bad for you? Should they ban adults from making up their own mind? I'm fine with the former. I despise the later.
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  Well I mean, there's a threshold - it's not OK to sell an arsenic laced Apple just because it has a warning on it.
  - jMyles 11y ago
    In theory - why not?
    - logicallee 11y ago
      And why require the label, right? The free market means that companies that sell arsenic-laced apples will lose market share as people stop buying from them /s
      - jMyles 11y ago
        I don't understand exactly - are you mocking me? I think most people who have this sort of free-market disposition are moderate enough to think that labeling an arsenic apple is reasonable.
        logicallee 11y ago
        Of course I'm mocking you. You just said "In theory - why not?" to "it's not OK to sell an arsenic laced Apple just because it has a warning on it." You cannot be serious.
        jMyles 11y ago
        Of course I can. If it's labeled, why not? Maybe somebody wants an arsenic apple; I don't know. I don't judge people that way. Moreover, and far more importantly, it seems evident that, once government starts making these sorts of decisions, it quickly makes them only for its own interests.
        logicallee 11y ago
        what are the government's "own interests"? why do you think they are currently okay with me going to a grocery store and buying some chips with 200% of my recommended sodium intake, but not some chips with a warning that it might contain arsenic and not to eat it under any circumstances, then I eat it and then I die? do you seriously think the latter would be OK if, say, it makes the company more than it loses in sales? that the free market will just 'sort it out'? and if you think that, then why wouldn't you think it would magically solve the labelling problem? (no labelling required, since consumers would just boycott companies that aren't in the habit of properly labeling its lead-, mercury- and arsenic-laced potato chips)... I'm not asking tricky questions here, your position is like saying the Earth is flat. I mean, due to the example we're using, apple with arsenic in them but labelled with this information, it's like a very extreme position. Normally it would be a straw man - nobody would seriously suggest that this is okay.
        jMyles 11y ago
        I was going to put some thought into a response, but I read your reply again and it's just too full of vitriol and angst for me to know where to begin. Comparing a reasonably widely-held, studied, and written-about economic model to the flat earth society? You give me nothing to go on here. Perhaps you're young and haven't read much yet - I don't know. I suggest a history of economics course in college. As for your very first question: the government's interests aren't terribly hard to identify, especially in the case of the USA, where the government is a hegemonic empire. It seeks to enrich its corporate sponsors, expand its capacity to exact violence against its detractors, and find equilibrium in its body politic via panem et circenses. It's reasonably transparent I think. As for your slippery slope bit about being able to sell unlabeled arsenic: I like what works. The current system clearly isn't working for most people for most purposes. My understanding is that drug overdoses were at record lows during the period after the Pure Food and Drug Act but before drug prohibition. I take this, and other data like it, as evidence that this configuration is a decent balance.
    - anigbrowl 11y ago
      Because there's an implicit assumption that anything offered for sale to the public without restrictions is of merchantable quality. Arsenic-laced apples don't serve a useful purpose whose benefit is sufficient to offset the cost of being poisonous, unlike cleaning materials that may nevertheless be toxic if misused or other potentially dangerous merchandise.
      - jMyles 11y ago
        > there's an implicit assumption that anything offered for sale to the public without restrictions is of merchantable quality You gloss over this as if it weren't kind of a huge deal. This assumption is breaking a lot of systems in society.
        anigbrowl 11y ago
        So you claim, but it is the sort of thing people would like to be able to rely on and the sort of task they opt to delegate to government. It's nice to fantasize about a libertarian society where markets are unrestricted and consumers have total freedom to buy and sell whatever, but in practice it ends up with people dying because they unknowingly bought shitty products, and demands for effective regulation to ensure some quality control. You can see that happening in china right now with increasing demands for accountability to do with quality-of-life issues rather than just maximizing economic growth. If you think this assumption leads to bad outcomes, pick up a tort law book and read the details of historical cases from when an 'anything goes' mentality was predominant.
        jMyles 11y ago
        > If you think this assumption leads to bad outcomes, pick up a tort law book and read the details of historical cases from when an 'anything goes' mentality was predominant. I studied this to a non-trivial degree in college during undergrad, though of course not on the level of graduate economic theory or anything. My understanding is that the major markers (such as drug overdose) were at record lows following the Pure Food and Drug Act, a relatively non-intrusive measure that required labeling and some rudimentary testing and inspection, but preceding the FDA and drug prohibition and all the rest. This seems to comport with the world I watch around me. Am I wrong about this?
