7 ms·

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

by 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...
  - JamesBarney 7y ago
    You're right that science sometimes makes mistakes, though probably less than they used to. And we won't know conclusively for decades. But best available evidence says 5% right now.
  - billfruit 7y ago
    You seem to think that science do not have the ability to predict the effects from causes, it is possible to say if vaping is safer than normal cigarettes now itself, rather than have to wait for 50 years to make that declaration. Theoreticaly ecigs are much much safer, due to the lack of combustion and presence of carcinogenic smoke components.
- fiblye 7y ago
  Vaping has been mainstream for what, a little over 5 years? And it’s exploded in just the past couple years. Any research coming out saying it’s not dangerous is simply premature. Most young people who start smoking don’t really notice majorly harmful effects within their first couple years either. At this point, most studies can only demonstrate the short term effects. It’ll take a while to determine long term harm.
lowdose 7y ago
Juul's creators increased the nicotine because they felt other vapes on the market couldn't compare to the sensations delivered by regular cigarettes. The nicotine salts in Juul pods are a type of nicotine that supposedly feels more like a cigarette when inhaled, as opposed to other vapes that use freebase nicotine. Philip Morris strategy to create confusion is obviously working. Don't buy from big tobacco if your goal is to quit smoking.
- grawprog 7y ago
  Personally, I couldn't stand the freebase nicotine juice. A hit off some 10mg juice made me feel like I'd just taken a fat haul on a cigar. My mouth started watering, I started twitching a bit and felt like was going to puke, then immediately i started craving a smoke. The nicotine salts don't feel that way, even with the 36mg. It actually takes the cravings away without really giving me that nicotine rush. In a month I cut down my smoking by over half and I smoke less and less as time goes on. I find the flavours bother me though and is the main reason i haven't quit entirely. I actually enjoy the taste of cigarettes, I haven't found any ejuice I actually like the taste of it all reminds me of candy, even the ones that are supposed to taste like tobacco.
  - lowdose 7y ago
    There is a lot of difference in the quality and composition of freebase juice. The differences between vaporizers is also massive. I eventually settled on a juice with a coffee caramel flavor that smelled like someone just made a cake. Go and try several combinations in a store that is specialized. The Juul is Big Tobacco still giving you an old fashion hit of nicotine. Edit: if you are located in Europe this was my favorite. https://ea-sigaret.nl/e-liquid-kopen/100-vg-eliquid/vg-e-liquid-overige-smaken/vg-eliquid-coffee-cream-choco/ https://ea-sigaret.nl/e-liquid-kopen/100-vg-eliquid/vg-e-liq...
    - grawprog 7y ago
