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My father has COPD from over 50 years of smoking. I convinced him to switch to vaping and he's been using a Juul for a few years now. Awhile after the switch hi

My father has COPD from over 50 years of smoking. I convinced him to switch to vaping and he's been using a Juul for a few years now. Awhile after the switch his primary care physician listened to his lungs and said they sounded a lot better. She said she because the science isn't in "I can't tell you to vape but I can tell you to keep doing what you're doing". Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not. But in this one instance it was a good move for a smoker. I'd like to see more studies in this area and some more regulations on the "juice" for vapes. The quality, and I assume health effects, vary widely between different juices. For example: I bought him a non-refillable vape by another company and he started coughing and complaining of soreness in his throat. I also think the arguments against the flavored juices are hysterical/hypocritical given the variety of flavors of liquor one can find. Disclaimer: I think all drugs should be legal.

uniqueuid 5y ago
Congratulations on your father's change of habit, I hope he continues to recover and has a long life! That aside, the collective balance is: - how many cigarette smokers will switch (benefit) - how many people will start vaping instead of smoking (benefit) - how many people will switch from vaping to smoking (harm) - how many people will start vaping but wouldn't have started smoking (harm) Perhaps someone with expertise can explain the current state of research. IIRC I saw a study arguing that the beneficial effects were less frequent and vaping as an entry to smoking was shockingly prevalent.
- symlinkk 5y ago
  We don’t know that vaping is harmful. It’s addictive, yes, but not necessarily harmful.
  - uniqueuid 5y ago
    I don't know (not my area of expertise), but aren't there some reliable meta-analyses on the effects of vaping? I would be surprised to see that inhaling any kind of smoke or non-water aerosol is good for your lungs, so I'd expect at least a minor harmful effect. This study, for example, claims increased risks for heart disease [1] (disclaimer: I'm not a medical doctor and cannot evaluate its credibility) [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40138-020-00219-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40138-020-00219-0
    - kortex 5y ago
      Anything going into the lungs besides atmospheric air, and specific medications, is potentially inflammatory. At best, the VOCs (in vaping) do absolutely nothing in either direction. At semi-worst, they cause low-grade inflammation, and worst-case they cause chemical pneumonitis. However, by comparison, tobacco smoke is like "what if we could engineer the perfect lung assailant." Tar causes inflammation, damages DNA directly, intercalates DNA and induces replication errors, collapses alveoli, and paralyzes cillia, making clearance of all those chemical assailants from the lungs even harder.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    If something is addictive (as in actually creating a physical and mental dependence on continued use in significant number of people) - why would you not classify that as harmful?
    - jlund-molfese 5y ago
      I mean, coffee is an addictive stimulant which isn’t usually classified as harmful. Vaping might have social and physiological benefits which outweigh the harm also.
    - TheFreim 5y ago
      Caffeine?
    - lelanthran 5y ago
      > If something is addictive (as in actually creating a physical and mental dependence on continued use in significant number of people) - why would you not classify that as harmful? You want to classify sugar as harmful? It's physiologically addictive (go a few days without carbs altogether and tell us how it goes). What about caffeine?
      - lupire 5y ago
        Yes, of course they are. It's well established. But some harmful things are worth the tradeoff if you can maintain a low enough dose (sugar or caffeine)
      - viraptor 5y ago
        Yes, sugar is slightly addictive for some people. It's also slightly harmful. (Go sugar free and see how your dental health improves; dropping sugar / most carbs from diet is enough for me to get back to ideal weight) Caffeine is also addictive and if you drink enough, stopping gives you withdrawal headaches. But in my experience not drinking caffeine at all makes me just as alert as getting used to the daily dose I thought I needed before. So yeah, I'd totally classify both as slightly harmful.
    - hnzix 5y ago
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    We do know that nicotine is harmful, whether vaped or smoked or ingested in any other way. No mysteries there.
    - mirekrusin 5y ago
      Is it? I thought it's basically addictive.
      - vidarh 5y ago
        Pretty much. I've never smoked, and tried picking up nicotine at one point (via patches and gum) because it's one of the safest nootropic substances we know with a clear effect next to caffeine. (My tolerance was too low and in the end I couldn't be bothered to figure out the dosing). Even the physical addictiveness of nicotine is not that strong when separated from the rituals of smoking compared to e.g. caffeine (where addiction is also massively affected by rituals).
    - symlinkk 5y ago
      That’s incorrect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine > Nicotine is classified as a poison. However, at doses used by consumers, it presents little if any hazard to the user.
- grasshopperpurp 5y ago
  Isn't it also about the amount of harm or benefit for each? The articles I saw (years ago) claimed that vaping was a gateway to smoking, but the data showed that vaping just replaced smoking for teens. That is, once e-cigs became available, the same amount of teens were doing one or the other, but more were using e-cigs than cigarettes. So, if the amount of teens doing one or the other remained stable, but e-cig use largely replaced cigarette use, I think you have to consider the teens using the e-cigs. If you removed e-cigs as an option, would they smoke cigarettes or abstain altogether? It seems to me that they'd be more likely (as a group) to smoke cigarettes. Disclaimer: I switched from smoking to vaping in 2013 and haven't smoked a cigarette since. I use unflavored e-liquid for a few reasons, but, as I understand it, inhaling flavorings meant to be ingested is the primary health risk with vaping. Last I checked, this issue was still under debate.
dkersten 5y ago
> "I can't tell you to vape but I can tell you to keep doing what you're doing". > Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not Yeah, I imagine that its a lot better than smoking cigarettes, but still worse than not smoking at all. So for your father, its a benefit because its something he finds sustainable (I assume quitting would be even better, but maybe rather difficult), but for a non-smoker, they would do themselves damage (even if not as much as smoking cigarettes would). So definitely good for smokers, but maybe not the best for non-smokers (although I'd love to know how it compares to other common unhealthy things we do like alcohol or fast food) I have heard some negative things about vaping, but I assume its like you say: the quality and health effects vary widely between the "juice". In any case, regardless of overall "good" or not, it seems to be a benefit for smokers, so that's a good thing!
