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I sort of hate these articles, because the comments always boil down to three main categories: 1. I vape and this hasn’t happened to me, therefore I’m an exper
by exogeny 7y ago
I sort of hate these articles, because the comments always boil down to three main categories:
1. I vape and this hasn’t happened to me, therefore I’m an expert on public health policy
2. I vape and because it’s better than cigarettes, it’s safe on those terms alone
3. What the hell is wrong with you idiots, safer than cigarettes is not the same as safe
You’re either irrationally defensive (1, 2) because you feel attacked, or you’re a smug dick (3) that trivializes addiction.
- agumonkey 7y agoon my side it's mostly that studies only cover a few kind of liquids.. and still no regulation came out to only sell safe ones.
- adtac 7y ago>What the hell is wrong with you idiots, safer than cigarettes is not the same as safe I don't see anything wrong with the second part of that statement. Of course, the first part comes across as being an pretentious twat, but it's important to remind people who actually believe vapes are perfectly safe and can do no harm.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 7y agoMitigating risk is what it is all about. Methadone is less risky than Heroin, which is why you can get a prescription for the one at a drug treatment facility but not the other.
- dahfizz 7y ago> which is why you can get a prescription for the one And you can't buy either at a corner store. Methdone > heroin and vaping > cigarettes but we still should not encourage vaping. It is dangerous and we should treat it as such.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 7y agoSo is drinking alcohol, but you don’t see stop drinking commercials on TV.
- dahfizz 7y agoHave you ever heard the phrase "please drink responsibily"? Besides, it's a different issue. It is general knowledge that alcohol has some serious health consequences.
- kd5bjo 7y agoThat language replaced “Don’t drink and drive” in alcohol advertisements because the manufacturers wanted the lede to be “Please drink...” instead of “Don’t drink...”. It’s there either because there’s legislation requiring anti-drunk-driving statements in the ads or to head off legislators adding such a requirement.
- TylerE 7y agoActually there are/were places in Europe where addicts could get an actual prescription for heroin. It greatly reduced harm.
- xkcd-sucks 7y agoMethadone isn't actually safer than known purity heroin, and in fact many opiate addicts say that methadone causes much stronger dependence than heroin/the morphones/the contins. The only "socially good" things about it are the consistent availability and long duration of action, which prevent desperation and petty crime
- wpietri 7y agoI agree on the smug dick part, but is 3 really trivializing addiction? Or is it perhaps a useful counter to the egregious motivated reasoning that goes along with addiction? I certainly think we should be sympathetic with addicts and help them where we can. But I don't think that requires accepting the obvious bullshit that addicts come up with in justifying their behavior. And it's not like vaping is the only way to kick a nicotine habit.
- dmix 7y agoAnother huge problem is people rarely accept the realities on the ground in these abstract debates. That people will continue to smoke cigarettes otherwise or find black market means to vape even when its heavily regulated or banned. As a consequence it simply pushes people into completely unsafe vendors and shady people, pushing good kids into the justice system, encouraging related criminal activity which black markets help finance, etc creating a net-worse situation. High school kids have been able to find weed for decades despite various stringent laws. Many drug dealers are high school kids themselves. I wouldn't be surprised to find kids selling vape oil and cheap chinese vape pens. This should ultimately be about balancing real alternatives, doing our best to minimize harm, and educating the people who will do it anyway. Although most education attempts have laughably failed like those 90s TV spots by out of touch ad companies paid for by the gov. People like to argue in some fantasy idealistic world where people will stop engaging in non-violent activity which harms themselves because policy makers say so.
- wpietri 7y agoI agree with the general thrust of your point, but I'm not sure it applies here. People smoke weed because it's fun or because it is medically useful. But from the tobacco smokers and ex-smokers I know, that's never the case. It's not fun; it's a very hard-to-kick addiction. It's also an addiction provided on a for-profit basis. That means strong incentives to create new addicts. I don't think it's at all unreasonable for us as a society to work against that.
- Ma8ee 7y agoBut that would force it into hiding. Much fewer people could run out for a short five minute vaping break in plain sight of everyone. So they’d save it for the evenings and their homes, which means they’d do it much more rarely, which means that much fewer people would get addicted. And nicotine as a drug isn’t all that fun.
- personjerry 7y agoI think in (3) you should separate the smoker -> vapers versus the non smoker -> vapers. I've seen a lot of the latter amongst younger people, which really sucks IMO.
- kingkawn 7y agoOr you take the metaposition and the next person lists (4) categories of comments
- rzzzt 7y agoMetasmugness is the best position one could take in any topic. Rising above the ones who rise above others, holier-than-holier-than-thou, etc.
