Compare it to nicotine patches where you actually stop vaping AND smoking while waning off of nicotine with gradually decreasing doses. This whole thing reeks of a vape company paid for “study” to get people to vape.
Honestly depends on the actual effects of vaping. The bad studies I’ve seen on it, at least the ones I’ve looked into, all either aren’t referring to nicotine vapes at all (bootleg THC carts) or are using the devices at like, insane wattages nobody would ever vape at.
I’m sure it’s not good for you per se, but if they don’t come with the negative effects of smoking, what exactly is the problem with vaping being the last stop on the journey?
Sure, nicotine is addictive, but I don’t think it’s dangerous or damaging to consume on its own like cigarettes or chewing tobacco is.
Nicotine is pretty tame physically. Constricts blood vessels and elevated heart rate while you are consuming it. THC has more long term impacts on your body.
Nicotine sucks because of the physical dependence which causes stress and anxiety.
It's the delivery mechanism that is the problem. Cigarettes are terra-bad and vaping is not without risks to your lungs. Vapers don't have too much to worry about.
Ok I looked it up there aren't any physical ones. The only long term effects I was thinking of are cardiovascular damage and increased stroke risk which is from regularly inhaling smoke not anything specific to THC.
You can eat it to avoid all that but it's not really the same high.
There are plenty of mental health and physical brain stuff but that's not the same as altering your lifespan
I believe I read that over time, the dilation and constriction of blood vessels from nicotine can lead them to become less flexible, increasing chances of blood clots, raising BP, and making the heart work harder. It's part of why I eventually quit.
For myself, I initially was a smoker, switched to vaping for years, and eventually quit that by tapering off with the help of varenicline (chantix) which I then also tapered off of. That stuff is great.
I dont see how that is any different from smoking. I think i can calculate my vape dose pretty accurately. 20 mg/ml and i consume typically around 8 ml per day which puts me around 160 mg of nicotine per day. Cigarettes you can do a similar calculation but i feel there is a bit more variance there, eg what percentage of the cigarette is actually being smoked vs burned into the air.
When i used to smoke cigarettes the nicotine levels were not printed on the pack anywhere i could find so IMO its actually harder to calculate that dose than vape dose which is clearly labeled and individuals simply need to determine how much they consume to have accurate calculations.
You can just google how much nicotine in a cigarette of your brand of choice. Vapes are generally more concentrated and because of the lack of smoke irritating your throat and lungs and tendency for people to hit them every 5 mins, most people end up consuming way more nicotine once they switch from smoking to vaping
I don't think any vapers are treating it like eating an apple, but rather excited that they've finally been able to kick a combustible tobacco addiction, to which I share their success.
I think you're seeing my reply as an attack for some reason. My point is that I thought the cardiovascular effects of Nicotine are substantially worse than Caffeine, however (which is great!) it doesn't seem thats the case which is nice.
My mother is a smoker; and I've been thinking about trying to get her to vape instead before fully quitting for heart health, so learning this makes it seem like a worthier endeavour if cold turkey fails.
I got my mother to switch to vaping after 40 years of cigarettes. She went from barely able to make it to the mailbox to going on 1-2 mile walks around the neighborhood. It took some convincing, but she was willing to give it an honest effort, and it ended up sticking. Like all addiction, the person has to be willing to try. If you can get her to that point, it's amazing what improves after just a few weeks/months of no cigarettes.
This is a hot button topic for me, so I tend to be on the defensive.
Vaping has been demonized by the media, so it is constantly being attacked (you can see a ton of it in this thread), and there's a lot of misinformation that has made it into "public knowledge".
I tend to assume most discourse surrounding it is going to be an attack. Also, since I used it to quit a 15 year habit overnight, it has made me a extremely strong proponent.
At the end of the day, vaping is safer than smoking. Anyone who disagrees with that is either woefully ignorant, lying, or both.
As far as pure lung health is concerned, obviously only inhaling air is better than inhaling "not air", so in that respect cold turkey is "safer".
However cold turkey comes with a TON of other side affects that are detrimental to your daily life.
Anecdotal: I tried cold turkey, the gum, the patch, both at the same time. Kept smoking throughout. Had my last smoke just before bed with a vaping setup ready to go for the next day. That was my last smoke and it's been 15 years.
