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The science is clear. So why canβt governments agree on vaping?
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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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"It beats smoking" is a low fucking bar.
The science is that putting shit in your lungs is not great. There's no upside for non-smokers. It's a lark. The only truly positive side is that it's objectively better than inhaling smoke, and that only matters if it's a tobacco alternative - and contains nicotine. Which let this low-impact delivery mechanism create new addicts.
Two decades in either direction and the calculus would be trivial. 1990, the way people smoked back then? We'd solve the epidemic overnight. Trade it for vaping in a heartbeat. 2030, the way statistics were headed? Pointless and inexcusable. A brief fad that would linger in countries with hookah culture.
Instead, the worst-case scenario happened immediately. The same murderous liars made money hooking a new generation with a fairly unsafe and hideously addictive chemical. Like they'd previously done by adding filters, and then menthol, and then cloves.
Smoking kills 8 million people worldwide every year. I think it's worth pushing the alternatives.
Maybe I read it wrong but what I got from it is this:
Vaping is good as an alternative to non-smokers. The problem is that it's being pushed to non-smokers. It's not as bad as smoking, but the best is neither.
nah he just hates others who choose to do thinga they dont like
The problem isn't pushing it as an alternative to already active smokers, that's what it was initially touted as...
The problem is it became the new smoking fad. People who never smoked are taking this up, and are now the new generation of hungry addicts to keep the tobacco corps alive and well.
An adult should be able to do whatever the fuck they want, as long as it doesn't impact other people. Vaping doesn't emit any carcinogens or toxic substances, and 10 times less nicotine than smoking does. At the end of the day, vaping does far less harm than smoking, and it's easier to reduce the amount of nicotine consumed with vaping. Nicotine also has health benefits, such as slowing down the onset of Parkinson's.
If teenagers are vaping then that's an enforcement issue, but at the same time I would be less worried if I found a vape in my kid's bedroom than a packet of cigarettes. Teenagers will experiement with substances. Nicotne vapes are way down the list of ones I would be worried about.
indeed man.
half the people here π we get it you dont smoke. that means this aint your place to discuss something you are ignorant about
That is patently false, and even if nicotine were healthy, it should be someone's choice to inhale it, not forced on them by others with low self-control and no sense of courtesy.
https://www.healthline.com/health/second-hand-vape#:~:text=There's%20evidence%20that%20nonsmokers%20exposed,the%20risk%20of%20cardiovascular%20disease.
Which bit is false?
From the first link:
In a scientific context "significantly less" essentially means "we were able to prove beyond our error threshold that there was less nicotine"
As such, it doesn't mean squat without numbers to back it up. There could be 1% less nicotine and it'd still be significant if their testing method was sensitive enough to reliably capture the difference.
Whereas this:
Would mean exactly what the person you're replying to has said it means, assuming it's true, aka. It's patently false to say it's safer for non-smokers to be around.
There are numbers to back it up, in the study I linked. Is 10 times less not significant?
The primary harm from cigarettes doesn't come from the nicotine, it comes from all the other toxic chemicals released by combustion, which aren't present in the aerosol exhaled from a vape.
Nobody is claiming it to be 100% safe (what is?), but it's not even in the same ballpark of harm as smoking is.
I'm personally all for banning smoking in public places (besides designated areas and specialty clubs). I agree that exposing people to secondhand smoke is rude at best and a health risk for them at worst. But I do think that especially in the comfort of your own home, you can do what you want (with the caveat that if vaping has similar odor issues as smoking, I see it entirely reasonable that renters can be required to smoke outside).
Then don't smoke or vape. No one is forcing you to. Please do not be a pearl clutcher and make decisions for everyone else around you. You're not God and even GOD gave people the choice to believe in him.
Okay but the only way we can not smoke or vape is for allayall smokers and vapers not to smoke or vape in places where the rest of us breathe. I can't even go out on my balcony for several of the otherwise most pleasant hours because there's a guy smoking cigars in the courtyard of the next building and the stench is nauseating. And there's always a smell of vaping in the hallway of my own building, despite it being open to the outside air at one end. Y'all are so anosmic you have no idea how far your vapor and smoke spreads.
I hate the stench of my neighbor's flower bed.
We should ban whatever that plant is.
All smells need to be banned. Got it.
Yeah, that'd be a great suggestion if it weren't for the fact that we don't get a choice in breathing those fumes in if we happen to be downwind of a smoker/vaper exercising their choice. You get to choose over your own body but you also get to make the choice over ours.
Also, really not a great comparison considering the choice is believe in me or burn in hell for all eternity, and God knows which choice we're going to make from the start (being omniscient and all)
Yeah, that's a lot of words when they could've just said "I don't understand risk, harm reduction, any statistics relavent to the topic, or science."
How bluntly does someone have to say 'this is good compared to smoking, but caused harm for non-smokers' before y'all stop projecting whatever shallow kneejerk absolute suits your fancy?
As bluntly, and as often as possible to ensure the demarcation is obvious to all.
Hate to turn your putrid argument around on you, but this isn't as trivial as the annoyance of needing a sarcasm flag to avoid Poe's Law, even though the impact of vaping on adult members of society who do not use it is merely an annoyance which causes their knees to jerk.
And your facts are wrong: Tobacco smoke kills half a million people per year. The jury is out on whether or not vaping is quantifiably medically dangerous at all. There is absolutely no data on harm from 2nd hand vaping, so you cannot say (in good faith) that it's causing harm.
