9 ms·

Many people seem to believe that vaping is harmless, this is good to make the point clearly that vaping, while not as harmful as smoking cigarettes, isn't a "co

Many people seem to believe that vaping is harmless, this is good to make the point clearly that vaping, while not as harmful as smoking cigarettes, isn't a "cost free" activity. I personally didn't realize that it could have these effects either.

redisman 7y ago
Yes and we still don't know the long term effects of heavy use for a decade or two. Cigarettes were great and good for you for decades too.
mruts 7y ago
I’m not sure there exists a cost free activity as far as people are concerned.
- kuiper0x2 7y ago
  Sex is pretty cost free. Meditation is cost free. Unless you are defining time usage as a cost which is absurd.
  - umvi 7y ago
    > Sex is pretty cost free Not sure if you are joking or not, but I would wager the costs of sex are actually enormous even compared to drugs. Look no further than the costs and issues surrounding the following: adoption, foster care, abortion, child support, single parent welfare rates, STDs, etc. In theory sex is a "cost free" recreational activity, but in practice it isn't.
    - jolux 7y ago
      well, if you’re super careful with your contraception and have easy access to abortion...also lots of queer sex runs no risk of reproducing accidentally. STIs, on the other hand, are definitely a risk.
      - hombre_fatal 7y ago
        A man having casual sex is basically gambling that the condom works and that the woman will abort if it comes to that, something he has zero say in. I don't know how anyone can say sex is very risk-free. As I get older, "don't stick your dick in crazy" makes more and more sense. Pretty much all the STIs in my demographic can be cured with a $20 pill. And almost all of my post-nut clarity revolves around fearing becoming a father prematurely. I grew up hearing about the archetype of the heroic man getting laid constantly. In my 30s I now meet that man all the time: he's now saddled with a kid with a woman he rarely sees while trying to date for real.
        8f2ab37a-ed6c 7y ago
        > Pretty much all the STIs in my demographic can be cured with a $20 pill If only. HSV2 affects 1 out of 6 people, rarely shows its symptoms and can be latent for years, has a big stigma associated with it, and there's no amount of $$$ you can pay to make that go away, unfortunately. Also the occasional antibiotic-resistant variants of the $20 ones, if you get sufficiently unlucky.
        hombre_fatal 7y ago
        Fair enough. I mainly was trying to elevate the fears of unwanted children rather than downplay the risk of STIs. Though among the people I know close enough to know this about them, nobody has HSV2 and almost none of them know somebody who has it. Meanwhile I know a dozen men stuck with accidental children with women they never wanted anything to do with. CDC says HSV2 has 12% penetration into the population aged 14-49 but has no further demographic info. HIV is even more common yet I don't know anybody with it because I'm just not in the high risk demographic. So these just aren't part of my perception of day to day worries (perhaps incorrectly, as you would point out) compared to unwanted children. The person I replied to made it sound like unwanted pregnancy is a solved problem which isn't even true for women, thus categorically less true for their partners.
        8f2ab37a-ed6c 7y ago
  - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 7y ago
    Besides conception, sex exposes you to pathogens that might cost you your ability to reproduce or have sex again, or to live, in the worst case scenario. Sex is very much of a tradeoff, unless you're oblivious to the risks.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
      Kinda depends on your choice of partner(s), doesn't it? They didn't say that "sex" must automatically imply that you do it with countless people you don't know well.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Screw the wrong person and the state will screw your bank account for the next 18yr. Considering all the negative health outcomes that are correlated with money (well, a lack thereof) that doesn't sound cost free to me.
InvaderFizz 7y ago
My main concern with the way things are going is that it looks an awful lot like attacks on vaping are for the purpose of driving smokers back to cigarettes. I know of no one that things vaping is harmless. It is certainly much, much less harmful than cigarettes and is infinitely preferable to cigarettes. I quit smoking, with the help of vaping. I was a pack-a-day Newport smoker that started on a ludicrously high 36mg nicotine level. I was down to 3mg within a year and quit entirely a year later. This is a very common story for former smokers that switched to vaping. There is a theory in the vaping community, or maybe its an urban myth, that the lack of MAO inhibitors is what allows people who vape to essentially lose their addiction. What I can tell you is that stopping vaping after two years was painless, very much unlike attempting to cold turkey cigarettes.
- Duhck 7y ago
  What's the supporting evidence for your concern that "attacks on vaping are for the purpose of driving smokers back to cigarettes" Philip Morris (now known as Altria) put $13bn into Juul to do the exact opposite. The margins on vaping are higher, the current perception of vaping is that it's better than smoking, and it's way easier to get kids addicted to vaping than cigarettes. I see too much evidence to the contrary... that big tobacco is now big vaping (which is really big nicotine). We dont know just how bad vaping really is, it's hard to say its better than smoking, and its impossible to say its not bad for you at all.
  - JamesBarney 7y ago
    It's not hard to say it's better than smoking. Every study done to date comparing the two days it's not nearly as harmful as smoking. Smoking is one of the most harmful things you can possibly do to your body. Many people underestimate how much of a low bar being better than smoking is.
    - Duhck 7y ago
      That seems like a foolish argument. The time horizon in which we discovered smoking was bad for you was decades, and over a massive population of users. E-Cigarettes are only now becoming mainstream, and have only been in use for the better half of a decade. We wont truly know the effects until we have a large sample size over a long period of time. Ultimately, saying it's conclusively better for you than smoking is short sighted. We thought smoking was good for you in the 1920s...
slashink 7y ago
Yeah I take issue with this also. I've tried to get my dad to stop smoking for the past 15 years and I've come to terms that it just won't happen. So for me it's more about helping him risk manage, getting him on vaping instead of cigarettes is "less shitty" way of getting that fix for him, even if I'm fully aware that it's not healthy in any shape or form. It's the lesser of two evils for sure, however, nobody should pick up vaping if you aren't currently smoking cigarettes.
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
> Many people seem to believe that vaping is harmless I don’t really buy that premise, at least for some significant definition of many (some definitely, but many?). On the other hand, what is a cost free activity anyways? A can of Coke (sugar) is pretty bad for you, I’m glad I’ve given that up. My wife thinks the sugar free stuff I’ve switched to is still bad for me, ugh. I guess only water would be considered cost free in that context.
billfruit 7y ago
But the likelihood is that vaping is order of magnitudes less harmful than smoking burning cigarettes, but the way narrative is being spun is that vaping is a grave danger to health. Normal cigarettes have established to be undisputedly harmful, whereas ecigs while possibly addictive, the long term effects of consumption are merely not well known/studied. Despite any studies, I would be very interested to hear a theoretical assessment of the safety of ecigs.

