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What you're not considering is the demand induced by a "safer" product. Look at the recent vaping epidemic among teen-age youth. How do you know continuing to

What you're not considering is the demand induced by a "safer" product. Look at the recent vaping epidemic among teen-age youth. How do you know continuing to improve vape technology won't continue to drive up demand to the point where the cost burden is spread more thinly across more people? E.g. instead of fewer people having very expensive cancer care, vaping could still cause some damage and incur costs across more people.

allovernow 7y ago
This is bullshit think of the children scaremongering. Even among teens smoking rates are dropping. Adults are responsible enough to make the choice for health reasons. And there's still zero indication that vaping is harmful, so at the very least it's not as bad as smoking since it's been around for a decade at least now and nothing obvious has come up. And nicotine has this weird reputation as being dangerous, but beyond addictiveness it has not be shown to be harmful, even potentially neuroprotective. Not to mention scaremongers tend to ignore that it is a stimulant, and can help with anxiety. Schizos are known to self medicate with it, for example. >https://time.com/5727662/smoking-vaping-rates-2018/ https://time.com/5727662/smoking-vaping-rates-2018/
- MiroF 7y ago
  Nicotine use and addiction among teens is higher than it has been in decades. The rates are staggering. Agreed that is a completely different problem than smoking, but still worth discussing since it is so addictive.
  - s1artibartfast 7y ago
    I would love to see the numbers on that. What i often seen is the number of teens who have vaped in the last year compared to habitual smokers
  - allovernow 7y ago
    I don't entirely disagree. There may be negative changes in brain structure associated with early onset use - though there may also be positive changes that will go unnoticed because of stigma.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > there's still zero indication that vaping is harmful, so at the very least it's not as bad as smoking since it's been around for a decade at least now and nothing obvious has come up Do you know how long smoking was around before we had actual evidence that it was harmful? (Hint: The rough order of magnitude of the time is centuries.)
  - schrodinger 7y ago
    To be fair we’re much better at evaluating these things now.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    Modern medical care has advanced exponentially in the last 100 years. There weren't regular, organized, multithousand data point case studies back then.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > There weren't regular, organized, multithousand data point case studies back then. Case studies can't spot harm faster than the harm occurs. The main harm from smoking is a significantly increased risk of lung cancer and other illnesses which can take decades to show up. That's why even with modern medicine advancing over the last century it took so long to nail down the health risks of smoking.
  - quickthrowman 7y ago
    Other commenters already pointed out that we didn’t have modern laboratory science when tobacco was brought over to Europe, not to mention that mechanized cigarette production is a much more recent development that the use of tobacco by western cultures. I used to smoke, and now I vape. My lungs function so much better now that it’s easily discernible to me that smoking irritates lungs far more than vaping.
    - duud 7y ago
      My experience is that vaping feels easier on the body than smoking but both cause coughing and congestion. It probably isn't a good idea to inhale large quantities of anything other than oxygen.
- gruez 7y ago
  >This is bullshit think of the children scaremongering. Even among teens smoking rates are dropping. Yeah, but your source also says that vaping rates are up, outstripping any decreases in smoking rates. >It showed that 27.5% of high schoolers had vaped in the past 30 days in 2019, up from 20.8% the year before. Meanwhile, teen cigarette-smoking rates dropped from 8.1% to 5.8% in the same time period. This seems to support what the parent post is saying: > E.g. instead of fewer people having very expensive cancer care, vaping could still cause some damage and incur costs across more people.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- manigandham 7y ago
  This HN post is literally about vaping being harmful.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    No, but that's exactly what people have been and will be taking from sensationalist media. If anything this post confirms that at least in the acute timeframe, the overwhelming majority of vaping is safe, becaus vitamin e is not used in nicotine cartridges/juices or most thc carts. I can't tell if media is ruining society or if society has ruined media.
    - emiliobumachar 7y ago
      Some vaping suppliers added at lest one harmful ingredient which caused some deaths. I suppose you could make a case that it's not that bad, or that it'll not happen again, or that patrons of brightly-lit stores have lower risks. Instead, you're making a case that this proves the safety of all vaping products not tainted with this specific ingredient. That was not very convincing.
  - randallsquared 7y ago
    ...in the same way that stories about trans fats were about eating being harmful.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      More like how stories about trans fats were about eating trans fats being harmful.