totalZero 5y ago
> the arguments against the flavored juices are hysterical/hypocritical given the variety of flavors of liquor one can find. I would assume a significant difference in impact between putting flavor substances in your lungs and putting flavor substances in your esophagus/stomach.
- smolder 5y ago
  I think the argument they are referring to is the one that because there were tasty flavors, the products were targeting youth... as if adults do not enjoy tasty flavors. That's one way regulators rationalized bans on vaping products. No one is making similar arguments to ban tasty liquor. I haven't ruled out that they were trying to target youth with their products, but having nice juice flavors is the furthest thing from a smoking gun, and yet it was presented as one.
  - dmurray 5y ago
    > No one is making similar arguments to ban tasty liquor. People do make these arguments, and they catch on from time to time. There was a moral panic about alcopops in the 1990s in the UK [0]. They weren't banned by regulators but several supermarket chains stopped selling them. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23502892 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23502892
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      Some supermarkets not selling them didn't last very long. The government increased the tax on alcopops several times, but in the 00s the big drink companies started promoting Swedish i.e. sugary cider. Now your 1990s alcopop has some ös in the name and 10% added apple juice.
  - aliasEli 5y ago
    Many ex-smokers try tobacco flavors when they start vaping. Many switch to other flavors after a while, because tobacco does not really taste nice.
  - 5y ago
k__ 5y ago
My girlfriend switched to vaping 10 years ago. It saved her thousands of Euros and she is much fitter, and her breath smells delicious, haha. But she doesn't use big brands, she mixes her liquid at home and tries to lower the dose over years. But every time she can't vape, because her machine broke, or she lost it, or whatever, she get's quiet angry and smokes a few regular cigs.
- 83457 5y ago
  Teenagers vaping then switching to regular cigarettes is one of the big concerns.
  - TchoBeer 5y ago
    How often does this happen?
    - refurb 5y ago
      Probably high when vaping is banned.
    - ilikecakeandpie 5y ago
      From what I've seen, as soon as their expensive-ish vape breaks or they run out of juice and there's a pack of cigs at the gas station for which they don't have to wait
  - aliasEli 5y ago
    But I really wonder if that happens frequently. Cigarettes really taste and smell awful. I discovered how terrible they really are only after I quit smoking. As long as e-cigarettes remain available, I doubt that many people would switch to real cigarettes.
    - wholinator2 5y ago
      Ive seen it go two ways, you start with the vape pod or all in one systems, get bored and you 1. Buy a big boy vape, roll your own coils, maintain and clean it, the whole shabang. Or 2. Smoke cigarettes I have seen many people choose option 2. The big vape systems are sometimes large, heavy, and clunky, require sometimes very publicly dis and re assembling a little contraption, carrying juice on you, lots of things that put fellow people off. Ive seen people be ridiculed for carrying around so much vape stuff. It kinda falls into the neckbeardy categories at least for my place/time, just because the first people to do it made it their whole lives and refused to talk about anything else, it got a reputation. It's both easier and less socially risky to just buy some cigarettes. Though I will say smoking cigarettes is not without social risk. Typically women will heavily dislike the habit except for the ones that do it themselves. I've seen whole houses get addicted to cigarettes just because one person went out to smoke when they drank every weekend. I have never seen the same phenomena with vaping. Though I very nearly missed the target generation for things like juul.
BoxOfRain 5y ago
I can't speak for Juul but I credit my smoking cessation entirely to vaping. I've not had any nicotine since 2020, vaping or smoking! I think there's a real attitude among a small number of non-smokers that quitting without some form of sustained suffering is "doing it wrong" and that addicts of any kind deserve pain to atone for the sin of being an addict. This attitude is extremely unhelpful and should be condemned along with all other types of moral puritanism in my opinion.
- kevincox 5y ago
  It may not be "doing it wrong" but different people work in different ways. I know one friend who tried to quit a couple of times by easing off with no luck. However one time they decided to just stop and it worked. They felt like crap for a week or two but then they were off it.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Whether easing off is more or less effective than cold turkey, and for whom, is a technical matter. GP is talking about something orthogonal: some people believe that breaking addiction requires suffering, so if you found a way to avoid it, you've somehow cheated, or hadn't really quit.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - BoxOfRain 5y ago
    I'm not against people quitting cold turkey if that's what works for them, addiction is different for everyone and if that's the most effective way of quitting for a person then fair enough. What I'm against is non-smokers preaching that it's the only way as opposed to something like vaping when they're in no position to make such a claim.
- ehnto 5y ago
  I don't think anything along those lines but I am extremely disappointed that another generation is hooked on nicotine through vaping. You hear kids bragging about how much 'nic' they go through. I was always confused about that particular part of smoking culture, it's got this mixed message of bad-boy persona and defiance yet it's very much a corporate curated habit. Nobody should have ended up addicted to nicotine, it was entirely unnecessary, and now here we are again even after all those lessons learned. I am glad it's not nearly as harmful as cigarettes, but people are once again being sucked into an addiction in order to buy product and that stinks.
Synaesthesia 5y ago
Yeah there's the interesting issue of popcorn lung, which comes from inhaling a certain chemical, diethyl. I don't think it's in juul.
- techrat 5y ago
  The 'popcorn' issue is pretty much linked to one artificial flavor... Diacetyl... anything that involves a buttery taste. Often found in microwave popcorn, hence popcorn lung. Custards, a popular group of vape flavors, was the main source of it. The catch? Diacetyl is also a byproduct of cigarette smoking. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10408444.2014.882292?journalCode=itxc20 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10408444.2014.88... The risk was not considered to be noteworthy among cigarette smokers and food workers who had higher exposure to the chemical diacetyl... > Further, because smoking has not been shown to be a risk factor for bronchiolitis obliterans, our findings are inconsistent with claims that diacetyl and/or 2,3-pentanedione exposure are risk factors for this disease. So basically... vaping causes popcorn lung = FUD.
- KuiN 5y ago
  Most manufacturers haven't used Diacetyl in their juice for years (like 7+ years by now).
afavour 5y ago
