8 ms·

I hope this doesn't result in e-cigs getting banned in the US because that would be terrible. I live in the same house with someone who has been smoking since t

by d1zzy 7y ago

I hope this doesn't result in e-cigs getting banned in the US because that would be terrible. I live in the same house with someone who has been smoking since they were a teenager (quite common where we're from) and e-cigs has allowed them to stop smoking cigarettes which may or may not benefit them that much but it most certainly benefits me (no smell of smoke in the house, no second hand smoking, etc). They have tried quitting multiple times before and nicotine patches, gum, etc. The article mentions that the group which filed a lawsuit is disputing the effectiveness of e-cigs as "smoking cessation" devices. From my personal experience they most definitely function.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
doctorpangloss 7y ago
> I hope this doesn't result in e-cigs getting banned in the US because that would be terrible. If there is unequivocal, unhacked evidence that e-cigarettes reduce mortality by a sensible comparison in adults, obviously nothing will be banned, but you ought to be able to see why this is a high bar to meet for children.
- 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
  > obviously nothing will be banned Tobacco: 500,000 Alcohol Deaths: 88,000 All Non Alcohol Drug Overdoses (including prescriptions): 64,000 Marijuana Deaths: 0 Yearly statistics for the USA. Seems your 'obvious' might not be so obvious for the rest of us. But then again, I think many 'obvious' things for you are not obvious to the rest of us. Like the muddled thinking related to children: 1st, it's already illegal to sell them to kids 2nd, will kids get them less if they are removed from local retail locations that check ID? Will driving it underground reduce consumption or only increase the dangers of use? For some, it's obvious that they see it obviously. Others... we see nuance and no clear cut answers. Though many of us dislike such strong and rash positions backed by emotive, reactionary, broad stroke arguments and so little data.
  - Symmetry 7y ago
    Nobody dies from Marijuana overdoses but having smoke in your lungs is having smoke in your lungs whether it comes form a cigarette or a joint or a campfire and it's pretty much equally bad each way. Users tend to spend less time smoking joints than cigarettes but I'd be very surprised if the incidence of lung cancer from marijuana was zero.
    - VoiceOfWisdom 7y ago
      Because there definitely isn't any other way to consume marijuana other than smoking it.
      - maccard 7y ago
        There are alternative ways to consume tobacco too
        4ntonius8lock 7y ago
        But Tobacco and it's components, regardless of how they are consumed, are carcinogens. My post with statistics, while downvoted, is correct.
    - kragen 7y ago
      The largest studies of lung-cancer–marijuana-use association were also very surprised to find that the incidence of lung cancer from marijuana was, apparently, statistically indistinguishable from zero. What you say is common sense. Like the earth being flat and the sun revolving around the earth, though, it just happens to be completely wrong.
    - pessimizer 7y ago
      > having smoke in your lungs is having smoke in your lungs whether it comes form a cigarette or a joint This is not a thing that's true, it's a thing you assume. Having different smokes or vapors in your lungs can have different effects, just as drinking different liquids can have different effects. Tobacco smoke causes cancers. The more elements in another smoke that are shared with tobacco (or other plants that cause disease) the more the new smoke should be suspect, and it suggests a direction for initial testing. We can't just treat all odors as cancer-causing; vaping doesn't even involve burning vegetable matter, so even if burning some chemicals common to all plants causes cancer, that wouldn't make vaping suspect.