      I don't smoke the juul vapes, they're not the only company that makes nicotine salt juice. Nicotine salts are made by adding an acid to freebase nicotine, which is still made originally via extracting nicotine from tobacco and processing it with ammonia. If you smoke nicotine, you're inevitably supporting large tobacco producers, there's not really much way around that. Then there's the matter of, freebasing an alkaloid makes it more bioavailable to your brain, you may be smoking lower concentrations, but your body's absorbing more nicotine per puff. Kind of like the difference between snorting coke or smoking crack. Cocaine hydrochloride is cocaine in salt form, crack is the freebase form. Both are addictive nasty drugs, but with crack, you need less to get high, the high lasts longer and in the long term tends to really fuck people up from what I've seen. Also, the first time I ever heard of freebase nicotine, was when I was reading about how it was added into cigarettes to increase the addictiveness and rush you get. That cake flavoured one still sounds unappealing. I'd really prefer some kind of savoury or smokey flavour. I've never really enjoyed sweet things.
filoleg 7y ago
>"attacks on vaping are for the purpose of driving smokers back to cigarettes" I don't think it is intentionally on purpose, but it sure does seem this way sometimes. A specific example that comes to mind: city of San Francisco banning sale of e-cigs completely, while keeping regular cigarettes just as legal as before [0]. 0. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/25/735714009/san-francisco-poised-to-ban-sales-of-e-cigarettes https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/25/7357140...
- tryitnow 7y ago
  Good point. I don't see any of the politicians addressing why the didn't also ban cigarettes. My guess is that banning cigarettes would go too far. It's unrealistic to expect cigarette smokers to quit over night and start using patches and lozenges. It's a little more realistic to expect that people who vape to do so.
  - uberduper 7y ago
    > It's a little more realistic to expect that people who vape to do so. Why?
  - draw_down 7y ago
    > I don't see any of the politicians addressing why the didn't also ban cigarettes. It's because tobacco is regulated by the FDA but ecigs aren't.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    >It's unrealistic to expect cigarette smokers to quit over night and start using patches and lozenges. >It's a little more realistic to expect that people who vape to do so. From personal observations, what would actually happen is that those people will just switch to smoking cigarettes.
mcguire 7y ago
"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." This is absolutely true. Inhaling propylene glycol and glycerine daily for thirty years might cause you to grow three heads or have babies with 27 fingers. But the results of every reputable report I've seen until now has indicated that vaping is much, much better than smoking cigarettes.
- roddds 7y ago
  We already have people that inhale propylene glycol and/or glycerine for 30 years: people that work in factories and hospitals.
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Taxes. Vaping is really hard to tax unlike cigarettes. State and local governments are addicted to cigarette tax revenue, but that has been evaporating quickly, so outlawing vaping and not cigarettes is really profitable to them, even if causing more harm overall.
- icebraining 7y ago
  Why would vaping be hard to tax?
  - maratc 7y ago
    Mixing propylene glycol, glycerine, nicotine, and flavors can be easily done at home. Pretty hard to limit the distribution of any of the parts the way tobacco distribution is limited.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      Couldn't you tax the liquid nicotine by itself?
      - maratc 7y ago
        Well, maybe you could, the way we tax ethanol. The problem with that is the duty-free sales (including ordering a year-supply of it online from China), and the moonshine (synthesized nicotine).