I think if Juul was marketed as a smoking cessation product I’d have no problem with it. But it’s marketed as a lifestyle product and a ton of young people with no history of smoking have started vaping as a result.
- swiley 5y ago
  Someone who was involved with the early founding of that company has posted here before. It's as rotten as the cigarette companies. They're on a level bellow even consumer electronics OS vendors.
- egeozcan 5y ago
  Exactly. The false dichotomy they bring forward anytime people mention the adverse health effects is really impossible to swallow. There have always been products to battle nicotine addiction. They should compare this to those.
  - krrrh 5y ago
    > They should compare this to those. Or we could trust the adults who chose one product over the other to make those decisions.
    - egeozcan 5y ago
      False marketing does need government intervention. If you think otherwise, that's a whole different kind of discussion.
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  There is no incentive to sell it as something to make you quit
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  But it's not a smoking cessation product. It can be used effectively as such, but it's first and foremost a healthier substitute to smoking. People like to go to both extremes wrt. vaping - "but it creates new addicts" vs. "but it's effective tool for breaking addiction", forgetting about the biggest benefit vaping brings: letting smokers who don't want to quit to keep smoking, without risking lung cancer. I'm definitely against marketing vaping to non-smokers. But I'm fine with converting existing smokers to vaping without any talk about quitting, because smoking e-cigarettes is strictly better than smoking analog ones.
replicatorblog 5y ago
Ecigs are likely one of the most impactful public health interventions of the last 50 years. They provide a substitute that is less dangerous and pleasurable which keeps compliance high. Juul and their competitors were genius product managers paired with irresponsible to the point of malevolent product marketers. I would like someone to do a "Years of life saved" calculation that tallies the expected years save by switching smokers to vaping balanced against those who were attracted by vaping who eventually went to smoking. My guess is even with the new entrants the years of life saved would be extraordinary.
- Judgmentality 5y ago
  > I would like someone to do a "Years of life saved" calculation that tallies the expected years save by switching smokers to vaping balanced against those who were attracted by vaping who eventually went to smoking. My guess is even with the new entrants the years of life saved would be extraordinary. My understanding is entire high schools are getting addicted to vaping, where before smoking was a relatively minor phenomenon. I suspect vaping is causing multiple times as much harm as it is providing relief, especially since they target young people for new customers. I know plenty of people that have never smoked in their lives that vape regularly. I actually don't know a single smoker that switched to vaping, but I think that latter part is rare and unique to me. So, if I'm correct, I don't think it should be "years of life saved" but "years of life lost," and I'd bet it's astonishingly high since many of those high school kids will be addicted for life. Don't forget Juul got billions (not millions) in funding from the cigarette companies in exchange for 35% ownership, so it's all the same to them - addiction is money.
  - wholinator2 5y ago
    Yes, it seems like the elder generations are benefiting greatly from vaping but the "kids these days" are having huge issues with it. I agree that majority of a high school will just suddenly be all in on vaping, the social pressure is just waayyy too high in a place like that and a bunch of people get pulled in that wouldn't just cause a couple of the more influential ones picked up something they view as a toy, but that they can portray as a status symbol, at least within the high school. I will say that when those juul kids come to college, very specifically my college, they hit the reality that everyone there still looks down on it and that they're basically just broadcasting their "highschoolness", and then they realize how hard it is to quit. We had smoking at my non-smoking campus, just behind one of the buildings, but it was by definition not popular. Vaping existed but if you were walking around blowing huge clouds of cotton candy shit, people would both actively avoid you and look down on you. It was the culture at the time. Disclaimer: I left a couple years ago, that was my experience, things could've greatly changed by now
re-al 5y ago
Just think, the science isn't in for vapes. But it is in for rna vaccines!
- kenjackson 5y ago
  It’s certainly not in for mRNA vaccines, but I also wouldn’t say to take an mRNA vaccine just for kicks.
EMM_386 5y ago
I agree that vaping is far safer than smoking cigarettes. > I'd like to see more studies in this area and some more regulations on the "juice" for vapes. Remember the media chaos when the "vaping lung disease" was making the cycle? This was likely due to the juice they were using. It contained vitamin E acetate and was found primarily in THC vape juice. Normal e-cigs have standard VG/PG, nicotine and food grade flavoring. And that's it. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/severe-lung-disease.html https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/s...
- trophycase 5y ago
  The only person I know that vapes regularly has a persistent cough as long as she is vaping and goes away immediately when she stops. I don't think it is as safe as everyone is claiming.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
I wish this was around for a friend of mine. I might have been able to talk him into these vaping products. He didn't want the gum, or the patch. He smoked 4-5 packs of Benson & Henson Menthols/day. He stopped when he was 64, but it was to late. He didn't die of lung cancer, but they just stopped working one night in his sleep. He had some undiagnosed psychological problem that I believe added to his constant smoking? I must have asked him to cut back a 1000x. I don't like nicotine, but I'm glad these are still legal. (That said, I had him go a doctor to check his coronary arteries. They were completely clean. I think the only thing that saved him besides good genes, he didn't eat much.)
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  > but I'm glad these are still legal. This is a great story. But it can be legal and restricted -- prescription only, just like Nicorette gum was when it was first introduced. > He had some undiagnosed psychological problem There is definitely a correlation between schizophrenia and smoking. I dont know if there are studies on it, but ask any psychologist experienced with schizophrenics if they see that pattern.
refurb 5y ago
The NHS actually recommends vaping to help stop smoking. "In recent years, e-cigarettes have become a very popular stop smoking aid in the UK. Also known as vapes or e-cigs, they're far less harmful than cigarettes and can help you quit smoking for good." https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/quit-smoking/using-e-cigarettes-to-stop-smoking/ https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/quit-smoking/using-e-cigarettes...
alsetmusic 5y ago