redisman 7y ago

Yes and we still don't know the long term effects of heavy use for a decade or two. Cigarettes were great and good for you for decades too.

mruts 7y ago

I’m not sure there exists a cost free activity as far as people are concerned.

kuiper0x2 7y ago
Sex is pretty cost free. Meditation is cost free. Unless you are defining time usage as a cost which is absurd.
- umvi 7y ago
  > Sex is pretty cost free Not sure if you are joking or not, but I would wager the costs of sex are actually enormous even compared to drugs. Look no further than the costs and issues surrounding the following: adoption, foster care, abortion, child support, single parent welfare rates, STDs, etc. In theory sex is a "cost free" recreational activity, but in practice it isn't.
  - jolux 7y ago
    well, if you’re super careful with your contraception and have easy access to abortion...also lots of queer sex runs no risk of reproducing accidentally. STIs, on the other hand, are definitely a risk.
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      A man having casual sex is basically gambling that the condom works and that the woman will abort if it comes to that, something he has zero say in. I don't know how anyone can say sex is very risk-free. As I get older, "don't stick your dick in crazy" makes more and more sense. Pretty much all the STIs in my demographic can be cured with a $20 pill. And almost all of my post-nut clarity revolves around fearing becoming a father prematurely. I grew up hearing about the archetype of the heroic man getting laid constantly. In my 30s I now meet that man all the time: he's now saddled with a kid with a woman he rarely sees while trying to date for real.
      - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 7y ago
        > Pretty much all the STIs in my demographic can be cured with a $20 pill If only. HSV2 affects 1 out of 6 people, rarely shows its symptoms and can be latent for years, has a big stigma associated with it, and there's no amount of $$$ you can pay to make that go away, unfortunately. Also the occasional antibiotic-resistant variants of the $20 ones, if you get sufficiently unlucky.
        hombre_fatal 7y ago
        Fair enough. I mainly was trying to elevate the fears of unwanted children rather than downplay the risk of STIs. Though among the people I know close enough to know this about them, nobody has HSV2 and almost none of them know somebody who has it. Meanwhile I know a dozen men stuck with accidental children with women they never wanted anything to do with. CDC says HSV2 has 12% penetration into the population aged 14-49 but has no further demographic info. HIV is even more common yet I don't know anybody with it because I'm just not in the high risk demographic. So these just aren't part of my perception of day to day worries (perhaps incorrectly, as you would point out) compared to unwanted children. The person I replied to made it sound like unwanted pregnancy is a solved problem which isn't even true for women, thus categorically less true for their partners.
        8f2ab37a-ed6c 7y ago
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 7y ago
  Besides conception, sex exposes you to pathogens that might cost you your ability to reproduce or have sex again, or to live, in the worst case scenario. Sex is very much of a tradeoff, unless you're oblivious to the risks.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
    Kinda depends on your choice of partner(s), doesn't it? They didn't say that "sex" must automatically imply that you do it with countless people you don't know well.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Screw the wrong person and the state will screw your bank account for the next 18yr. Considering all the negative health outcomes that are correlated with money (well, a lack thereof) that doesn't sound cost free to me.