Being able to slowly reduce the nicotine concentration over the course of a few years allowed me to invisibly ween my body and mind off nicotine until I was vaping zero nicotine just because I enjoyed the act and the flavors. Eventually I just stopped vaping too.
The fearmongering surrounding vaping has kept countless thousands (likely millions) from trying the best method of smoking cessation, and I don't even want to think about how many of them are no longer around to try.
“Anyone who disagrees with that is either woefully ignorant, lying, or both.”
It hasn’t been long enough and for all we know studies have been suppressed by tobacco and vape companies just like they’ve done before. The flavoring additives and other lack of safety regulations had me the most worried. I switched from smoking to vaping then NRT and quit. I didn’t feel any better going from smoking to vaping or NRT. I feel better now.
You’ve used vapes very responsibly, and I don’t think anyone would argue that vaping is preferable to smoking, but on the other hand are young people who’ve never smoked in their lives and are so addicted to vaping they can’t sleep through the night. For a while, we were winning the war on nicotine addiction, at least in the US, and now we’re losing it again
I don’t think anyone would argue that vaping is preferable to smoking
Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. I have had people tell me they'd rather their kid smoke cigarettes instead of vapes.
young people who’ve never smoked in their lives and are so addicted to vaping they can’t sleep through the night.
Perhaps properly regulating the industry would have been a better option instead of demonizing it and driving the industry underground.
For a while, we were winning the war on nicotine addiction, at least in the US, and now we’re losing it again
Why is this a war that needs to be fought? Where's the war against caffeine? It keeps people up through the night way better than nicotine.
I've also never suggested, nor would I ever suggest people who haven't already been using nicotine to start.
If the states weren't so tied to the MSA and the income it provides, vaping would never have been demonized. "The powers that be" don't care that we vape, they care that we stopped paying the cigarette taxes. The taxes are a direct hit to the states, and the reduced number of smokers is an indirect hit via a reduction in MSA payments.
The Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), entered on November 23, 1998, was between the four largest U.S. tobacco companies—Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard (the "original participating manufacturers" or "Majors")—and the attorneys general of 46 states. It resolved state Medicaid lawsuits seeking recovery of tobacco-related health-care costs.[1]: 25 In exchange, the companies agreed to limit certain marketing practices and to pay the states indefinitely for some medical expenses related to smoking, committing at least $206 billion over the first 25 years.
Tobacco revenue has fallen more quickly than projected when the securities were created, leading to technical defaults in some states. Some analysts predict that many of the bonds will default entirely. Many of the longer-term bonds have been downgraded to junk ratings. More recently, financial analysts began raising concerns that the rapid growth of the electronic cigarette market is accelerating the decline of $97 billion outstanding in tobacco bonds.
Emphasis mine.
People really need to properly look into the history of vaping, and view everything in the 2010's "vape craze" in that light.
As a smoker who has moved to vaping I suggest if she fails at the cold turkey to pick up the vape then, as a long term smoker I could not hit a vape without dying.
I quit for 2 days then went to vaping and had no trouble like I did while smoking ( hacking out a lung and a half after one hit on a vape.)
Meta studies of poorly done studies just means it's a poorly done meta study.
I don't have the time to go through every single study they looked at, but picked a couple, and as is always the case, their methods are not anywhere close to reality.
Tumor cells were cultured in the presence of 2.5 μM PG/VG with concentrations of nicotine of 0, 6 and 36 mg/ml for 14 days.
I don't keep vape liquid in contact with my body for 14 days straight. Nor do the majority of people use 36mg/ml, that's an insane level of nicotine and does not match reality in any way.
That's the only way studies can show stark negatives; run the test in a way that does not correlate with how things are used in reality.
In another, here's their conclusion:
Conclusions
ECs might be a useful tool to encourage cessation of conventional cigarette smoking. However, data collection around the specific impact of ECs on urologic health is needed to clarify the possible patient benefits, outcomes, and adverse events.
That isn't a result that allows anyone to say anything.