I’m also a former smoker who switched to vaping as a step toward eventually quitting nicotine products. It’s been a huge improvement (I no longer smell / taste like cigarettes), and I hope it’s doing less damage to my body. Poor behavior by Juul, marketing to youth, makes me wary that I’ll have this stopgap regulated away. I wish they’d stop bringing negative publicity to vaping as a whole. The temp ban on delivery doubled prices when they were only available in retail shops. I’m always concerned it’ll be taken from former smokers who want to quit.
Workaccount2 5y ago
A Tl;DR of the situation with the FDA: - "E-Cigs are the greatest public health invention of modern times!" - Oh wait! "Think of the Children™" - "We need to full on demonize e-cigs à la '90s anti drug style!" This is pretty much what went down. It was recognized as miracle, but the fear of kids getting addicted was too great. So instead we're going the path of full on propaganda against it, while kids get addicted anyway.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  And the most hilarious part? Altria is laughing all the way to the bank.
jjice 5y ago
As an alternative to smoking cigarettes, it seems like a great choice. As someone fairly young who was still in high school when vaping started to pick up, the amount of people I know at my age (recent college graduates) that vape and picked it up as a habit without ever having smoked before is insane. I was out with some friends and two people I had never met before, and they immediately hit it off on their shared habit. I guess that's kind of like the social aspect of cigarettes. It's an interesting thing to see, and it's less intrusive than cigarette smoke for sure, so to each their own.
- jlangemeier 5y ago
  I'm going to push back on the "less intrusive" than cigarette smoke; yes, vaping smoke doesn't stick to your clothes or on your breath, but that precludes the weird habit of vapers using the product where ever they darn well please because it isn't "smoking." The amount of times I've ran into a cloud of "banana margherita" is a bit ridiculous, and honestly I'd rather sit in a smoking section of a restaurant in podunk Wyoming than be randomly accosted by vape smoke, because at least with the smoker section I am willingly choosing to be there. Also, as a smoker, I've never "hit it off" with somebody because we smoked. Hitting it off with someone in the smoker's pit outside a bar is just shooting the shit with someone that's in a common area; folks that vape and vegans are very similar in that it's a major point of conversation, as if they've assimilated it as part of their personality. All that being said, vaping is fine, but the uptick in high schoolers smoking (because it's still smoking under a different name) is a bit alarming; and will be interesting to see how that consumer pipeline changes as regulation of them changes.
JohnDoerian2 5y ago
As someone who vapes and has tried out some different products. Atleast here in Europe Juul was the only "pre-filled" cartridges product which contains nicotine salt instead of freebase nicotine. Nicotine salt is much easier to vape and feels less harsh. I.e I can easily vape 50mg/ml nicotine salt, while above 10mg/ml freebase gets uncomfortable for my throat. That might have been the reason for your dad coughing. But I still agree, besides the salt/freebase aspect there can be different aspects of the ingrefients, each affecting health differently.
ohdannyboy 5y ago
My uncle was a lifelong smoker and survived lung cancer (in remission getting close to 5 years). He vapes now and seems to be doing a lot better. It seems preferable to cigarettes considering his odds of full cessation are basically zero.
908087 5y ago
My main issue with Juul personally is that they seem to have absolutely no quality control at all in their production process. Before I quit using them, you never knew until you opened them whether a pack of pods would be okay, or dark yellow and taste/feel like smoking burnt plastic.
Bayart 5y ago
I was a smoker for 14 years and vaping is the only thing that could get me off of it. And I do feel quite a bit better. The only issue I've had was with propylene glycol, a main ingredient of most juices, to which I've got a mild allergic reaction (it essentially gives me bronchitis). Your dad may have something similar, it's quite common. Anyhow, all the FUD in the US about vaping, its cultural association there with irritating types, the rush here in the EU to tax it as if it was cigarette (it isn't), and the growth of corporate trash on top of it has been incredibly discouraging. It's putting a barrier in front of smokers for something that's for all intents and purposes the most effective medication.
conductr 5y ago
Something as simple as saline is highly regulated by FDA (in US), so vape probably should be just as highly regulated. Potentially more so since it's use is continuous.
dude187 5y ago
Why "more regulations"? The market is just fine as is it. That feels like one of those things that people just feel obligated to say.
mcguire 5y ago
"I also think the arguments against the flavored juices are hysterical/hypocritical given the variety of flavors of liquor one can find." If you have a product that people enjoy using and has associated dangers, some people will use it anyway. If you have a second product that replaces the first product with less danger[1], more people will use it. That's simple economic reasoning. The hysteria over vaping is largely a product of a puritanical mindset---the horror at the thought of someone, somewhere, enjoying themselves. People have made their peace with tobacco itself[2], alcohol[3], and marijuana[4]. [1] "Evidence so far indicates that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than smoking as they don’t contain tobacco or involve combustion. There is no smoke, tar or carbon monoxide, and studies looking at key toxicants have generally found much lower levels than in cigarettes. They do contain nicotine, which is addictive, but isn’t responsible for the major health harms from smoking." (https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/awareness-and-prevention/e-cigarette-hub-information-for-health-professionals/safety https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/awarene...) "In September, a paper in The Journal of Clinical Investigation described mice exposed to e-cigarettes for 4 months, nearly one-quarter of their life span. Farrah Kheradmand, a pulmonologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, who led the work, says that, at first, "There was absolutely no emphysema, nothing" in the animals that inhaled aerosol from e-cigarettes. That finding jibes with earlier research showing combustion products are the cause of airway inflammation in smokers." (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/how-safe-vaping-new-human-studies-assess-chronic-harm-heart-and-lungs https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/how-safe-vaping-new-...) [2] Ever seen one of the bans on the sale of vaping products associated with a similar ban on cigarettes? I didn't think so. [3] Here's a toast to those who collect the statistics on the externalized costs of anything. [4] Smoking marijuana has exactly the same dangers as smoking tobacco. (You do have a filter on that reefer, right?) The same particulates, the same "tar", and the same assortment of combustion by-products, right?
bagacrap 5y ago
it sounds like juul should be a prescription medication (paid for by insurance companies as a way of lowering their total costs).

