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Having lots of people take up e-cigarettes is not a bad thing if they are moving away from smoking tobacco. On the other hand, if lots of teenagers take up e-ci

Having lots of people take up e-cigarettes is not a bad thing if they are moving away from smoking tobacco. On the other hand, if lots of teenagers take up e-cigarettes (with nicotine) then that is a public health disaster; and will cost millions of lives. So there could be an actual difference in health effects in different countries, which would be a reasonable basis for the difference in perception. Note that the UK has active public health campaigns to quit smoking [0] and tougher laws on advertising than some parts of the world [1]. Having said that, an awful lot of UK teenagers have smoked e-cigarettes[2], so perhaps we're just complacent. [0] https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree/help-and-advice/e-cigarettes https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree/help-and-advice/e-cigarettes [1] https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/electronic-cigarettes.html https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/electronic-cigarettes.h... http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38978119/santa-claus-vaping-advert-banned-for-appealing-to-kids http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38978119/santa-claus-v... [2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/drugusealcoholandsmoking/datasets/ecigaretteuseingreatbritain https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan... 2017: 16 to 24 year olds: 32% had experimented, 17% had previously smoked e-cigs, 5% were current users. Edit: I forgot to add that there are different limits on nicotine content.

qes 8y ago
> if lots of teenagers take up e-cigarettes (with nicotine) then that.. will cost millions of lives That's quite a claim. Based on what? Can you point to any deaths reasonably believed to be caused by nicotine consumption from vaping?
- daddylonglegs 8y ago
  There will be two main mechanisms: The first is the direct effects of nicotine (and possibly the vaping mechanism). The figure being bandied about on this thread is that vaping is probably 5% as directly dangerous as tobacco. The second is that teenagers and young people who vape (with nicotine) will get addicted to nicotine and are more likely to smoke tobacco. Smoking currently kills more than five million people a year[1], 5% of that would be more than 250,000 deaths a year and so a million deaths every four years. If vaping is taken up by young people on the scale that smoking tobacco is then millions of premature deaths is a conservative estimate, given what we know now. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/smoking https://ourworldindata.org/smoking edit: typo
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
> an awful lot of UK teenagers ... 16 to 24 year olds: 32% had experimented That's not so surprising - when vaping was newer, even many non smokers tried a hit or two of that strange blackcurrant flavoured thing a friend was using. Without taking up the habit later. > 17% had previously smoked e-cigs, 5% were current users Compared to something like 20 or 25% UK school leavers smoking previously? That seems like a clearer win than would have been predicted, or even hoped for as best case. Wouldn't surprise me if 5% is lower than weed use in the same age group. Zero is surely unachievable, as some kids are always going to use something - ecigs will be far better than tobacco or sniffing solvents.

qes 8y ago

> if lots of teenagers take up e-cigarettes (with nicotine) then that.. will cost millions of lives That's quite a claim. Based on what? Can you point to any deaths reasonably believed to be caused by nicotine consumption from vaping?

daddylonglegs 8y ago
There will be two main mechanisms: The first is the direct effects of nicotine (and possibly the vaping mechanism). The figure being bandied about on this thread is that vaping is probably 5% as directly dangerous as tobacco. The second is that teenagers and young people who vape (with nicotine) will get addicted to nicotine and are more likely to smoke tobacco. Smoking currently kills more than five million people a year[1], 5% of that would be more than 250,000 deaths a year and so a million deaths every four years. If vaping is taken up by young people on the scale that smoking tobacco is then millions of premature deaths is a conservative estimate, given what we know now. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/smoking https://ourworldindata.org/smoking edit: typo

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

> an awful lot of UK teenagers ... 16 to 24 year olds: 32% had experimented That's not so surprising - when vaping was newer, even many non smokers tried a hit or two of that strange blackcurrant flavoured thing a friend was using. Without taking up the habit later. > 17% had previously smoked e-cigs, 5% were current users Compared to something like 20 or 25% UK school leavers smoking previously? That seems like a clearer win than would have been predicted, or even hoped for as best case. Wouldn't surprise me if 5% is lower than weed use in the same age group. Zero is surely unachievable, as some kids are always going to use something - ecigs will be far better than tobacco or sniffing solvents.