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I think we've hit the "moral panic" stage with e-cigarettes.
by WarDores 7y ago
I think we've hit the "moral panic" stage with e-cigarettes.
- abduhl 7y agoOr, alternatively, we've hit the "preponderance of the evidence" stage for e-cigarettes and vaping in general being bad for your health and governments are doing what they think is correct for the health of their constituents.
- stronglikedan 7y agoIt's kinda sad because it's not as bad as real cigarettes, and makes quitting them a walk in the park for those that want to quit.
- slykat 7y agoWhile that's the marketing view of most of the e-cig companies, we don't actually know if either of these claims are true. #1 e-cigs are not as harmful as normal cigarettes It will take several decades to prove or disprove this point. However, early research points to this not being the case. #2 e-cigs make it much easier to quit tobacco Again, early research doesn't indicate that e-cigs don't outperform other smoking cessation techniques. The main concerns I've heard are from a public health perspective. Most tobacco researchers and public health officials are concerned that e-cigs are essentially a "better" product. "Better" meaning perceived as being less offensive, cooler, convenient, and less harmful. The concern is that since the youth perceive e-cigs as cool and safe, while cigarettes as uncool and harmful, it's seeing significant adoption in younger people which is undoing the gains from the anti-tobacco campaigns in the 90s. Essentially, the hypothesis is that e-cigs are a slightly less (but really the distinction is minute and trivial) harmful product that is significantly more compelling to people. The net effect is the threat of e-cigarettes is that it can do significantly more harm to humans that cigarettes (since more people perceive it as safe).
- Clubber 7y agoI can vouch for #2 (and many other people if you'd listen). UK scientists vouch for #1. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/28/vaping-is-95-safer-than-smoking-claims-public-health-england https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/28/vaping-is-95... With this evidence, are you willing change your stance on it?
- EpicEng 7y ago#1 you are just plain wrong about. Let's see your evidence. #2 is nonsense. I did it personally and you can hop on any vaping forum to find millions more.
- WarDores 7y agoThere's much more evidence for fast food being bad for your health, and we're not up in arms about that one (collectively). I'm not _for_ vaping, necessarily -- and I don't like it in public: I'm for smoking in general to be banned from public spaces because of the way it affects other people -- but if you want to choose that in your own house, go for it.
- talloaktrees 7y agonot to mention alcohol
- human20190310 7y agoI hate when someone produces a cloud of vape steam in the middle of a crowd of people waiting to cross the street. It just hangs there, a visibly stinking, redolent horror invading everyone else's nostrils.
- reroute1 7y agoThis is all subjective. I personally don't mind at all, but cigarette smoke irritates the hell out of me
- nitrogen 7y agoThis is why public spaces have to target a relatively high standard -- everyone is bothered by and allergic/sensitive to different things.
- mcguire 7y agoWait until you realize that describes normal breath, too. :-)
- 4ntonius8lock 7y agoPeople have a hard time seeing what they don't have interest in could have interest to other people. Most people don't vape, so it's much easier to get on a moral high horse and tell others what to do; there's no consequence for the majority. If they reacted to vaping the same way to cars, coffee, sugar, fast food, etc... they would suffer a loss of freedom. And people don't like to lose their own freedom, but plenty of people are eager to restrict others. It makes sense for me: most people don't work on self improvement so imposing self improvement on others is a way to feel that society is improving.
- nightsd01 7y agoAnd I’m sure that everyone who currently uses e-cigarettes in those countries will simply shake their heads and give up the habit. Which history clearly shows is what happens when we ban a substance. Right? Yeah.... Not only is there vanishingly little “evidence” that e-cigarettes are harmful to health, most of the evidence we do have is for knock-off street THC or cheap Chinese juice. That’s hardly a logical reason to ban e-cigarettes entirely. Especially given the fact that many of these people will go back to smoking real cigarettes.
- willis936 7y agoThe black market will inly grow when the substance is outlawed. These bans are effectively deregulating and needlessly endangering constituents.
- gpm 7y agoUnlike with cigarettes, black market production of e-cigarettes sounds unlikely. They're complex electronics that need large factories to build. Illegal importation from legal foreign factories will probably happen, but those foreign factories are going to be building to the same standard regardless, and compared to normal contraband like "plant leaves" it's going to be pretty easy to tell where they are coming from.