uniqueuid 5y ago

Congratulations on your father's change of habit, I hope he continues to recover and has a long life! That aside, the collective balance is: - how many cigarette smokers will switch (benefit) - how many people will start vaping instead of smoking (benefit) - how many people will switch from vaping to smoking (harm) - how many people will start vaping but wouldn't have started smoking (harm) Perhaps someone with expertise can explain the current state of research. IIRC I saw a study arguing that the beneficial effects were less frequent and vaping as an entry to smoking was shockingly prevalent.

symlinkk 5y ago
We don’t know that vaping is harmful. It’s addictive, yes, but not necessarily harmful.
- uniqueuid 5y ago
  I don't know (not my area of expertise), but aren't there some reliable meta-analyses on the effects of vaping? I would be surprised to see that inhaling any kind of smoke or non-water aerosol is good for your lungs, so I'd expect at least a minor harmful effect. This study, for example, claims increased risks for heart disease [1] (disclaimer: I'm not a medical doctor and cannot evaluate its credibility) [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40138-020-00219-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40138-020-00219-0
  - kortex 5y ago
    Anything going into the lungs besides atmospheric air, and specific medications, is potentially inflammatory. At best, the VOCs (in vaping) do absolutely nothing in either direction. At semi-worst, they cause low-grade inflammation, and worst-case they cause chemical pneumonitis. However, by comparison, tobacco smoke is like "what if we could engineer the perfect lung assailant." Tar causes inflammation, damages DNA directly, intercalates DNA and induces replication errors, collapses alveoli, and paralyzes cillia, making clearance of all those chemical assailants from the lungs even harder.
- viraptor 5y ago
  If something is addictive (as in actually creating a physical and mental dependence on continued use in significant number of people) - why would you not classify that as harmful?
  - jlund-molfese 5y ago
    I mean, coffee is an addictive stimulant which isn’t usually classified as harmful. Vaping might have social and physiological benefits which outweigh the harm also.
  - TheFreim 5y ago
    Caffeine?
  - lelanthran 5y ago
    > If something is addictive (as in actually creating a physical and mental dependence on continued use in significant number of people) - why would you not classify that as harmful? You want to classify sugar as harmful? It's physiologically addictive (go a few days without carbs altogether and tell us how it goes). What about caffeine?
    - lupire 5y ago
      Yes, of course they are. It's well established. But some harmful things are worth the tradeoff if you can maintain a low enough dose (sugar or caffeine)
    - viraptor 5y ago
      Yes, sugar is slightly addictive for some people. It's also slightly harmful. (Go sugar free and see how your dental health improves; dropping sugar / most carbs from diet is enough for me to get back to ideal weight) Caffeine is also addictive and if you drink enough, stopping gives you withdrawal headaches. But in my experience not drinking caffeine at all makes me just as alert as getting used to the daily dose I thought I needed before. So yeah, I'd totally classify both as slightly harmful.
  - hnzix 5y ago
- user-the-name 5y ago
  We do know that nicotine is harmful, whether vaped or smoked or ingested in any other way. No mysteries there.
  - mirekrusin 5y ago
    Is it? I thought it's basically addictive.
    - vidarh 5y ago
      Pretty much. I've never smoked, and tried picking up nicotine at one point (via patches and gum) because it's one of the safest nootropic substances we know with a clear effect next to caffeine. (My tolerance was too low and in the end I couldn't be bothered to figure out the dosing). Even the physical addictiveness of nicotine is not that strong when separated from the rituals of smoking compared to e.g. caffeine (where addiction is also massively affected by rituals).
  - symlinkk 5y ago
    That’s incorrect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine > Nicotine is classified as a poison. However, at doses used by consumers, it presents little if any hazard to the user.
grasshopperpurp 5y ago
Isn't it also about the amount of harm or benefit for each? The articles I saw (years ago) claimed that vaping was a gateway to smoking, but the data showed that vaping just replaced smoking for teens. That is, once e-cigs became available, the same amount of teens were doing one or the other, but more were using e-cigs than cigarettes. So, if the amount of teens doing one or the other remained stable, but e-cig use largely replaced cigarette use, I think you have to consider the teens using the e-cigs. If you removed e-cigs as an option, would they smoke cigarettes or abstain altogether? It seems to me that they'd be more likely (as a group) to smoke cigarettes. Disclaimer: I switched from smoking to vaping in 2013 and haven't smoked a cigarette since. I use unflavored e-liquid for a few reasons, but, as I understand it, inhaling flavorings meant to be ingested is the primary health risk with vaping. Last I checked, this issue was still under debate.

dkersten 5y ago

> "I can't tell you to vape but I can tell you to keep doing what you're doing". > Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not Yeah, I imagine that its a lot better than smoking cigarettes, but still worse than not smoking at all. So for your father, its a benefit because its something he finds sustainable (I assume quitting would be even better, but maybe rather difficult), but for a non-smoker, they would do themselves damage (even if not as much as smoking cigarettes would). So definitely good for smokers, but maybe not the best for non-smokers (although I'd love to know how it compares to other common unhealthy things we do like alcohol or fast food) I have heard some negative things about vaping, but I assume its like you say: the quality and health effects vary widely between the "juice". In any case, regardless of overall "good" or not, it seems to be a benefit for smokers, so that's a good thing!

totalZero 5y ago

> the arguments against the flavored juices are hysterical/hypocritical given the variety of flavors of liquor one can find. I would assume a significant difference in impact between putting flavor substances in your lungs and putting flavor substances in your esophagus/stomach.