- Steko 11y ago
  First not all things are equally bad for you and if something is more dangerous than people realize, labels are one way of informing them. Second, the reason smoking is increasingly banned everywhere is not because we don't allow adults to make up their own mind about smoking but because of the effects on people who decide not to smoke.
  - virmundi 11y ago
    I agree with both. I'm fine with labeling and public restrictions on superficial life additives. I greatly enjoyed Indianapolis' restrictions on smoking in restaurants. I don't like restrictions on what a person chooses to do in their own home. I don't want to see a ban like pot or other drugs on vaping. I laugh at vapors, but as long as they are free to do so, I can sleep a little better.
    - calgoo 11y ago
      I agree, however vaping has been "presented" as a safer alternative to smoking. So if some companies are adding chemicals that are known to be this bad, that needs to be presented, and the BS text on the packaging does nothing. I'm a smoker, i know its bad, but seeing a text that says that "smoking is bad, m'Ok" will not stop me from smoking. I will make that decision when I choose too. I would prefer it if the companies where regulated on what chemicals they could add to the liquid.
- marshray 11y ago
  There was evidence that tobacco companies were carefully controlling the amount of nicotine in cigarettes and so the FDA argued cigarettes were a drug delivery system and should be regulated as such. The FDA openly proposes to regulate e-cigarettes and "certain dissolvables that are not 'smokeless tobacco'" http://www.fda.gov/TobaccoProducts/Labeling/ucm388395.htm http://www.fda.gov/TobaccoProducts/Labeling/ucm388395.htm Curiously the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_tobacco_by_the_U.S._Food_and_Drug_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_tobacco_by_the_U... makes no mention of the term "drug delivery system".
- smacktoward 11y ago
  > What regulations should they put on this? A warning like, Breathing in stuff not air is bad for you? We're not talking here about chemicals in general, we're talking about a specific chemical, diacetyl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacetyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacetyl). And we know long-term exposure via inhalation to that chemical can cause life-threatening respiratory conditions, such as the "popcorn lung" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans) that workers who made microwave popcorn toppings that included diacetyl came down with from inhaling it in their workplaces. Do you seriously think the presence in a product intended to be inhaled repetitively over long periods of such a chemical does not warrant, at minimum, some kind of warning? > Should they ban adults from making up their own mind? How many adults, when presented with the word "diacetyl" in tiny print on a product's label, do you think are sufficiently educated to be able to accurately judge the risks of inhaling that product? Are we really supposed to take a "do your homework, good luck!" approach to products that, when used as the maker intends, will expose the user to significant health risks?
  - virmundi 11y ago
    I think they should put the tiny print on the contents. Let the community decide. That seems to have worked with tabacco. I want an informed, even evangelical society when it comes to comsumption. I want people to be allowed to choose how they live their life, at least privately. If you can be a functioning meth-head, do so. If you can't, die without harming others on your way out. I know that is a harsh view, but look at the alternative: the present system. We incarcerate individuals for safely smoking a meriad of drugs in the backyard, apartment or stoop. We spend, speaking as an American, $60-80k a year to confine these people. Even if one makes the argument that drugs keep people on welfare, welfare is far cheaper and freer, in the rights sense. So too this drug. Label it, warn, perhaps even tax, but don't let it be an excuse to prevent vaping. States, in my opinion, are itching for a reason to block this new product. Stop them now. Otherwise how can we innovate to an alternative for tabacco?
    - reddytowns 11y ago
      > I think they should put the tiny print on the contents. Let the community decide. That seems to have worked with tabacco. Right.... because the heaps of information that gets dumped on you whenever you receive a prescription drug or go in to surgery is oh so helpful. You are basically advocating for an expansion of this. If a vaporize contains 100 different chemicals, and all of them come along with pages of information, the user won't be able to grok it all and realize that one of them is probably going to seriously screw them in a few years. I don't know what you expect an informed consumer to look like, but having a person reading a booklet of medical jargon to determine health risks for each drug they take is extremely unrealistic. So, the government is right here. We need to ban certain chemicals because there is no other way. Life is too complicated as it is.
