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I'm blown away by how vaping took over. I was a senior in high school once Juul started to get popular. We'd joke about our peers that willingly took on an addi

by jjice 2y ago

I'm blown away by how vaping took over. I was a senior in high school once Juul started to get popular. We'd joke about our peers that willingly took on an addiction when our generation was mostly in the clear from being addicted to cigarettes. Then some of my friends who'd joke about it started vaping. I don't even know how they started, but they did. Let me be clear - it's not nearly as annoying or destructive for passer-bys as cigarettes. It's been eight-ish years and they still vape. They've tried to stop at points, but it never stuck. Juul is gone, but now there are these $15-25 disposable vapes. I'm not sure if there's a specific term for theses, but they don't even have pods of nicotine that you swap out. You just toss the entire thing. So now an incredible amount of my peers are addicted to nicotine while also producing an incredible amount of e-waste. Juul really helped push this into the mainstream for Gen Z, but the torch is being carried more consistently than ever. I don't even know if some of them are technically legal to sell in my state. The thing that gets me is that we were so close to not having any casual nicotine in my generation. Now there's also a company called "Zyn" that is essentially tobacco-less dip. Whatever. I'll go back to complaining about the sports betting phenomenon now.

sevagh 2y ago
[flagged]
- jjice 2y ago
  > Why do you think you speak for your generation to bar them from casual nicotine use? I think you're digging to deep into my phrasing. The majority of people I know that vape would prefer if they didn't. They always talk about trying to quit, but how it's very hard for them. Maybe that doesn't apply to the people you know. They don't like that they have an addiction now. Nicotine has some benefits, but it doesn't seem worth the cost for the majority of ways it's delivered. At no point do I think that we should "bar" nicotine use, but I think it's a safe bet to say that most people who have this addiction now would rather not have the addiction. I had a similar response to a comment I made about sports betting and how my peers have gotten very into it and are losing money and forming compulsions. They are free individuals and can do what they want, but I still think it's a generally bad thing to introduce dangerous addictions to more people. I also think that alcohol is generally bad for you too. I don't think that should be banned either, but, generally speaking, most people would live healthier lives without it. That doesn't mean I think it shouldn't be legal and accessible.
Workaccount2 2y ago
I was a smoker, turned vaper, turned quitter. Smoked for 8 years, vaped for 7, quit now for 4. I purposely never picked up on juuls, because they were too good. I worked at a restaurant at the time and begged the younger kids not to pick up a juul because it was clear they were incredibly addictive with none of the restraints of cigarette (can't stealth smoke inside, tastes gross, etc).
- dogman144 2y ago
  I used to dip and quit cold turkey, and had a similar thought when this all came out. Felt deep concern that an amazingly addicting habit suddenly had all its moats removed - tastes like dirt, makes you a bit sick first few times, and then if you got through that the worst/best addition you ever had was waiting for you. Same with Zyn. Now kids and otherwise new smokers get to skip right to the last part. I saw my friends get into it this way and couldn’t say much else than offering to be there when they wanted to quit a few deeply addicted years later.
kredd 2y ago
I was just discussing the whole Zyn craze that’s going with some friends, and it’s amazing to see in real time how it’s becoming so popular. It’s something I have absolutely no desire to try, but looks like influencers, unfortunately, have a lot of pull nowadays. Big names are getting paid to do some product placements, which eventually makes the younger people to get on board with it. Kids want to try new things, but the only “new things” we’ve come up with in the recent years are reintroduction of sports gambling, vaping, nicotine gums and new flavour of social media websites that tend to be more addictive.
- rozab 2y ago
  I don't know if this is the same company, but this thing called Nordic Spirit is being heavily marketed in the UK. It's just snus, changed just enough to get past the 1992 ban on oral tobacco products. About half of my YT adverts are for it right now, and I have never used nicotine products so clearly they are not targeting existing users. It makes me so uneasy because this sort of advertising has been illegal in the UK for as long as I can remember, and they have managed to skirt around the rules so easily.
walthamstow 2y ago
These disposable vapes have been huge in the UK for a couple of years now, they're just £5 each. The FT did a piece on them at one point, calling them (externalities aside) the perfect product: discrete, tasty, addictive, cheap, available everywhere
squigz 2y ago
> The thing that gets me is that we were so close to not having any casual nicotine in my generation A couple people have claimed this so far in this thread. Is there any data to support this hypothesis? My feeling is the percentage addicted to nicotine wouldn't have been significantly lower without vaping.
- jjice 2y ago
  In the case of using vaping to ween off of cigarettes? That's a good point for those who already smoked cigarettes, but I'm mainly thinking of the people that jumped into vaping to start and didn't use it as a transition off of cigarettes. The majority of my peers that vape never smoked cigarettes, or started casually smoking cigarettes _after_ they started vaping. The data here [0] seems to support this. I grabbed this really quick, so I'm open to it not being excellent data. You're right that I based on comment on anecdotal data. [0] https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco-trends-brief/overall-tobacco-trends https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco...
- xboxnolifes 2y ago
  > My feeling is the percentage addicted to nicotine wouldn't have been significantly lower without vaping. We know smoking was trending downward. What other means of nicotine are there besides that and nicotine gum for previous-smokers.