Specifics matter in comparisons when the potential outcome is a total ban on a substance that has helped minimize harm for millions, and is mostly harmless in comparison.
In short - gnash your teeth elsewhere, you smug turd. You're wrong.
Is that clear enough?
We know the impact of nicotine, fucknuts. The issue is people who DO use this. Adults (for a start) who were never going to smoke cigarettes, but took up vaping, and wound up addicted to tobacco products.
No, the people who switched over from smoking aren't relevant. This isn't about them.
No, the people who don't vape with nicotine aren't relevant. This isn't about them.
No, the people who don't vape, period, aren't relevant. This isn't about them.
Childish accusations weren't enough - you had to go and underline that your dismissive bullshit was just blindly repeating 'but it's good compared to smoking!!!' Belaboring the impact of tobacco smoke... fuck, why am I bothering? You didn't read what I wrote the first two times.
Go make shit up about someone else.
Vaping was how I quit smoking tobacco and then quit vaping too. I started vaping to quit tobacco using premixed liquids for about 2 years, then switched to mixing my own so I took control of my nicotine intake. Over the course of about 8 months I kept cutting the nicotine in half. I would have a bit of a headache for a couple days then I would get better. After vaping at 0% for about 2 weeks, I noticed I was not picking up the vape as often and I could just leave it on the other side of the room and not care. About another month and I was entirely done. Previously about 1/2 pack a day smoker for 25+ years, now free of everything for about 6 years now.
"It beats smoking" is a low fucking bar... that I already mentioned.
What conversation do you think you're having?
I haven't smoked a cigarette in six years. Most of the time I use nicotine lozenges during the day, and my vape is for when I'm drinking or I need to fall on my crutch. It's familiar to my known vice, and stopped me from the more dangerous method of handling my addiction.
Grand stand all you will about how it was 'solved' over night, but I got hooked on the bitch in the 2000's due to family history and culture. People still smoke all around me, and it was only a matter of time before I tried it and got hooked. And I've made peace with that. That's before we even touch a more terrifying addiction that exists all over my country within opiate-families despite them having a stronger controlled classification. While the chemical exists in the environment potential addicts will happen across it and subsist.
'It beats smoking' is a pretty important bar for me, as an addict, because it reduces harm to myself
'Vaping is negative except compared to smoking.'
'Oh yeah well what about compared to smoking?!'
... ibid.
I don't think anyone is arguing vaping is a good thing, and nor was I. It would be rather foolish to do so.
I was only giving my perspective at how it has been better for me and many others in my life.
π€·ββοΈ
A guy in another subthread just told me to kill myself for saying nicotine is bad, actually.
The endless reiteration of 'but! vaping! beats! smoking!' is a great big 'who asked?' at best. I know. I said that, first. It was the first thing I said, in the root comment. It is the opposite of news, and simply not relevant.
That positive is not the negative I'm pointing out - as a response to the insistence there are no negatives.
You really wanna police what other people put in their body? How exactly does it affect you?
People should be properly informed about what they put in their bodies.
Edit: Just realised I posted in an American politics instance. Ignore the foreigner.
They are properly informed. People have known alcohol was poison for millennia, and people have known about the side-effects from smoking since the 1950's
Sometimes people just like to enjoy things regardless
Sure, I can agree with that. Maybe we should start with the food industry first. Did you know there's an acceptable amount of sawdust to put in some types of food as filler? It really is horrific. Vaping at least is something people realize is probably not great for you in the long run... but people who falls for the shitty quality of food standards don't know what they are putting in their body either.
Itβs not really sawdust. Cellulose, which is basically plant fiber, is an FDA approved food additive used in things like shredded cheeses as an anti-caking agent. It is commonly extracted from wood pulp, but it could also be extracted from any plant really. Hereβs a brief explainer
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/07/10/329767647/from-mcdonalds-to-organic-valley-youre-probably-eating-wood-pulp
Addiction has societal impact. Reality exists outside the individual.
Not all addiction is negative
second and third-hand smoke and vaping aerosols contain harmful, toxic and cancer-causing chemicals that can be breathed in.
Then don't stand near them?
You're why enforced civility is a fucking nightmare to deal with.
'This doesn't affect you!' It does. 'Well make it don't.'
So you want the freedom to attack people minding their own business?
That doesn't invalidate my point. Yes, if someone is vaping somewhere inappropriate, that's not right. But if they are outside, that's really fucked that you think you get to dictate what other people do outside. It's their world too.
Are you advocating for cigarettes ban? Because if not, how you can advocate for vile ban? If you advocate for neither, then what do you mean by βit beats smocking β is a low fucking barβ?
Cigarettes are sufficiently regulated that the industry was going to die. No outright ban was necessary.
That is no longer the case, directly thanks to this shit. Like if Philip Morris started selling nicotine patches as a brand new drug.
"The science is clear" only means, vaping beats smoking. A fact absolutely no-one questions. But vaping is worse than not vaping. The lesser-evil argument only works when there's no third option. Like "neither."
Serving the same purpose as smoking, while being less dangerous, is great... compared to smoking.
But the purpose of smoking fucking blows.
But this fact also absolutely no-one questions.
And are you saying that somehow coping is regulated less??
dude its tobacco not black tar heroin get of your high horse i would blow smoke straightkbin your face at a party
except you havent been to a party in how long?
Ape in a zoo beats his chest until the visitors walk away. That'll show 'em.
Wow, you're really fucking cool.