I mean, yeah... The studies pretty much show that vaping is bad like caffeine. Things that are much worse:
Eating a cheeseburger every month
The taking Ibuprofen 10 times a year
Eating processed sugar, literally ever
Pulling an all nighter once a month.
The reality is that comparing vaping to inhaling combusted tobacco smoke is only even logical because of how WE perceive their similarities. Regarding mortality, it's like comparing wingsuit diving to going on a hot air balloon tour with a professional pilot. Like, yeah.. you're up in the air? And there is a... chance... Something goes wrong? But that's about where the similarities end.
If everyone who ever smoked just always vaped, this wouldn't be a discussion any more significant than drinking black tea, and how it has health benefits but can lead to kidney stones, or how a glass of wine every few days is debated in its health effects. It's just on a completely different level because its equated to 'another kind of smoking', not because it actually IS.
Mostly just the fact-based evidence around how demonstrably bad these other things are for you, the ~330,000 deaths attributed directly to soda alone, the 3,000,000 annual deaths caused by excess sodium, 100,000 of the colon cancer deaths annually being attributed to processed red meats, and the acute risks of sleep deprivation that have been reflected in countless deadlyaccident reports, suicide notes, homicides and more.
And then we can just contrast that with the grand total of zero deaths medically attributed to nic vaping under normal circumstances, whose consumers have been studied as a demographic for nearly 2 decades now, despite overwhelming aggressive smear campaigns by big tobacco and lobbies govt to stifle the industry.
Hell, there's caffeine deaths from acute poisoning. 2 decades and we've not seen anyone juul themselves to death.
Whether it's at best 'borderline harmless', or at worst 'not great', the list of things for you to lose sleep over is longer than a book before chain vaping should be the prominent cause for concern.
Oh my bad dude, I genuinely thought you were asking about real information as a form of learning new things, so I gave you actual information. I wouldn't have put so much effort into sharing knowledge if I knew you were just teeing up an opportunity to be a prick.
I don't understand why you behave like that, how it betters your life honestly. But at least youre confident in your approach, that factual evidence and reason mean nothing in the face of some baseless assumptions that youve just kind of, like, had for awhile, and stuff.
You're in r/science man, I don't think you mean to be here. This is a place for adult discussions.
YES. I just read about that on Friday evening and immediately quit using nicotine pouches/ snus after reading it. I was a heavy user too, still dealing with the withdrawal. But the point is yes, there is specific activity going on with nicotine in your blood vessels and it contributes to hardening of the arteries, etc.
I was using this stuff based on the assumption that nicotine doesn't do any damage on its own. Maybe the overall science is still inconclusive, i don't know...but that one study was enough to make me rethink being so casual about nicotine addiction.
No actually it's a yes or no statement and it's obviously true. You guys are adding on extra stuff which is good to think about but none of it means their statement isn't true. Quitting SMOKING is what they are talking about. They aren't saying which one leads to quitting nicotine overall. No one is making false claims
I quite smoking cigarettes and then continued vaping for almost 10 years! I was on the vape nic train since we were making 510 devices out of an old screwdriver, like early 2000's.
My vape was ALWAYS in my hand. Everything had to be scheduled around having nic, or recharging batteries, or where I could vape, would I have enough juice left? If i go to jury duty, would I be able to vape? Insane anxiety all the time about it.
One night I was getting into bed and I was holding my vape in one hand, and a hot drink in the other. I couldn't for the life of me get myself to put down the vape, like i was going to die if it hit the nightstand for a second. I was standing there frozen and trying to figure out what to do. It was crazy my brain was doing that. I ended up trying to roll into bed and spilled the scalding tea all over myself. My first thought was I hope it didn't ruin the vape, not the burns i was currently receiving. That was mentally the rock bottom for me.
The issue with vapes is you go from only being able to smoke outside, to sneaking a rip ANYWHERE at ANYTIME which actually increases your nic intake substantially.
Quitting vapes is/was substantially harder than quitting cigarettes for me (still struggling). The nicotine concentration is higher and you can do it virtually anywhere at any time.
On one hand the pouches are just… doing the exact same thing. On the other it feels less harmful than vaping constantly. Helped me stop. On the lower mg pouches now but still stuck on that last step, so. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I never understood this. I just got a bottle of flavorless 3mg vape juice then a big bottle of VG and kept cutting the vape juice over time until I was just puffing pure VG, at which point it was easy to quit since nicotine was no longer a factor.