by jjice 2y ago

sevagh 2y ago

[flagged]

jjice 2y ago
> Why do you think you speak for your generation to bar them from casual nicotine use? I think you're digging to deep into my phrasing. The majority of people I know that vape would prefer if they didn't. They always talk about trying to quit, but how it's very hard for them. Maybe that doesn't apply to the people you know. They don't like that they have an addiction now. Nicotine has some benefits, but it doesn't seem worth the cost for the majority of ways it's delivered. At no point do I think that we should "bar" nicotine use, but I think it's a safe bet to say that most people who have this addiction now would rather not have the addiction. I had a similar response to a comment I made about sports betting and how my peers have gotten very into it and are losing money and forming compulsions. They are free individuals and can do what they want, but I still think it's a generally bad thing to introduce dangerous addictions to more people. I also think that alcohol is generally bad for you too. I don't think that should be banned either, but, generally speaking, most people would live healthier lives without it. That doesn't mean I think it shouldn't be legal and accessible.

Workaccount2 2y ago

I was a smoker, turned vaper, turned quitter. Smoked for 8 years, vaped for 7, quit now for 4. I purposely never picked up on juuls, because they were too good. I worked at a restaurant at the time and begged the younger kids not to pick up a juul because it was clear they were incredibly addictive with none of the restraints of cigarette (can't stealth smoke inside, tastes gross, etc).

dogman144 2y ago
I used to dip and quit cold turkey, and had a similar thought when this all came out. Felt deep concern that an amazingly addicting habit suddenly had all its moats removed - tastes like dirt, makes you a bit sick first few times, and then if you got through that the worst/best addition you ever had was waiting for you. Same with Zyn. Now kids and otherwise new smokers get to skip right to the last part. I saw my friends get into it this way and couldn’t say much else than offering to be there when they wanted to quit a few deeply addicted years later.

kredd 2y ago

I was just discussing the whole Zyn craze that’s going with some friends, and it’s amazing to see in real time how it’s becoming so popular. It’s something I have absolutely no desire to try, but looks like influencers, unfortunately, have a lot of pull nowadays. Big names are getting paid to do some product placements, which eventually makes the younger people to get on board with it. Kids want to try new things, but the only “new things” we’ve come up with in the recent years are reintroduction of sports gambling, vaping, nicotine gums and new flavour of social media websites that tend to be more addictive.

rozab 2y ago
I don't know if this is the same company, but this thing called Nordic Spirit is being heavily marketed in the UK. It's just snus, changed just enough to get past the 1992 ban on oral tobacco products. About half of my YT adverts are for it right now, and I have never used nicotine products so clearly they are not targeting existing users. It makes me so uneasy because this sort of advertising has been illegal in the UK for as long as I can remember, and they have managed to skirt around the rules so easily.

walthamstow 2y ago

These disposable vapes have been huge in the UK for a couple of years now, they're just £5 each. The FT did a piece on them at one point, calling them (externalities aside) the perfect product: discrete, tasty, addictive, cheap, available everywhere

squigz 2y ago

> The thing that gets me is that we were so close to not having any casual nicotine in my generation A couple people have claimed this so far in this thread. Is there any data to support this hypothesis? My feeling is the percentage addicted to nicotine wouldn't have been significantly lower without vaping.

jjice 2y ago
In the case of using vaping to ween off of cigarettes? That's a good point for those who already smoked cigarettes, but I'm mainly thinking of the people that jumped into vaping to start and didn't use it as a transition off of cigarettes. The majority of my peers that vape never smoked cigarettes, or started casually smoking cigarettes _after_ they started vaping. The data here [0] seems to support this. I grabbed this really quick, so I'm open to it not being excellent data. You're right that I based on comment on anecdotal data. [0] https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco-trends-brief/overall-tobacco-trends https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco...
xboxnolifes 2y ago
> My feeling is the percentage addicted to nicotine wouldn't have been significantly lower without vaping. We know smoking was trending downward. What other means of nicotine are there besides that and nicotine gum for previous-smokers.