- logicallee 11y ago
  how is an adult supposed to know what's safe? what incentive would any company have to ever label anything as "by the way use of this product will kill you" if they weren't legally required? Do you think snacks and junk food would even be labelled with calories and RDA values if it weren't a requirement?
  - virmundi 11y ago
    Please pay attention to the language in my comment. I'm fine with labeling. I think that is the primary way people are informed. Capitalism requires an informed public. What I don't want is expanded government. I am honestly tired of adults being treated as children. "Do this. Don't do that. Can you read the sign?" in the words of the song. Teach, inform, foster communication, but don't control a private life.
- coffeemug 11y ago
  > I despise the later. I think in general adults should be able to make up their minds about ingesting chemicals that might hurt them. However, it makes sense to make an exception -- if the chemical has addictive properties and empirically is likely to have network effects (i.e. in practice it tends to spread through the community), it seems reasonable for the government to step in and regulate the substance in more substantial ways than enforcing disclosure. I'd argue adults don't make choices with respect to these chemicals out of their own free will, but are coerced into consuming them through biological/social rewards mechanisms, and I think it's the government's responsibility to step in. For example, regulating psilocybin seems like an obviously bad idea (it doesn't seem to be addicting and doesn't devastate communities), where as regulating crystal meth is an obviously good idea. I don't know where the line is (e.g. what about cocaine? it's addictive and has propensity to spread, but isn't nearly as bad as meth), but that doesn't mean there aren't obvious extremes. I also don't know what the government can do about it (making distribution illegal doesn't seem to work), but philosophically, I don't think it's unreasonable for the government to step in if it can be effective.
  - TimPC 11y ago
    There is an even stronger case for banning chemicals that are consumed in public in a way that exposes others. I think my right to not consume that crap trumps your right to consume it in a specific public setting, even though I generally disagree with the government trying to protect people from themselves.
  - iamsohungry 11y ago
    > I think in general adults should be able to make up their minds about ingesting chemicals that might hurt them. However, it makes sense to make an exception -- if the chemical has addictive properties and empirically is likely to have network effects (i.e. in practice it tends to spread through the community), it seems reasonable for the government to step in and regulate the substance in more substantial ways than enforcing disclosure. Does it? What result are you trying to produce by this legislation? If you're trying to produce the result that fewer people use X harmful substance, then it absolutely does not make sense to regulate the substance itself. Evidence suggests that regulation merely makes selling the substance more profitable and buying the substance more "edgy", making the substance more dangerous. Instead, it makes sense to provide better programs for treatment and education around the substance, which results in lower usage, higher recovery rates when someone does use it, and less incentives for people to traffic the substance. But if you're trying to produce profits for prison corporations and further militarize law enforcement, by all means, let's make all substances illegal.
- mikeash 11y ago
  If it's harmful for the user, it seems likely there's also going to be a "second-hand vape" danger. While I wouldn't want to ban them altogether, it might be wise to ban them in public indoor spaces. Maybe make it so any smoking ban is automatically a vaping ban.
  - chc 11y ago
    It seems about as reasonable to treat vaporizers this way as it does to treat laptops this way because sometimes they catch on fire and smoke. It sounds like this is one flavoring that was already known to be harmful. That seems pretty far short of establishing a likelihood that personal vaporizers, as a category, create harmful second-hand effects.
    - anigbrowl 11y ago
      For drying out loud, vaping outside is not such a burden. Vaping doesn't bother me but if you're in a no smoking area then people are probably also not going to want to be exposed to other airborne contaminants. How hard is it to be considerate of others?
      - chc 11y ago
        I don't understand why you're berating me about where to vape. I do not vape anywhere. Just because somebody tries to evaluate vaping rationally doesn't mean they are trying to defend a secret vaping habit. As for being considerate — yes, obviously it's good to be considerate, but that's kind of a platitude until you get into the nitty-gritty details. We all do things that are inconsiderate in some ways. For example, if you eat meat in public, there are might be vegetarians around who find the sight and smell offensive, but I doubt you consider yourself inconsiderate for doing so. I'm not sure exactly where vaping falls in the "doing this in public makes you a jerk" spectrum, but I lean towards thinking it falls closer to wearing heavy perfume than to smoking (since its effects seem to be more similar to that).
        anigbrowl 11y ago
redblacktree 11y ago
As an organic chemist, do you have any opinion on the relative healthiness of vaping marijuana vs smoking it? The common wisdom is that it would clearly be more healthy, but your comment calls my conviction on this point into doubt.