- naoru 7y agobasic mech setup is a high drain battery connected to a coil with a wick through a high current switch. no rocket science here.
- wgerard 7y ago> Unlike with cigarettes, black market production of e-cigarettes sounds unlikely. Wait, isn't that exactly the problem that's lead to what's happened here? Unregulated THC cartridges causing health issues in states where marijuana is still illegal?
- 7y ago
- DanBC 7y agoE-cigarettes are considerably less harmful than smoking. Banning vapes while keeping tobacco legal is incoherent.
- falcolas 7y agoHas India also outlawed cigarettes, cigars, and pipe tobacco? If not, this isn't due to an preponderance of evidence and a care about constituents' health.
- ineedasername 7y agoIt is if e-cigs are causing a higher overall use if tobacco products. The time to stop it is early on, now. Traditional tobacco products on the other hand are so entrenched that it would take a truly astounding amount of effort to institute such a ban. I agree there's some amount of moral panic at play here, but it's not the only factor and maybe not even the dominant one.
- falcolas 7y agoPer TFA, there are around 35 Million vapers worldwide. The WHO (via Wikipedia) indicates that over 120 million people smoke cigarettes in India alone, with 1m dying every year due exclusively to smoking complications. So, no, e-cig use could not possibly be higher, or have a higher health impact.
- nitrogen 7y agoAre there numbers by age group? I know of people that wouldn't smoke, but got addicted to nicotine at earlyish ages via vaping.
- ineedasername 7y agoYou misunderstood. I didn't say that e-cigs were, by themselves, higher. I said they may be causing a higher overall use of tobacco (well, nicotine) products. Health risks are less clear. Vaping hasn't really been around long enough to examine life-long vapers for the really long term effects. Still, based on available evidence, I'd guess the risks are much lower than smoking. But if it converts non-smokers into vapers, that will increase the overall number of people at risk. Of course it can (and does) convert smokers to vapers, which may not reduce the raw number of people doing something risky, but it may decrease the overall pooled risk of that whole population. So I don't know. From a public health policy point of view, it's not an easy equation to balance. What amount of new people with health risk is worth it to reducing the overall risk? Should there be such a utilitarian calculation? Should they try to reduce both the number of people with risk and the overall risk pool by both banning vaping and making traditional tobacco products harder/more expensive, or more education to prevent initial use? What about freedom to make these not-so-great choices, people make bad but not illegal choices all the time, why should this be different? I don't propose answers to the above. I'm simply saying the India ban may not purely be a case of moral panic. That's all.
- nomel 7y agoIf they were doing anything for health they would ban actual cigarettes...
- corndoge 7y ago"Preponderance of the evidence" being 5 reported deaths from "vaping related" illnesses, 3 of which involved illicit cannabis products? Meanwhile untold numbers of people have been able to quit smoking, which we know absolutely causes harm, thanks to vapes.
- pennaMan 7y agoFunny how quickly the media disinformation outburst about those illicit vape products convinced the public conscious that there is suddenly massive evidence of general vaping long term effects.
- corndoge 7y agoRight? Completely insane, people are acting like vaping is the same as meth now
- tomatotomato37 7y agoThat's not a good enough reason to ban something. Actually let me clarify that, it is theoretically a good enough reason to ban something, but in reality it just lead to speakeasies and NASCAR.
- EpicEng 7y agoPlease point me to this preponderance of evidence. I'll wait.
- mcguire 7y agoHas there been new evidence? All I've heard recently has been the recent cases of an unidentified lung illness (which seems much more likely to be the result of some new product on the market, since it doesn't take years to become apparent). Any new epidemiological studies? Any new direct evidence of harm? (I mean, beyond the long-existing studies involving burning vaping liquid at extremely high temperatures and discovering lower quantities of dangerous chemicals than you would find in cigarettes or marijuana.) Any serious study showing higher levels of nicotine addiction than cigars or pipe tobacco? (Cigarettes have had decades of engineering specifically to make them addictive.) Are you sure this isn't just another puritanical flap?