InvaderFizz 7y ago

My main concern with the way things are going is that it looks an awful lot like attacks on vaping are for the purpose of driving smokers back to cigarettes. I know of no one that things vaping is harmless. It is certainly much, much less harmful than cigarettes and is infinitely preferable to cigarettes. I quit smoking, with the help of vaping. I was a pack-a-day Newport smoker that started on a ludicrously high 36mg nicotine level. I was down to 3mg within a year and quit entirely a year later. This is a very common story for former smokers that switched to vaping. There is a theory in the vaping community, or maybe its an urban myth, that the lack of MAO inhibitors is what allows people who vape to essentially lose their addiction. What I can tell you is that stopping vaping after two years was painless, very much unlike attempting to cold turkey cigarettes.

Duhck 7y ago
What's the supporting evidence for your concern that "attacks on vaping are for the purpose of driving smokers back to cigarettes" Philip Morris (now known as Altria) put $13bn into Juul to do the exact opposite. The margins on vaping are higher, the current perception of vaping is that it's better than smoking, and it's way easier to get kids addicted to vaping than cigarettes. I see too much evidence to the contrary... that big tobacco is now big vaping (which is really big nicotine). We dont know just how bad vaping really is, it's hard to say its better than smoking, and its impossible to say its not bad for you at all.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  It's not hard to say it's better than smoking. Every study done to date comparing the two days it's not nearly as harmful as smoking. Smoking is one of the most harmful things you can possibly do to your body. Many people underestimate how much of a low bar being better than smoking is.
  - Duhck 7y ago
    That seems like a foolish argument. The time horizon in which we discovered smoking was bad for you was decades, and over a massive population of users. E-Cigarettes are only now becoming mainstream, and have only been in use for the better half of a decade. We wont truly know the effects until we have a large sample size over a long period of time. Ultimately, saying it's conclusively better for you than smoking is short sighted. We thought smoking was good for you in the 1920s...

slashink 7y ago

Yeah I take issue with this also. I've tried to get my dad to stop smoking for the past 15 years and I've come to terms that it just won't happen. So for me it's more about helping him risk manage, getting him on vaping instead of cigarettes is "less shitty" way of getting that fix for him, even if I'm fully aware that it's not healthy in any shape or form. It's the lesser of two evils for sure, however, nobody should pick up vaping if you aren't currently smoking cigarettes.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

> Many people seem to believe that vaping is harmless I don’t really buy that premise, at least for some significant definition of many (some definitely, but many?). On the other hand, what is a cost free activity anyways? A can of Coke (sugar) is pretty bad for you, I’m glad I’ve given that up. My wife thinks the sugar free stuff I’ve switched to is still bad for me, ugh. I guess only water would be considered cost free in that context.

billfruit 7y ago

But the likelihood is that vaping is order of magnitudes less harmful than smoking burning cigarettes, but the way narrative is being spun is that vaping is a grave danger to health. Normal cigarettes have established to be undisputedly harmful, whereas ecigs while possibly addictive, the long term effects of consumption are merely not well known/studied. Despite any studies, I would be very interested to hear a theoretical assessment of the safety of ecigs.