- intopieces 11y ago
  The study from Harvard involved the flavor chemicals added to the "juice" and the parent comment you're replying to mentions the same. Most of the people I've heard of vaporizing cannabis do it with the plant itself, without this additive; I'm aware of another method that uses liquid or "shatter" but I don't think flavors are added to it. It's also my understanding that vaporizing this form is much more potent (being a concentrate) than other forms, which would point to non-diacetyl-related risk factors. There has been some discussion around the safety of the heating elements themselves, specifically what happens when the metals get vaporized and enter the lungs/blood stream [0] [0]http://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/are-e-cigarettes-safe-to-use-new-research-shows-metals-found-in-vapor-of-electronic-cigarettes http://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/are-e-ci...
  - geoelectric 11y ago
    Worth noting that things like emissions from hot metal and (though you didn't mention it) keeping the air path away from things like circuit boards or plastics are considerations and even marketing points for high-quality cannabis vaporizers. Some use ceramic heating elements instead of metal for this reason as well. Edit: also worth noting that cheap no-name ones are frequently soldering iron elements housed in random plastic or wood cases and have no consideration for this whatsoever.
  - fein 11y ago
    In regards to shatter, or "dabs"; It's made by passing a gaseous solvent (often butane, ergo BHO or Butane Hash Oil) through the plant matter that rips the THC off the plant to gather in a waxy solid at the end of an extraction tube. If done correctly, and the butane is purged from the end product. In general its probably quite a bit safer than combusting plant material, assuming the person that made the BHO did it correctly. Most of the usage is done with a glass bong, with the metal "nail" used as a method of pressing the wax to the heated glass.
Bjartr 11y ago
Hmm, could you use an ultrasonic piezo to aerosolize the liquid without exposing it to high heat and so get the flavor effects minus the damaging compounds?
- mikeyouse 11y ago
  This is basically what air humidifiers do, so it should be possible with vape pens. Although the air would be very humid, it's normally not great to inhale that much moisture.

virmundi 11y ago

What regulations should they put on this? A warning like, Breathing in stuff not air is bad for you? Should they ban adults from making up their own mind? I'm fine with the former. I despise the later.

madeofpalk 11y ago
Well I mean, there's a threshold - it's not OK to sell an arsenic laced Apple just because it has a warning on it.
- jMyles 11y ago
  In theory - why not?
  - logicallee 11y ago
    And why require the label, right? The free market means that companies that sell arsenic-laced apples will lose market share as people stop buying from them /s
    - jMyles 11y ago
      I don't understand exactly - are you mocking me? I think most people who have this sort of free-market disposition are moderate enough to think that labeling an arsenic apple is reasonable.
      - logicallee 11y ago
        Of course I'm mocking you. You just said "In theory - why not?" to "it's not OK to sell an arsenic laced Apple just because it has a warning on it." You cannot be serious.
        jMyles 11y ago
        Of course I can. If it's labeled, why not? Maybe somebody wants an arsenic apple; I don't know. I don't judge people that way. Moreover, and far more importantly, it seems evident that, once government starts making these sorts of decisions, it quickly makes them only for its own interests.
        logicallee 11y ago
        what are the government's "own interests"? why do you think they are currently okay with me going to a grocery store and buying some chips with 200% of my recommended sodium intake, but not some chips with a warning that it might contain arsenic and not to eat it under any circumstances, then I eat it and then I die? do you seriously think the latter would be OK if, say, it makes the company more than it loses in sales? that the free market will just 'sort it out'? and if you think that, then why wouldn't you think it would magically solve the labelling problem? (no labelling required, since consumers would just boycott companies that aren't in the habit of properly labeling its lead-, mercury- and arsenic-laced potato chips)... I'm not asking tricky questions here, your position is like saying the Earth is flat. I mean, due to the example we're using, apple with arsenic in them but labelled with this information, it's like a very extreme position. Normally it would be a straw man - nobody would seriously suggest that this is okay.