smolder 5y ago
I think the argument they are referring to is the one that because there were tasty flavors, the products were targeting youth... as if adults do not enjoy tasty flavors. That's one way regulators rationalized bans on vaping products. No one is making similar arguments to ban tasty liquor. I haven't ruled out that they were trying to target youth with their products, but having nice juice flavors is the furthest thing from a smoking gun, and yet it was presented as one.
- dmurray 5y ago
  > No one is making similar arguments to ban tasty liquor. People do make these arguments, and they catch on from time to time. There was a moral panic about alcopops in the 1990s in the UK [0]. They weren't banned by regulators but several supermarket chains stopped selling them. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23502892 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23502892
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    Some supermarkets not selling them didn't last very long. The government increased the tax on alcopops several times, but in the 00s the big drink companies started promoting Swedish i.e. sugary cider. Now your 1990s alcopop has some ös in the name and 10% added apple juice.
- aliasEli 5y ago
  Many ex-smokers try tobacco flavors when they start vaping. Many switch to other flavors after a while, because tobacco does not really taste nice.
- 5y ago

k__ 5y ago

My girlfriend switched to vaping 10 years ago. It saved her thousands of Euros and she is much fitter, and her breath smells delicious, haha. But she doesn't use big brands, she mixes her liquid at home and tries to lower the dose over years. But every time she can't vape, because her machine broke, or she lost it, or whatever, she get's quiet angry and smokes a few regular cigs.

83457 5y ago
Teenagers vaping then switching to regular cigarettes is one of the big concerns.
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  How often does this happen?
  - refurb 5y ago
    Probably high when vaping is banned.
  - ilikecakeandpie 5y ago
    From what I've seen, as soon as their expensive-ish vape breaks or they run out of juice and there's a pack of cigs at the gas station for which they don't have to wait
- aliasEli 5y ago
  But I really wonder if that happens frequently. Cigarettes really taste and smell awful. I discovered how terrible they really are only after I quit smoking. As long as e-cigarettes remain available, I doubt that many people would switch to real cigarettes.
  - wholinator2 5y ago
    Ive seen it go two ways, you start with the vape pod or all in one systems, get bored and you 1. Buy a big boy vape, roll your own coils, maintain and clean it, the whole shabang. Or 2. Smoke cigarettes I have seen many people choose option 2. The big vape systems are sometimes large, heavy, and clunky, require sometimes very publicly dis and re assembling a little contraption, carrying juice on you, lots of things that put fellow people off. Ive seen people be ridiculed for carrying around so much vape stuff. It kinda falls into the neckbeardy categories at least for my place/time, just because the first people to do it made it their whole lives and refused to talk about anything else, it got a reputation. It's both easier and less socially risky to just buy some cigarettes. Though I will say smoking cigarettes is not without social risk. Typically women will heavily dislike the habit except for the ones that do it themselves. I've seen whole houses get addicted to cigarettes just because one person went out to smoke when they drank every weekend. I have never seen the same phenomena with vaping. Though I very nearly missed the target generation for things like juul.

BoxOfRain 5y ago

I can't speak for Juul but I credit my smoking cessation entirely to vaping. I've not had any nicotine since 2020, vaping or smoking! I think there's a real attitude among a small number of non-smokers that quitting without some form of sustained suffering is "doing it wrong" and that addicts of any kind deserve pain to atone for the sin of being an addict. This attitude is extremely unhelpful and should be condemned along with all other types of moral puritanism in my opinion.

kevincox 5y ago
It may not be "doing it wrong" but different people work in different ways. I know one friend who tried to quit a couple of times by easing off with no luck. However one time they decided to just stop and it worked. They felt like crap for a week or two but then they were off it.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Whether easing off is more or less effective than cold turkey, and for whom, is a technical matter. GP is talking about something orthogonal: some people believe that breaking addiction requires suffering, so if you found a way to avoid it, you've somehow cheated, or hadn't really quit.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  I'm not against people quitting cold turkey if that's what works for them, addiction is different for everyone and if that's the most effective way of quitting for a person then fair enough. What I'm against is non-smokers preaching that it's the only way as opposed to something like vaping when they're in no position to make such a claim.
ehnto 5y ago
I don't think anything along those lines but I am extremely disappointed that another generation is hooked on nicotine through vaping. You hear kids bragging about how much 'nic' they go through. I was always confused about that particular part of smoking culture, it's got this mixed message of bad-boy persona and defiance yet it's very much a corporate curated habit. Nobody should have ended up addicted to nicotine, it was entirely unnecessary, and now here we are again even after all those lessons learned. I am glad it's not nearly as harmful as cigarettes, but people are once again being sucked into an addiction in order to buy product and that stinks.

Synaesthesia 5y ago

Yeah there's the interesting issue of popcorn lung, which comes from inhaling a certain chemical, diethyl. I don't think it's in juul.

techrat 5y ago
The 'popcorn' issue is pretty much linked to one artificial flavor... Diacetyl... anything that involves a buttery taste. Often found in microwave popcorn, hence popcorn lung. Custards, a popular group of vape flavors, was the main source of it. The catch? Diacetyl is also a byproduct of cigarette smoking. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10408444.2014.882292?journalCode=itxc20 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10408444.2014.88... The risk was not considered to be noteworthy among cigarette smokers and food workers who had higher exposure to the chemical diacetyl... > Further, because smoking has not been shown to be a risk factor for bronchiolitis obliterans, our findings are inconsistent with claims that diacetyl and/or 2,3-pentanedione exposure are risk factors for this disease. So basically... vaping causes popcorn lung = FUD.
KuiN 5y ago
Most manufacturers haven't used Diacetyl in their juice for years (like 7+ years by now).

afavour 5y ago

I think if Juul was marketed as a smoking cessation product I’d have no problem with it. But it’s marketed as a lifestyle product and a ton of young people with no history of smoking have started vaping as a result.