- ratboy666 7y ago
  Juul is supportive of this -- and Juul is funded deeply enough (by Altria -- Marlboro, over 12 billion) to be able to go through the FDA review. Pretty much all the independents cannot. This means that the vaporizer business will be completely ceded to "big tobacco". Please don't say "e-cigarette", say "vaporizer" instead. Really would appreciate that.
ceejayoz 7y ago
The simple solution there seems to be making e-cigs available via a prescription as a smoking cessation/avoidance device.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The simple solution is to not do anything other than require e cigs to advertise the adverse effects of their product. As far as I can tell, they aren’t hurting anyone other than the people that use them. And as a society, I think junk food and carb heavy meals are a costlier disease.
  - fibonachos 7y ago
    As someone who lost 80 pounds cutting out junk food, sugar, and carb heavy foods while watching my older brother continue to struggle with his weight and accompanying health issues, I heartily agree.
- yaks_hairbrush 7y ago
  Oh, dear god no. Nicotine inhalers exist, and I went to a doctor to get a prescription for them a few years before ecigs became prevalent. The doctor insisted that Chantix was the way to go. I reacted badly to Chantix. I finally quit cigarettes by switching to ecigs, and eventually quit those as well. Actually, I just passed the 5 year mark nicotine-free a couple weeks ago. Point is, doctors are happy prescribing Chantix, which is bad, and the better option may simply not be prescribed to folks for whom it would to a lot of good.
- pessimizer 7y ago
  Not in the US, the price would go up 10x.
mc32 7y ago
I think they should remain available to adults and for minors by Rx (if they got hooked on tobacco). But I certainly would like to see this better understood and regulated. I don’t think they should be outright banned like SF is doing, but some regulation and understanding (sci studies) would be good.
- madaxe_again 7y ago
  Surely tobacco should only be available by prescription, by the same argument? I mean, what argument is there for e-cigarettes to be banned or heavily regulated when anyone can go buy cigarettes? If they ban both, fine. If they just go after e-cigarettes, this is the work of the tobacco lobby, end of.
  - loeg 7y ago
    It's the puritans, not big tobacco. Big tobacco loves ecigs, they're its future.
    - madaxe_again 7y ago
      Right, but if the can create a regulatory environment that makes it impossible for anyone but juggernauts to compete, then they’re securing that future. I suppose the question is where the moral outrage originates - with the puritans, or did someone plant that idea in their minds by hijacking the agenda?
Nas808 7y ago
I smoked for 15 years and tried all the usual quitting aids many times. E-cigs were the only thing that worked for me, but I’m a bit concerned about the long term affects of vaping.
- rjeli 7y ago
  Have you tried tapering the nicotine levels from vaping? Asking for myself..
  - abcpassword 7y ago
    That’s how my wife quit. Just drop a level a month, then finally go to 0.
  - InvaderFizz 7y ago
    I did. I went from pack-a-day Newports to Vaping at 36mg/ml. Within a week I was down to 18mg/ml. Within a year I tapered all the way down to under 3mg/ml (I mixed all my own juices). I stayed right around 3mg/ml for about a year, then I moved jobs and could no longer vape in my office. It seemed quite pointless to go outside and vape since I didnt really have the urge, I was still vaping in the evening after work for another 2-3 months. I finally reached the point where the trouble was more than it was worth, and just stopped entirely. So yes, I'm a big fan of vaping. Is it "safe?" Probably not. Is it less harmful than cigarettes? I dont think that is even in question, at all. Vaping is, at worst, a significant harm reduction for smokers and those around them. At best, it is a method of quitting cigarettes and have proven successful for MANY former smokers. I really hate the direction things are going with regulation, because to me it looks a lot like PM and friends are using regulatory capture to ban everything but menthol vapes that they can afford to get tested, thus perpetuating their existence and granting them a lock on the market.