        jMyles 11y ago
        I was going to put some thought into a response, but I read your reply again and it's just too full of vitriol and angst for me to know where to begin. Comparing a reasonably widely-held, studied, and written-about economic model to the flat earth society? You give me nothing to go on here. Perhaps you're young and haven't read much yet - I don't know. I suggest a history of economics course in college. As for your very first question: the government's interests aren't terribly hard to identify, especially in the case of the USA, where the government is a hegemonic empire. It seeks to enrich its corporate sponsors, expand its capacity to exact violence against its detractors, and find equilibrium in its body politic via panem et circenses. It's reasonably transparent I think. As for your slippery slope bit about being able to sell unlabeled arsenic: I like what works. The current system clearly isn't working for most people for most purposes. My understanding is that drug overdoses were at record lows during the period after the Pure Food and Drug Act but before drug prohibition. I take this, and other data like it, as evidence that this configuration is a decent balance.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    Because there's an implicit assumption that anything offered for sale to the public without restrictions is of merchantable quality. Arsenic-laced apples don't serve a useful purpose whose benefit is sufficient to offset the cost of being poisonous, unlike cleaning materials that may nevertheless be toxic if misused or other potentially dangerous merchandise.
    - jMyles 11y ago
      > there's an implicit assumption that anything offered for sale to the public without restrictions is of merchantable quality You gloss over this as if it weren't kind of a huge deal. This assumption is breaking a lot of systems in society.
      - anigbrowl 11y ago
        So you claim, but it is the sort of thing people would like to be able to rely on and the sort of task they opt to delegate to government. It's nice to fantasize about a libertarian society where markets are unrestricted and consumers have total freedom to buy and sell whatever, but in practice it ends up with people dying because they unknowingly bought shitty products, and demands for effective regulation to ensure some quality control. You can see that happening in china right now with increasing demands for accountability to do with quality-of-life issues rather than just maximizing economic growth. If you think this assumption leads to bad outcomes, pick up a tort law book and read the details of historical cases from when an 'anything goes' mentality was predominant.
        jMyles 11y ago
        > If you think this assumption leads to bad outcomes, pick up a tort law book and read the details of historical cases from when an 'anything goes' mentality was predominant. I studied this to a non-trivial degree in college during undergrad, though of course not on the level of graduate economic theory or anything. My understanding is that the major markers (such as drug overdose) were at record lows following the Pure Food and Drug Act, a relatively non-intrusive measure that required labeling and some rudimentary testing and inspection, but preceding the FDA and drug prohibition and all the rest. This seems to comport with the world I watch around me. Am I wrong about this?
Steko 11y ago
First not all things are equally bad for you and if something is more dangerous than people realize, labels are one way of informing them. Second, the reason smoking is increasingly banned everywhere is not because we don't allow adults to make up their own mind about smoking but because of the effects on people who decide not to smoke.
- virmundi 11y ago
  I agree with both. I'm fine with labeling and public restrictions on superficial life additives. I greatly enjoyed Indianapolis' restrictions on smoking in restaurants. I don't like restrictions on what a person chooses to do in their own home. I don't want to see a ban like pot or other drugs on vaping. I laugh at vapors, but as long as they are free to do so, I can sleep a little better.
  - calgoo 11y ago
    I agree, however vaping has been "presented" as a safer alternative to smoking. So if some companies are adding chemicals that are known to be this bad, that needs to be presented, and the BS text on the packaging does nothing. I'm a smoker, i know its bad, but seeing a text that says that "smoking is bad, m'Ok" will not stop me from smoking. I will make that decision when I choose too. I would prefer it if the companies where regulated on what chemicals they could add to the liquid.
marshray 11y ago
There was evidence that tobacco companies were carefully controlling the amount of nicotine in cigarettes and so the FDA argued cigarettes were a drug delivery system and should be regulated as such. The FDA openly proposes to regulate e-cigarettes and "certain dissolvables that are not 'smokeless tobacco'" http://www.fda.gov/TobaccoProducts/Labeling/ucm388395.htm http://www.fda.gov/TobaccoProducts/Labeling/ucm388395.htm Curiously the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_tobacco_by_the_U.S._Food_and_Drug_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_tobacco_by_the_U... makes no mention of the term "drug delivery system".