- ImprovedSilence 7y agoOh but it's smugness all the way down, thou holier of holies. ;)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jimhefferon 7y agoYou are missing what I at least strongly suspect is a significant number of posts: (4) people paid by the companies to say positive things, like "I was only able to quit smoking because of this product."
- tjr225 7y agoHow do you know they're paid by the companies? I've made a comment similar to that before and I stand by it. Wish I would've known I could get paid to post it!
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y agoFor each specific post you can't tell.
- sjaknanxnnx 7y agoI have some friends who have said it to me in person too. I wonder which of them are the shills?
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y agoThis had been flagkilled. I vouched it because it is a serious point. None of them obviously. But the standards of trust I have in my friends is higher than in strangers. I'm not certain that there really are paid shills on this particular topic online (I actually somewhat doubt it because it would open the companies up to serious legal issues). But we should always be aware that the interests of strangers may not align with ours.
- colechristensen 7y agoThink link is about 11 cases identified (and a cluster of 8, whatever they mean by that). That would not point to "vaping" being specifically dangerous, but a specific dangerous product batch either vaporizer or fluid causing lung disease. It wouldn't be surprising given the loosely/unregulated status of many of these things and the ease of importing supplies from questionable origins.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 7y agoSome of the liquids causing this particular “pandemic” were obtained on the black market and included THC... May not even really be a case of something slipping by the professional sales of eliquids.
- cluster-of-8 7y agoNot to be confused with a computing cluster, this is a reference to analytical methods. In medicine and medical jargon, the verb “to cluster” and noun “cluster” have a specialized definition. It’s a loaded term, intended to signal that observations of coincidental medical conditions found close together and at around the same time are presumed to be strongly related in an as yet unknown way. It’s usually stated in a public health context, when an alert or warning is announced. Example: A sudden spike in food poisoning at restaurants is noticed by way of shared reporting between hospitals. If there are 10,000 incidents within 48 hours in the entire state of Texas, statistical “clustering” helps shake out the unrelated noise of the usual incidental food poisoning, to locate the unexpected events according to shared qualities. Same restaurant chain, correlated ingredients across chains (all lettuce), associated factories or farms, suppliers, freight shipping company, style of prep work, common equipment (all had same blender or mixer brand), and so on. It’s a way of problem solving during fluid events as they unfold, in an attempt to get out in front of a problem, as it happens.
- kd5bjo 7y agoAs it turns out, “irrationally defensive” is the overwhelmingly dominant response in humans faced with analyzing their own behavior in any situation.
- jchw 7y agoOut of curiosity, where do you sit? I think I am mostly 3.
- JamesBarney 7y agoThere are three pretty clear facts 1. There is has been a sharp drop in the number of smokers 2. There is has been an even sharper jump in the number of the vapers, especially concerning among youth. 3. The available evidence says that the inherent risks of vaping are an order of magnitude less than smoking. As a society we're discussing whats the optimal public health policy to reduce vaping and smoking. Unfortunately these are substitutes so as we crack down on the availability of one we increase consumption of the other. And this is why it's important to understand the relative risks of vaping versus smoking. If they're similarly unsafe then it doesn't really matter how hard we crack down on vaping. But if smoking is far more dangerous than vaping(which the evidence points to) then we need to be much more careful about reducing vaping availability.
- asdff 7y agoAmong my peers at least people vape for the stimulant effects. Helps with work, and helps at the bar. Its also easier to manage than coffee which stains teeth, taints breath, and makes you poop.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago> 3. What the hell is wrong with you idiots, safer than cigarettes is not the same as safe I wouldn't say this to anyone who was previously addicted to cigarettes and switched to vaping as a safer alternative. I would, however, say (a nicer version of) it to any non-smoker who wants to try vaping. And, I would push back against anyone who vapes and thinks it's safe, lest they create more people in the aforementioned category.
- liability 7y agoHere is my obnoxiously unsolicited opinion: I vape copious amounts of cannabis and recently have been noticing trouble with my lungs filling with phlem... guess it's time for me to slow down.
- ramblerman 7y agoso adding more divisive comments, instead of discussing facts is the way to go? The official recommendation from the NHS in the UK is now that vaping is indeed less harmful than cigarettes: Public Health England's 2015 independent evidence review found that, based on the available evidence, vaping is around 95% less harmful than smoking. The Royal College of Physicians came to a similar conclusion in its 2016 report 'Nicotine without smoke: tobacco harm reduction'. - https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree/help-and-advice/e-cigarettes https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree/help-and-advice/e-cigarettes Perhaps we don't have enough data yet, but as a matter of public health policy it is definitely useful to know which is less harmful for you.