  - Semaphor 7y ago
    I started with 25mg years ago (hard switch in April 2012 from a pack a day) and nowadays I happily vape at 3mg
- KUcxrAVrtI 7y ago
axaxs 7y ago
I'm happy for you, and those who've stopped smoking. That said, for me personally, ECigs have been a detriment. My city basically outlawed smoking, which was generally great. Then ECig users started smoking everywhere in place of cigarettes, and even less respectfully. I had people in my office constantly smoking them, even. My thoughts on both are the same - do what you want as long as it doesn't bother me. ECig users seem to ignore that here. As long as they are treated and regulated like cigarettes, I'm on board.
- KingMachiavelli 7y ago
  That's much more a cultural and location thing. For a lot of purposes ECigs are treated like tobacco, most public smoking laws apply to ECigs ( and cannabis, etc). The reason people get away with ECigs is its less offensive in a lot of places but what can the fed. Gov due about local policing and attitude toward ECigs?
- loeg 7y ago
  Where I live they're socially and legally treated exactly like any other form of smoked tobacco.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
wisty 7y ago
Nicotine has a very non-linear impact on health. While ecigs are about 10x better in terms of the amount of 2nd hand nicotine, I wouldn't call them safe. IIRC it takes extremely low nicotine levels to cause (temporary) circulatory problems.
on_and_off 7y ago
My main issue with e-cigs is that they are heavily marketed to kids, for example with young sponsored influencers doing smoke tricks and other shit. Thanks to e-cigs, teen cigarette (not e-cig) smoking has started increasing after decreasing for years. Teens that would have never started smoking are introduced to it with e-cigs. I don't know how these 2 phenomenons balance out. Does the number of cigarette smokers moving to e-cigs counterbalance the number of younger people starting to smoke cigarettes because of it ? In all cases, I have no issue with more studies on the direct impact on e-cigs themselves.
- FDSGSG 7y ago
  > the number of younger people starting to smoke cigarettes because of it ? Just ban cigarettes if that is the problem.
  - AdamHede 7y ago
    Kids really shouldn't be smoking e-cigs either. E-cigs are only better than cigarettes because "cigarettes are so legendarily bad for you". I can accept them as cessation devices, but all their value in this realm should be weighted against the new users they introduce, chief among them: Kids.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      They shouldn’t be eating chips, breads, candy, soda, and sitting around watching garbage YouTube/Netflix media and superhero shows. Solution isn’t always to ban something. They shouldn’t be marketed to kids, just like sugary snacks in my opinion, but education is better than banning it for all adults. Just slap the same 21 year old restriction as alcohol and move on.
      - jadel 7y ago
        I don't see the argument. Bad effect from things that are relatively non-addictive (at least physically) suggest that things that are addictive needs to be even more controlled. If anything there is now a disparity between what science tells us about "junk food" and digital media, and what how we treat them. The idea that you can teach people faster than dangers can appear without boundaries doesn't seem to be supported these days.