smacktoward 11y ago
> What regulations should they put on this? A warning like, Breathing in stuff not air is bad for you? We're not talking here about chemicals in general, we're talking about a specific chemical, diacetyl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacetyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacetyl). And we know long-term exposure via inhalation to that chemical can cause life-threatening respiratory conditions, such as the "popcorn lung" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans) that workers who made microwave popcorn toppings that included diacetyl came down with from inhaling it in their workplaces. Do you seriously think the presence in a product intended to be inhaled repetitively over long periods of such a chemical does not warrant, at minimum, some kind of warning? > Should they ban adults from making up their own mind? How many adults, when presented with the word "diacetyl" in tiny print on a product's label, do you think are sufficiently educated to be able to accurately judge the risks of inhaling that product? Are we really supposed to take a "do your homework, good luck!" approach to products that, when used as the maker intends, will expose the user to significant health risks?
- virmundi 11y ago
  I think they should put the tiny print on the contents. Let the community decide. That seems to have worked with tabacco. I want an informed, even evangelical society when it comes to comsumption. I want people to be allowed to choose how they live their life, at least privately. If you can be a functioning meth-head, do so. If you can't, die without harming others on your way out. I know that is a harsh view, but look at the alternative: the present system. We incarcerate individuals for safely smoking a meriad of drugs in the backyard, apartment or stoop. We spend, speaking as an American, $60-80k a year to confine these people. Even if one makes the argument that drugs keep people on welfare, welfare is far cheaper and freer, in the rights sense. So too this drug. Label it, warn, perhaps even tax, but don't let it be an excuse to prevent vaping. States, in my opinion, are itching for a reason to block this new product. Stop them now. Otherwise how can we innovate to an alternative for tabacco?
  - reddytowns 11y ago
    > I think they should put the tiny print on the contents. Let the community decide. That seems to have worked with tabacco. Right.... because the heaps of information that gets dumped on you whenever you receive a prescription drug or go in to surgery is oh so helpful. You are basically advocating for an expansion of this. If a vaporize contains 100 different chemicals, and all of them come along with pages of information, the user won't be able to grok it all and realize that one of them is probably going to seriously screw them in a few years. I don't know what you expect an informed consumer to look like, but having a person reading a booklet of medical jargon to determine health risks for each drug they take is extremely unrealistic. So, the government is right here. We need to ban certain chemicals because there is no other way. Life is too complicated as it is.
logicallee 11y ago
how is an adult supposed to know what's safe? what incentive would any company have to ever label anything as "by the way use of this product will kill you" if they weren't legally required? Do you think snacks and junk food would even be labelled with calories and RDA values if it weren't a requirement?
- virmundi 11y ago
  Please pay attention to the language in my comment. I'm fine with labeling. I think that is the primary way people are informed. Capitalism requires an informed public. What I don't want is expanded government. I am honestly tired of adults being treated as children. "Do this. Don't do that. Can you read the sign?" in the words of the song. Teach, inform, foster communication, but don't control a private life.
coffeemug 11y ago
> I despise the later. I think in general adults should be able to make up their minds about ingesting chemicals that might hurt them. However, it makes sense to make an exception -- if the chemical has addictive properties and empirically is likely to have network effects (i.e. in practice it tends to spread through the community), it seems reasonable for the government to step in and regulate the substance in more substantial ways than enforcing disclosure. I'd argue adults don't make choices with respect to these chemicals out of their own free will, but are coerced into consuming them through biological/social rewards mechanisms, and I think it's the government's responsibility to step in. For example, regulating psilocybin seems like an obviously bad idea (it doesn't seem to be addicting and doesn't devastate communities), where as regulating crystal meth is an obviously good idea. I don't know where the line is (e.g. what about cocaine? it's addictive and has propensity to spread, but isn't nearly as bad as meth), but that doesn't mean there aren't obvious extremes. I also don't know what the government can do about it (making distribution illegal doesn't seem to work), but philosophically, I don't think it's unreasonable for the government to step in if it can be effective.
- TimPC 11y ago
  There is an even stronger case for banning chemicals that are consumed in public in a way that exposes others. I think my right to not consume that crap trumps your right to consume it in a specific public setting, even though I generally disagree with the government trying to protect people from themselves.