allovernow 7y ago

This is bullshit think of the children scaremongering. Even among teens smoking rates are dropping. Adults are responsible enough to make the choice for health reasons. And there's still zero indication that vaping is harmful, so at the very least it's not as bad as smoking since it's been around for a decade at least now and nothing obvious has come up. And nicotine has this weird reputation as being dangerous, but beyond addictiveness it has not be shown to be harmful, even potentially neuroprotective. Not to mention scaremongers tend to ignore that it is a stimulant, and can help with anxiety. Schizos are known to self medicate with it, for example. >https://time.com/5727662/smoking-vaping-rates-2018/ https://time.com/5727662/smoking-vaping-rates-2018/

MiroF 7y ago
Nicotine use and addiction among teens is higher than it has been in decades. The rates are staggering. Agreed that is a completely different problem than smoking, but still worth discussing since it is so addictive.
- s1artibartfast 7y ago
  I would love to see the numbers on that. What i often seen is the number of teens who have vaped in the last year compared to habitual smokers
- allovernow 7y ago
  I don't entirely disagree. There may be negative changes in brain structure associated with early onset use - though there may also be positive changes that will go unnoticed because of stigma.
pdonis 7y ago
> there's still zero indication that vaping is harmful, so at the very least it's not as bad as smoking since it's been around for a decade at least now and nothing obvious has come up Do you know how long smoking was around before we had actual evidence that it was harmful? (Hint: The rough order of magnitude of the time is centuries.)
- schrodinger 7y ago
  To be fair we’re much better at evaluating these things now.
- allovernow 7y ago
  Modern medical care has advanced exponentially in the last 100 years. There weren't regular, organized, multithousand data point case studies back then.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > There weren't regular, organized, multithousand data point case studies back then. Case studies can't spot harm faster than the harm occurs. The main harm from smoking is a significantly increased risk of lung cancer and other illnesses which can take decades to show up. That's why even with modern medicine advancing over the last century it took so long to nail down the health risks of smoking.
- quickthrowman 7y ago
  Other commenters already pointed out that we didn’t have modern laboratory science when tobacco was brought over to Europe, not to mention that mechanized cigarette production is a much more recent development that the use of tobacco by western cultures. I used to smoke, and now I vape. My lungs function so much better now that it’s easily discernible to me that smoking irritates lungs far more than vaping.
  - duud 7y ago
    My experience is that vaping feels easier on the body than smoking but both cause coughing and congestion. It probably isn't a good idea to inhale large quantities of anything other than oxygen.
gruez 7y ago
>This is bullshit think of the children scaremongering. Even among teens smoking rates are dropping. Yeah, but your source also says that vaping rates are up, outstripping any decreases in smoking rates. >It showed that 27.5% of high schoolers had vaped in the past 30 days in 2019, up from 20.8% the year before. Meanwhile, teen cigarette-smoking rates dropped from 8.1% to 5.8% in the same time period. This seems to support what the parent post is saying: > E.g. instead of fewer people having very expensive cancer care, vaping could still cause some damage and incur costs across more people.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
manigandham 7y ago
This HN post is literally about vaping being harmful.
- allovernow 7y ago
  No, but that's exactly what people have been and will be taking from sensationalist media. If anything this post confirms that at least in the acute timeframe, the overwhelming majority of vaping is safe, becaus vitamin e is not used in nicotine cartridges/juices or most thc carts. I can't tell if media is ruining society or if society has ruined media.
  - emiliobumachar 7y ago
    Some vaping suppliers added at lest one harmful ingredient which caused some deaths. I suppose you could make a case that it's not that bad, or that it'll not happen again, or that patrons of brightly-lit stores have lower risks. Instead, you're making a case that this proves the safety of all vaping products not tainted with this specific ingredient. That was not very convincing.
- randallsquared 7y ago
  ...in the same way that stories about trans fats were about eating being harmful.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    More like how stories about trans fats were about eating trans fats being harmful.