by d1zzy 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

doctorpangloss 7y ago

> I hope this doesn't result in e-cigs getting banned in the US because that would be terrible. If there is unequivocal, unhacked evidence that e-cigarettes reduce mortality by a sensible comparison in adults, obviously nothing will be banned, but you ought to be able to see why this is a high bar to meet for children.

4ntonius8lock 7y ago
> obviously nothing will be banned Tobacco: 500,000 Alcohol Deaths: 88,000 All Non Alcohol Drug Overdoses (including prescriptions): 64,000 Marijuana Deaths: 0 Yearly statistics for the USA. Seems your 'obvious' might not be so obvious for the rest of us. But then again, I think many 'obvious' things for you are not obvious to the rest of us. Like the muddled thinking related to children: 1st, it's already illegal to sell them to kids 2nd, will kids get them less if they are removed from local retail locations that check ID? Will driving it underground reduce consumption or only increase the dangers of use? For some, it's obvious that they see it obviously. Others... we see nuance and no clear cut answers. Though many of us dislike such strong and rash positions backed by emotive, reactionary, broad stroke arguments and so little data.
- Symmetry 7y ago
  Nobody dies from Marijuana overdoses but having smoke in your lungs is having smoke in your lungs whether it comes form a cigarette or a joint or a campfire and it's pretty much equally bad each way. Users tend to spend less time smoking joints than cigarettes but I'd be very surprised if the incidence of lung cancer from marijuana was zero.
  - VoiceOfWisdom 7y ago
    Because there definitely isn't any other way to consume marijuana other than smoking it.
    - maccard 7y ago
      There are alternative ways to consume tobacco too
      - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
        But Tobacco and it's components, regardless of how they are consumed, are carcinogens. My post with statistics, while downvoted, is correct.
  - kragen 7y ago
    The largest studies of lung-cancer–marijuana-use association were also very surprised to find that the incidence of lung cancer from marijuana was, apparently, statistically indistinguishable from zero. What you say is common sense. Like the earth being flat and the sun revolving around the earth, though, it just happens to be completely wrong.
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    > having smoke in your lungs is having smoke in your lungs whether it comes form a cigarette or a joint This is not a thing that's true, it's a thing you assume. Having different smokes or vapors in your lungs can have different effects, just as drinking different liquids can have different effects. Tobacco smoke causes cancers. The more elements in another smoke that are shared with tobacco (or other plants that cause disease) the more the new smoke should be suspect, and it suggests a direction for initial testing. We can't just treat all odors as cancer-causing; vaping doesn't even involve burning vegetable matter, so even if burning some chemicals common to all plants causes cancer, that wouldn't make vaping suspect.
ratboy666 7y ago
Juul is supportive of this -- and Juul is funded deeply enough (by Altria -- Marlboro, over 12 billion) to be able to go through the FDA review. Pretty much all the independents cannot. This means that the vaporizer business will be completely ceded to "big tobacco". Please don't say "e-cigarette", say "vaporizer" instead. Really would appreciate that.

ceejayoz 7y ago

The simple solution there seems to be making e-cigs available via a prescription as a smoking cessation/avoidance device.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
The simple solution is to not do anything other than require e cigs to advertise the adverse effects of their product. As far as I can tell, they aren’t hurting anyone other than the people that use them. And as a society, I think junk food and carb heavy meals are a costlier disease.
- fibonachos 7y ago
  As someone who lost 80 pounds cutting out junk food, sugar, and carb heavy foods while watching my older brother continue to struggle with his weight and accompanying health issues, I heartily agree.
yaks_hairbrush 7y ago
Oh, dear god no. Nicotine inhalers exist, and I went to a doctor to get a prescription for them a few years before ecigs became prevalent. The doctor insisted that Chantix was the way to go. I reacted badly to Chantix. I finally quit cigarettes by switching to ecigs, and eventually quit those as well. Actually, I just passed the 5 year mark nicotine-free a couple weeks ago. Point is, doctors are happy prescribing Chantix, which is bad, and the better option may simply not be prescribed to folks for whom it would to a lot of good.
pessimizer 7y ago
Not in the US, the price would go up 10x.

mc32 7y ago

I think they should remain available to adults and for minors by Rx (if they got hooked on tobacco). But I certainly would like to see this better understood and regulated. I don’t think they should be outright banned like SF is doing, but some regulation and understanding (sci studies) would be good.

madaxe_again 7y ago
Surely tobacco should only be available by prescription, by the same argument? I mean, what argument is there for e-cigarettes to be banned or heavily regulated when anyone can go buy cigarettes? If they ban both, fine. If they just go after e-cigarettes, this is the work of the tobacco lobby, end of.
- loeg 7y ago
  It's the puritans, not big tobacco. Big tobacco loves ecigs, they're its future.
  - madaxe_again 7y ago
    Right, but if the can create a regulatory environment that makes it impossible for anyone but juggernauts to compete, then they’re securing that future. I suppose the question is where the moral outrage originates - with the puritans, or did someone plant that idea in their minds by hijacking the agenda?