- iamsohungry 11y ago
  > I think in general adults should be able to make up their minds about ingesting chemicals that might hurt them. However, it makes sense to make an exception -- if the chemical has addictive properties and empirically is likely to have network effects (i.e. in practice it tends to spread through the community), it seems reasonable for the government to step in and regulate the substance in more substantial ways than enforcing disclosure. Does it? What result are you trying to produce by this legislation? If you're trying to produce the result that fewer people use X harmful substance, then it absolutely does not make sense to regulate the substance itself. Evidence suggests that regulation merely makes selling the substance more profitable and buying the substance more "edgy", making the substance more dangerous. Instead, it makes sense to provide better programs for treatment and education around the substance, which results in lower usage, higher recovery rates when someone does use it, and less incentives for people to traffic the substance. But if you're trying to produce profits for prison corporations and further militarize law enforcement, by all means, let's make all substances illegal.
mikeash 11y ago
If it's harmful for the user, it seems likely there's also going to be a "second-hand vape" danger. While I wouldn't want to ban them altogether, it might be wise to ban them in public indoor spaces. Maybe make it so any smoking ban is automatically a vaping ban.
- chc 11y ago
  It seems about as reasonable to treat vaporizers this way as it does to treat laptops this way because sometimes they catch on fire and smoke. It sounds like this is one flavoring that was already known to be harmful. That seems pretty far short of establishing a likelihood that personal vaporizers, as a category, create harmful second-hand effects.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    For drying out loud, vaping outside is not such a burden. Vaping doesn't bother me but if you're in a no smoking area then people are probably also not going to want to be exposed to other airborne contaminants. How hard is it to be considerate of others?
    - chc 11y ago
      I don't understand why you're berating me about where to vape. I do not vape anywhere. Just because somebody tries to evaluate vaping rationally doesn't mean they are trying to defend a secret vaping habit. As for being considerate — yes, obviously it's good to be considerate, but that's kind of a platitude until you get into the nitty-gritty details. We all do things that are inconsiderate in some ways. For example, if you eat meat in public, there are might be vegetarians around who find the sight and smell offensive, but I doubt you consider yourself inconsiderate for doing so. I'm not sure exactly where vaping falls in the "doing this in public makes you a jerk" spectrum, but I lean towards thinking it falls closer to wearing heavy perfume than to smoking (since its effects seem to be more similar to that).
      - anigbrowl 11y ago

redblacktree 11y ago

As an organic chemist, do you have any opinion on the relative healthiness of vaping marijuana vs smoking it? The common wisdom is that it would clearly be more healthy, but your comment calls my conviction on this point into doubt.

intopieces 11y ago
The study from Harvard involved the flavor chemicals added to the "juice" and the parent comment you're replying to mentions the same. Most of the people I've heard of vaporizing cannabis do it with the plant itself, without this additive; I'm aware of another method that uses liquid or "shatter" but I don't think flavors are added to it. It's also my understanding that vaporizing this form is much more potent (being a concentrate) than other forms, which would point to non-diacetyl-related risk factors. There has been some discussion around the safety of the heating elements themselves, specifically what happens when the metals get vaporized and enter the lungs/blood stream [0] [0]http://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/are-e-cigarettes-safe-to-use-new-research-shows-metals-found-in-vapor-of-electronic-cigarettes http://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/are-e-ci...
- geoelectric 11y ago
  Worth noting that things like emissions from hot metal and (though you didn't mention it) keeping the air path away from things like circuit boards or plastics are considerations and even marketing points for high-quality cannabis vaporizers. Some use ceramic heating elements instead of metal for this reason as well. Edit: also worth noting that cheap no-name ones are frequently soldering iron elements housed in random plastic or wood cases and have no consideration for this whatsoever.
- fein 11y ago
  In regards to shatter, or "dabs"; It's made by passing a gaseous solvent (often butane, ergo BHO or Butane Hash Oil) through the plant matter that rips the THC off the plant to gather in a waxy solid at the end of an extraction tube. If done correctly, and the butane is purged from the end product. In general its probably quite a bit safer than combusting plant material, assuming the person that made the BHO did it correctly. Most of the usage is done with a glass bong, with the metal "nail" used as a method of pressing the wax to the heated glass.

Bjartr 11y ago

Hmm, could you use an ultrasonic piezo to aerosolize the liquid without exposing it to high heat and so get the flavor effects minus the damaging compounds?

mikeyouse 11y ago
This is basically what air humidifiers do, so it should be possible with vape pens. Although the air would be very humid, it's normally not great to inhale that much moisture.