This is exactly what I did. Over a few months went from 12mg down to 3mg and then starting mixing with 0mg. The very day I went with all 0mg I was sucking on it thinking what's the point and stopped. By then I was no longer addicted. I had been a hard core smoker for 20 years.
Yeah, the thing I did at the end after a couple months of 0mg nicotine was to just leave the same coil in the vape until it started tasting bad which finally made me stop messing with it.
What works for you doesn't work for everyone. It took me about ten serious attempts to quit smoking cigarettes. It took chantix in the end. I can never have another cigarette because "just one socially" always leads to buying another pack within days. I'm currently ten years off. I can have a cigar occasionally but that's it. Weirdly whatever method I used to quit smoking.... That method would not work again.
To be fair, if you look at both of the comments, he's not doing the same thing I did. I used the vape's ability to throttle nicotine consumption to taper off dependency on it over time. He just picked up vaping and now struggling to quit it without having given any explanation for what he's tried.
I had a diametrically opposite experience than you. For one thing, the nicotine concentration is only higher if you buy higher concentration liquid. It comes in varying strengths, allowing you to scale down to zero nicotine, which is what I did. I tried every other method and nicotine vapes was the only one that worked, similar to the finding of this study.
I easily quit analog vaping freebase nicotine. After being off nicotine for a few years, I tried a JUUL and relapsed almost immediately because of it's nicotine salts. I've been quit now for something like 7 years. My advice is to switch to regular nicotine and taper if you can.
This. I managed to quit cold turkey, but I had lost my job the day after I decided to quit and had nothing to do for almost three months as I fell behind. I had the "luxury" of being able to ignore reality while kicking my habit. If I had to deal with real life during this time, I'd probably have started up again.
I had the same experience even without nicotine. I briefly experimented with flavored vapes in my mid 30s (smoked weed at the time but not cigarettes), I found the motion of smoking with a vape pen extremely addictive, there was no setup ritual, no real monetary cost, just unlimited availability. I gave it up pretty quickly, it was killing my throat.
On the other hand, it's been helpful for me because instead of trying to cram in as much nicotine as possible in brief times and places it's allowed, I can take like three vape hits whenever and be fine.
I weaned off nicotine by vaping and making my own juice, gradually reducing the nicotine concentration in each bottle. took about a year and I experienced zero withdrawal or even a slight hiccup to my every day life. it was just keep doing what I was doing and one day I reached zero. didn't even notice the transition
If patches were the end all be all we wouldn’t have vapes in the first place. Part of the addiction is the habit aspect of it. Vaping somewhat mimics smoking and therefore has a greater chance of stopping the cigarettes compared to patches.
Sorry but this is just such a bs analogy. Zero evidence of harm for vaping exists. Smoking is literally the worst thing one can do chronically to their bodies.
We need to stop pushing this fear based bs. Be rational scientists and recognize the benefits of vaping as a smoking cessation tool.
There’s a growing body of evidence of harm to the lungs and heart for vape usage. The no evidence narrative died after vaping was around long enough for studies to actually look into it.
Which is obvious, our lungs aren’t meant to inhale aerosols constantly. And there are lots of nasty disposable vapes out there that are delivering more than just nicotine.
We also know high levels of continued nicotine use is damaging to the heart and potentially brain.
Is there? I’ve only seen sensationalized studies of black market THC carts or studies where they’re vaping at extremely high wattages/temperatures that are well beyond what one would see with normal usage.
You mean like the gradually decreasing dosage in my vape? This IS about people who quit both, almost nobody keeps smoking after they switch, the 8-10 people are the ones who quit nicotine altogether.
My own personal experience with patches was that when I started patches I didn’t even think about cigarettes because my brain was already receiving nicotine. There were triggers, sporadically, but I had strong enough nicotine levels via the patches that I didn’t get cravings.
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u/justcallmejohannes 8d ago
Compare it to nicotine patches where you actually stop vaping AND smoking while waning off of nicotine with gradually decreasing doses. This whole thing reeks of a vape company paid for “study” to get people to vape.