swiley 5y ago
Someone who was involved with the early founding of that company has posted here before. It's as rotten as the cigarette companies. They're on a level bellow even consumer electronics OS vendors.
egeozcan 5y ago
Exactly. The false dichotomy they bring forward anytime people mention the adverse health effects is really impossible to swallow. There have always been products to battle nicotine addiction. They should compare this to those.
- krrrh 5y ago
  > They should compare this to those. Or we could trust the adults who chose one product over the other to make those decisions.
  - egeozcan 5y ago
    False marketing does need government intervention. If you think otherwise, that's a whole different kind of discussion.
rorykoehler 5y ago
There is no incentive to sell it as something to make you quit
TeMPOraL 5y ago
But it's not a smoking cessation product. It can be used effectively as such, but it's first and foremost a healthier substitute to smoking. People like to go to both extremes wrt. vaping - "but it creates new addicts" vs. "but it's effective tool for breaking addiction", forgetting about the biggest benefit vaping brings: letting smokers who don't want to quit to keep smoking, without risking lung cancer. I'm definitely against marketing vaping to non-smokers. But I'm fine with converting existing smokers to vaping without any talk about quitting, because smoking e-cigarettes is strictly better than smoking analog ones.

replicatorblog 5y ago

Ecigs are likely one of the most impactful public health interventions of the last 50 years. They provide a substitute that is less dangerous and pleasurable which keeps compliance high. Juul and their competitors were genius product managers paired with irresponsible to the point of malevolent product marketers. I would like someone to do a "Years of life saved" calculation that tallies the expected years save by switching smokers to vaping balanced against those who were attracted by vaping who eventually went to smoking. My guess is even with the new entrants the years of life saved would be extraordinary.

Judgmentality 5y ago
> I would like someone to do a "Years of life saved" calculation that tallies the expected years save by switching smokers to vaping balanced against those who were attracted by vaping who eventually went to smoking. My guess is even with the new entrants the years of life saved would be extraordinary. My understanding is entire high schools are getting addicted to vaping, where before smoking was a relatively minor phenomenon. I suspect vaping is causing multiple times as much harm as it is providing relief, especially since they target young people for new customers. I know plenty of people that have never smoked in their lives that vape regularly. I actually don't know a single smoker that switched to vaping, but I think that latter part is rare and unique to me. So, if I'm correct, I don't think it should be "years of life saved" but "years of life lost," and I'd bet it's astonishingly high since many of those high school kids will be addicted for life. Don't forget Juul got billions (not millions) in funding from the cigarette companies in exchange for 35% ownership, so it's all the same to them - addiction is money.
- wholinator2 5y ago
  Yes, it seems like the elder generations are benefiting greatly from vaping but the "kids these days" are having huge issues with it. I agree that majority of a high school will just suddenly be all in on vaping, the social pressure is just waayyy too high in a place like that and a bunch of people get pulled in that wouldn't just cause a couple of the more influential ones picked up something they view as a toy, but that they can portray as a status symbol, at least within the high school. I will say that when those juul kids come to college, very specifically my college, they hit the reality that everyone there still looks down on it and that they're basically just broadcasting their "highschoolness", and then they realize how hard it is to quit. We had smoking at my non-smoking campus, just behind one of the buildings, but it was by definition not popular. Vaping existed but if you were walking around blowing huge clouds of cotton candy shit, people would both actively avoid you and look down on you. It was the culture at the time. Disclaimer: I left a couple years ago, that was my experience, things could've greatly changed by now

re-al 5y ago

Just think, the science isn't in for vapes. But it is in for rna vaccines!

kenjackson 5y ago
It’s certainly not in for mRNA vaccines, but I also wouldn’t say to take an mRNA vaccine just for kicks.

EMM_386 5y ago

I agree that vaping is far safer than smoking cigarettes. > I'd like to see more studies in this area and some more regulations on the "juice" for vapes. Remember the media chaos when the "vaping lung disease" was making the cycle? This was likely due to the juice they were using. It contained vitamin E acetate and was found primarily in THC vape juice. Normal e-cigs have standard VG/PG, nicotine and food grade flavoring. And that's it. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/severe-lung-disease.html https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/s...

trophycase 5y ago
The only person I know that vapes regularly has a persistent cough as long as she is vaping and goes away immediately when she stops. I don't think it is as safe as everyone is claiming.

hellbannedguy 5y ago

I wish this was around for a friend of mine. I might have been able to talk him into these vaping products. He didn't want the gum, or the patch. He smoked 4-5 packs of Benson & Henson Menthols/day. He stopped when he was 64, but it was to late. He didn't die of lung cancer, but they just stopped working one night in his sleep. He had some undiagnosed psychological problem that I believe added to his constant smoking? I must have asked him to cut back a 1000x. I don't like nicotine, but I'm glad these are still legal. (That said, I had him go a doctor to check his coronary arteries. They were completely clean. I think the only thing that saved him besides good genes, he didn't eat much.)

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
> but I'm glad these are still legal. This is a great story. But it can be legal and restricted -- prescription only, just like Nicorette gum was when it was first introduced. > He had some undiagnosed psychological problem There is definitely a correlation between schizophrenia and smoking. I dont know if there are studies on it, but ask any psychologist experienced with schizophrenics if they see that pattern.

refurb 5y ago

The NHS actually recommends vaping to help stop smoking. "In recent years, e-cigarettes have become a very popular stop smoking aid in the UK. Also known as vapes or e-cigs, they're far less harmful than cigarettes and can help you quit smoking for good." https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/quit-smoking/using-e-cigarettes-to-stop-smoking/ https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/quit-smoking/using-e-cigarettes...

alsetmusic 5y ago

I’m also a former smoker who switched to vaping as a step toward eventually quitting nicotine products. It’s been a huge improvement (I no longer smell / taste like cigarettes), and I hope it’s doing less damage to my body. Poor behavior by Juul, marketing to youth, makes me wary that I’ll have this stopgap regulated away. I wish they’d stop bringing negative publicity to vaping as a whole. The temp ban on delivery doubled prices when they were only available in retail shops. I’m always concerned it’ll be taken from former smokers who want to quit.