Nas808 7y ago

I smoked for 15 years and tried all the usual quitting aids many times. E-cigs were the only thing that worked for me, but I’m a bit concerned about the long term affects of vaping.

rjeli 7y ago
Have you tried tapering the nicotine levels from vaping? Asking for myself..
- abcpassword 7y ago
  That’s how my wife quit. Just drop a level a month, then finally go to 0.
- InvaderFizz 7y ago
  I did. I went from pack-a-day Newports to Vaping at 36mg/ml. Within a week I was down to 18mg/ml. Within a year I tapered all the way down to under 3mg/ml (I mixed all my own juices). I stayed right around 3mg/ml for about a year, then I moved jobs and could no longer vape in my office. It seemed quite pointless to go outside and vape since I didnt really have the urge, I was still vaping in the evening after work for another 2-3 months. I finally reached the point where the trouble was more than it was worth, and just stopped entirely. So yes, I'm a big fan of vaping. Is it "safe?" Probably not. Is it less harmful than cigarettes? I dont think that is even in question, at all. Vaping is, at worst, a significant harm reduction for smokers and those around them. At best, it is a method of quitting cigarettes and have proven successful for MANY former smokers. I really hate the direction things are going with regulation, because to me it looks a lot like PM and friends are using regulatory capture to ban everything but menthol vapes that they can afford to get tested, thus perpetuating their existence and granting them a lock on the market.
- Semaphor 7y ago
  I started with 25mg years ago (hard switch in April 2012 from a pack a day) and nowadays I happily vape at 3mg
KUcxrAVrtI 7y ago

axaxs 7y ago

I'm happy for you, and those who've stopped smoking. That said, for me personally, ECigs have been a detriment. My city basically outlawed smoking, which was generally great. Then ECig users started smoking everywhere in place of cigarettes, and even less respectfully. I had people in my office constantly smoking them, even. My thoughts on both are the same - do what you want as long as it doesn't bother me. ECig users seem to ignore that here. As long as they are treated and regulated like cigarettes, I'm on board.

KingMachiavelli 7y ago
That's much more a cultural and location thing. For a lot of purposes ECigs are treated like tobacco, most public smoking laws apply to ECigs ( and cannabis, etc). The reason people get away with ECigs is its less offensive in a lot of places but what can the fed. Gov due about local policing and attitude toward ECigs?
loeg 7y ago
Where I live they're socially and legally treated exactly like any other form of smoked tobacco.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

wisty 7y ago

Nicotine has a very non-linear impact on health. While ecigs are about 10x better in terms of the amount of 2nd hand nicotine, I wouldn't call them safe. IIRC it takes extremely low nicotine levels to cause (temporary) circulatory problems.

on_and_off 7y ago

My main issue with e-cigs is that they are heavily marketed to kids, for example with young sponsored influencers doing smoke tricks and other shit. Thanks to e-cigs, teen cigarette (not e-cig) smoking has started increasing after decreasing for years. Teens that would have never started smoking are introduced to it with e-cigs. I don't know how these 2 phenomenons balance out. Does the number of cigarette smokers moving to e-cigs counterbalance the number of younger people starting to smoke cigarettes because of it ? In all cases, I have no issue with more studies on the direct impact on e-cigs themselves.

FDSGSG 7y ago
> the number of younger people starting to smoke cigarettes because of it ? Just ban cigarettes if that is the problem.
- AdamHede 7y ago
  Kids really shouldn't be smoking e-cigs either. E-cigs are only better than cigarettes because "cigarettes are so legendarily bad for you". I can accept them as cessation devices, but all their value in this realm should be weighted against the new users they introduce, chief among them: Kids.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    They shouldn’t be eating chips, breads, candy, soda, and sitting around watching garbage YouTube/Netflix media and superhero shows. Solution isn’t always to ban something. They shouldn’t be marketed to kids, just like sugary snacks in my opinion, but education is better than banning it for all adults. Just slap the same 21 year old restriction as alcohol and move on.
    - jadel 7y ago
      I don't see the argument. Bad effect from things that are relatively non-addictive (at least physically) suggest that things that are addictive needs to be even more controlled. If anything there is now a disparity between what science tells us about "junk food" and digital media, and what how we treat them. The idea that you can teach people faster than dangers can appear without boundaries doesn't seem to be supported these days.