by Duhck 7y ago

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...
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  You're right that science sometimes makes mistakes, though probably less than they used to. And we won't know conclusively for decades. But best available evidence says 5% right now.
- billfruit 7y ago
  You seem to think that science do not have the ability to predict the effects from causes, it is possible to say if vaping is safer than normal cigarettes now itself, rather than have to wait for 50 years to make that declaration. Theoreticaly ecigs are much much safer, due to the lack of combustion and presence of carcinogenic smoke components.
fiblye 7y ago
Vaping has been mainstream for what, a little over 5 years? And it’s exploded in just the past couple years. Any research coming out saying it’s not dangerous is simply premature. Most young people who start smoking don’t really notice majorly harmful effects within their first couple years either. At this point, most studies can only demonstrate the short term effects. It’ll take a while to determine long term harm.

lowdose 7y ago

Juul's creators increased the nicotine because they felt other vapes on the market couldn't compare to the sensations delivered by regular cigarettes. The nicotine salts in Juul pods are a type of nicotine that supposedly feels more like a cigarette when inhaled, as opposed to other vapes that use freebase nicotine. Philip Morris strategy to create confusion is obviously working. Don't buy from big tobacco if your goal is to quit smoking.

grawprog 7y ago
Personally, I couldn't stand the freebase nicotine juice. A hit off some 10mg juice made me feel like I'd just taken a fat haul on a cigar. My mouth started watering, I started twitching a bit and felt like was going to puke, then immediately i started craving a smoke. The nicotine salts don't feel that way, even with the 36mg. It actually takes the cravings away without really giving me that nicotine rush. In a month I cut down my smoking by over half and I smoke less and less as time goes on. I find the flavours bother me though and is the main reason i haven't quit entirely. I actually enjoy the taste of cigarettes, I haven't found any ejuice I actually like the taste of it all reminds me of candy, even the ones that are supposed to taste like tobacco.
- lowdose 7y ago
  There is a lot of difference in the quality and composition of freebase juice. The differences between vaporizers is also massive. I eventually settled on a juice with a coffee caramel flavor that smelled like someone just made a cake. Go and try several combinations in a store that is specialized. The Juul is Big Tobacco still giving you an old fashion hit of nicotine. Edit: if you are located in Europe this was my favorite. https://ea-sigaret.nl/e-liquid-kopen/100-vg-eliquid/vg-e-liquid-overige-smaken/vg-eliquid-coffee-cream-choco/ https://ea-sigaret.nl/e-liquid-kopen/100-vg-eliquid/vg-e-liq...
  - grawprog 7y ago
    I don't smoke the juul vapes, they're not the only company that makes nicotine salt juice. Nicotine salts are made by adding an acid to freebase nicotine, which is still made originally via extracting nicotine from tobacco and processing it with ammonia. If you smoke nicotine, you're inevitably supporting large tobacco producers, there's not really much way around that. Then there's the matter of, freebasing an alkaloid makes it more bioavailable to your brain, you may be smoking lower concentrations, but your body's absorbing more nicotine per puff. Kind of like the difference between snorting coke or smoking crack. Cocaine hydrochloride is cocaine in salt form, crack is the freebase form. Both are addictive nasty drugs, but with crack, you need less to get high, the high lasts longer and in the long term tends to really fuck people up from what I've seen. Also, the first time I ever heard of freebase nicotine, was when I was reading about how it was added into cigarettes to increase the addictiveness and rush you get. That cake flavoured one still sounds unappealing. I'd really prefer some kind of savoury or smokey flavour. I've never really enjoyed sweet things.

filoleg 7y ago

>"attacks on vaping are for the purpose of driving smokers back to cigarettes" I don't think it is intentionally on purpose, but it sure does seem this way sometimes. A specific example that comes to mind: city of San Francisco banning sale of e-cigs completely, while keeping regular cigarettes just as legal as before [0]. 0. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/25/735714009/san-francisco-poised-to-ban-sales-of-e-cigarettes https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/25/7357140...

tryitnow 7y ago
Good point. I don't see any of the politicians addressing why the didn't also ban cigarettes. My guess is that banning cigarettes would go too far. It's unrealistic to expect cigarette smokers to quit over night and start using patches and lozenges. It's a little more realistic to expect that people who vape to do so.
- uberduper 7y ago
  > It's a little more realistic to expect that people who vape to do so. Why?
- draw_down 7y ago
  > I don't see any of the politicians addressing why the didn't also ban cigarettes. It's because tobacco is regulated by the FDA but ecigs aren't.
- filoleg 7y ago
  >It's unrealistic to expect cigarette smokers to quit over night and start using patches and lozenges. >It's a little more realistic to expect that people who vape to do so. From personal observations, what would actually happen is that those people will just switch to smoking cigarettes.

mcguire 7y ago

"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." This is absolutely true. Inhaling propylene glycol and glycerine daily for thirty years might cause you to grow three heads or have babies with 27 fingers. But the results of every reputable report I've seen until now has indicated that vaping is much, much better than smoking cigarettes.

roddds 7y ago
We already have people that inhale propylene glycol and/or glycerine for 30 years: people that work in factories and hospitals.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

Taxes. Vaping is really hard to tax unlike cigarettes. State and local governments are addicted to cigarette tax revenue, but that has been evaporating quickly, so outlawing vaping and not cigarettes is really profitable to them, even if causing more harm overall.

icebraining 7y ago
Why would vaping be hard to tax?
- maratc 7y ago
  Mixing propylene glycol, glycerine, nicotine, and flavors can be easily done at home. Pretty hard to limit the distribution of any of the parts the way tobacco distribution is limited.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Couldn't you tax the liquid nicotine by itself?
    - maratc 7y ago
      Well, maybe you could, the way we tax ethanol. The problem with that is the duty-free sales (including ordering a year-supply of it online from China), and the moonshine (synthesized nicotine).