Workaccount2 5y ago

A Tl;DR of the situation with the FDA: - "E-Cigs are the greatest public health invention of modern times!" - Oh wait! "Think of the Children™" - "We need to full on demonize e-cigs à la '90s anti drug style!" This is pretty much what went down. It was recognized as miracle, but the fear of kids getting addicted was too great. So instead we're going the path of full on propaganda against it, while kids get addicted anyway.

JohnWhigham 5y ago
And the most hilarious part? Altria is laughing all the way to the bank.

jjice 5y ago

As an alternative to smoking cigarettes, it seems like a great choice. As someone fairly young who was still in high school when vaping started to pick up, the amount of people I know at my age (recent college graduates) that vape and picked it up as a habit without ever having smoked before is insane. I was out with some friends and two people I had never met before, and they immediately hit it off on their shared habit. I guess that's kind of like the social aspect of cigarettes. It's an interesting thing to see, and it's less intrusive than cigarette smoke for sure, so to each their own.

jlangemeier 5y ago
I'm going to push back on the "less intrusive" than cigarette smoke; yes, vaping smoke doesn't stick to your clothes or on your breath, but that precludes the weird habit of vapers using the product where ever they darn well please because it isn't "smoking." The amount of times I've ran into a cloud of "banana margherita" is a bit ridiculous, and honestly I'd rather sit in a smoking section of a restaurant in podunk Wyoming than be randomly accosted by vape smoke, because at least with the smoker section I am willingly choosing to be there. Also, as a smoker, I've never "hit it off" with somebody because we smoked. Hitting it off with someone in the smoker's pit outside a bar is just shooting the shit with someone that's in a common area; folks that vape and vegans are very similar in that it's a major point of conversation, as if they've assimilated it as part of their personality. All that being said, vaping is fine, but the uptick in high schoolers smoking (because it's still smoking under a different name) is a bit alarming; and will be interesting to see how that consumer pipeline changes as regulation of them changes.

JohnDoerian2 5y ago

As someone who vapes and has tried out some different products. Atleast here in Europe Juul was the only "pre-filled" cartridges product which contains nicotine salt instead of freebase nicotine. Nicotine salt is much easier to vape and feels less harsh. I.e I can easily vape 50mg/ml nicotine salt, while above 10mg/ml freebase gets uncomfortable for my throat. That might have been the reason for your dad coughing. But I still agree, besides the salt/freebase aspect there can be different aspects of the ingrefients, each affecting health differently.

ohdannyboy 5y ago

My uncle was a lifelong smoker and survived lung cancer (in remission getting close to 5 years). He vapes now and seems to be doing a lot better. It seems preferable to cigarettes considering his odds of full cessation are basically zero.

908087 5y ago

My main issue with Juul personally is that they seem to have absolutely no quality control at all in their production process. Before I quit using them, you never knew until you opened them whether a pack of pods would be okay, or dark yellow and taste/feel like smoking burnt plastic.

Bayart 5y ago

I was a smoker for 14 years and vaping is the only thing that could get me off of it. And I do feel quite a bit better. The only issue I've had was with propylene glycol, a main ingredient of most juices, to which I've got a mild allergic reaction (it essentially gives me bronchitis). Your dad may have something similar, it's quite common. Anyhow, all the FUD in the US about vaping, its cultural association there with irritating types, the rush here in the EU to tax it as if it was cigarette (it isn't), and the growth of corporate trash on top of it has been incredibly discouraging. It's putting a barrier in front of smokers for something that's for all intents and purposes the most effective medication.

conductr 5y ago

Something as simple as saline is highly regulated by FDA (in US), so vape probably should be just as highly regulated. Potentially more so since it's use is continuous.

dude187 5y ago

Why "more regulations"? The market is just fine as is it. That feels like one of those things that people just feel obligated to say.

mcguire 5y ago

"I also think the arguments against the flavored juices are hysterical/hypocritical given the variety of flavors of liquor one can find." If you have a product that people enjoy using and has associated dangers, some people will use it anyway. If you have a second product that replaces the first product with less danger[1], more people will use it. That's simple economic reasoning. The hysteria over vaping is largely a product of a puritanical mindset---the horror at the thought of someone, somewhere, enjoying themselves. People have made their peace with tobacco itself[2], alcohol[3], and marijuana[4]. [1] "Evidence so far indicates that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than smoking as they don’t contain tobacco or involve combustion. There is no smoke, tar or carbon monoxide, and studies looking at key toxicants have generally found much lower levels than in cigarettes. They do contain nicotine, which is addictive, but isn’t responsible for the major health harms from smoking." (https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/awareness-and-prevention/e-cigarette-hub-information-for-health-professionals/safety https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/awarene...) "In September, a paper in The Journal of Clinical Investigation described mice exposed to e-cigarettes for 4 months, nearly one-quarter of their life span. Farrah Kheradmand, a pulmonologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, who led the work, says that, at first, "There was absolutely no emphysema, nothing" in the animals that inhaled aerosol from e-cigarettes. That finding jibes with earlier research showing combustion products are the cause of airway inflammation in smokers." (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/how-safe-vaping-new-human-studies-assess-chronic-harm-heart-and-lungs https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/how-safe-vaping-new-...) [2] Ever seen one of the bans on the sale of vaping products associated with a similar ban on cigarettes? I didn't think so. [3] Here's a toast to those who collect the statistics on the externalized costs of anything. [4] Smoking marijuana has exactly the same dangers as smoking tobacco. (You do have a filter on that reefer, right?) The same particulates, the same "tar", and the same assortment of combustion by-products, right?

bagacrap 5y ago

it sounds like juul should be a prescription medication (paid for by insurance companies as a way of lowering their total costs).