[dogma1138]

No they don't think it has to do with nicotine (not the discrepancy at least) for this study they more or less focused on cinnamaldehyde which is the compound that gives cinnamon it's flavor (it's also a known irritant and is used to kill mold, fungus and some other things).

I would assume that they've focused on cinnamaldehyde because it's most likely a common ingredient in e-liquid not only for the flavor but as it's an irritant (watch the fools doing the "cinnamon challenge" on YouTube for a good example of just how bad it can get) it's quite possibly been added to allot of liquids to increase their throat hit especially for those liquids that are aimed at recent former smokers that really look for that feeling to more closely imitate cigarettes.

[hackercomplex]

http://fuckcombustion.com/threads/steam-distilled-essential-...

According to what I've been reading vaporists in Colorado are experimenting in this area attempting to isolate the best "turps".

"Terpenoids and cannabinoids are both secreted inside the Cannabis plants glandular trichomes and they have a parent compound in common (geranyl pyrophosphate). More than 100 terpenoids have been identified in Cannabis. The most common and most studied include limonene, myrcene, alpha-pinene, linalool, beta-caryophyllene, caryophyllene oxide, nerolidol and phytol. Anecdotal evidence suggests that alpha-pinene is alerting, limonene is sunshine-y, and beta-myrcene is sedating.

    Limonene (also found in lemon)
    Alpha-pinene (also found in pine needles)
    Beta-myrcene (also found in hops and mango)
    Linalool (also found in lavender)
    Beta-Caryophyllene (also found in pepper and Echinacea)
    Caryophyllene Oxide (also found in lemon balm)
    Nerolidol (also found in orange)
    Phytol (found in green tea)"

[dogma1138]

Well "Turps" is coming from Turpentine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpentine they distill them in a very similar fashion alpha-pinene, nerolidol and beta-caryophyllene are known to have some adverse health effects alpha-pinene is especially nasty.

The problem isn't the synthesis there shouldn't be a difference in the effects of a compounds such as aldehydes based on if you distill them or synthesize them , if anything synthesized compounds have much higher purity levels than distilled ones.

The problem is understanding the effects of individual compounds the cumulative effect of multiple compounds (in any given combination and ratio) as well as their long and short term effects.

Add to that added complexity of different delivery mechanisms not all vaporizers are the same they operate on different principals, power levels and use different materials.

All this can make accurate measurement very difficult and a very long term project, this is now compounded by the fact that "vaping" is a multi-dollar industry and behind it there is even a bigger industry which is the food flavoring one which for a long time has enjoyed the "GRAS" classification of it's products which barely holds water at the common ways of ingestion and amounts and most likely will utterly fall apart if you look at it too deeply.

There's also some insane negative feedback from the vaping community it self calling it a conspiracy funded by big tobacco (which is funny considering that big tobacco owns all the big ecig brands).

I always stated before that vaping is most likely "safer" especially on short term than smoking 1-2 packs a day, but I always suspected that it can be just as bad if not worse due to completely different mechanisms.

If you vape for say 6-12 months just to help yourself quit smoking it's probably "worth" the risk, if you going to end up chugging 30ml of juice a day you are not going to enjoy the results.

Heck even if you breath water vapor all day it won't be good for you, there is no way in hell that breathing in "hot" vapor can be good, may types of cancer especially throat and mouth cancer have been connected just to that the intake of hot or warm air rather than the actual chemical compounds in it. But people are keep buying some crazy 200 watt's ecigs and sucking on them like it's their mum's tit when you are spending 200W of energy it has to go some where at least some of that energy is deposited into the soft tissue of your mouth, throat and lungs and that can't be good no matter what else is in there.

[hackercomplex]

> Heck even if you breath water vapor all day it won't be good for you, there is no way in hell that breathing in "hot" vapor can be good

Is the vapor really any warmer than body temp when it goes into your lungs though ? I just conducted an experiment where I took a puff of a vaporizer but kept the vapour in my mouth, then I probed with my index finger and honestly the air temp felt about the same as it does without the vapour.

Also I wonder if vaping a pack a day while living in the a prestine wilderness setting would be more safe than breathing regular air all day in a large metro with auto air pollution. I suppose it probably depends what flavors are in your liquid, and which city.

Then there's the question of whether or not it's safe to be nicoteen in the first place. The way I look at it sugar and coffee are probably equally bad if not worse for the body, but I haven't looked at it in depth

[dogma1138]

I can't really comment on your anecdotal experiment because well it wasn't exactly done under controlled conditions and while i appreciate the level of accuracy you assign to your index finger i'm not quite sure how accurate it is really :)

And yes we already live in the world with 1000's of environmental risk factors that may cause or increase the likelihood of contracting cancer, the first of which is probably the fact that if we survive trough our early 20's we are expected to live another 60-70 years instead of 30 or so 2000 years ago.

But if you really think that regardless of flavor or composition vaping is some how smoking with no consequences you are only fooling yourself.

Vaping should be looked as a tool that can enable you to quit smoking more easily not as a leisure activity or a life style choice.

After all nicotine it self is indirectly linked to cancer since it seems to mess with the natural mechanisms that prevent cancer in cells.

As far as overall health goes I would suggest to stick to the low powered ecig pens and not dragging around one of those car battery powered human smoke machine monsters that I've seen quite a few folks walking about with lately (which are probably the reason that ecigs are being banned everywhere now, a vape-pen produces like no visible vapor; whilst those big power bricks can be used to conceal military maneuvers), as they operate at a fraction of the power and also limit the consumption of eliquid, them being also much more unpleasant to use than the higher end stuff should also have some effect on the frequency of use.

[hackercomplex]

well I certainly didn't mean to imply that you were full of hot air. :) and although I agree with you about nicotine but I'm personally more interested in the idea of consuming medicinal plant oils this way as a form of relaxation therapy because it would seem that cannabis prohibition is rapidly evapourating in the United States. I suspect it'll be a lot more difficult for scientists to find any medical evidence that this form of vaping is harmful, that is once they're finally able to conduct research into it.

One problem with conducting this kind of science however is that different varieties of cannabis have different profiles of cannabnoids and turpentines, so what science would really need first is a way to determine what genetics are what. This is why I'm so excited about the work that is being done to track the genetics.. here is a fascinating interview with a leading scientist about this if you're interested:

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/episode-73-distributed...

When it comes to aesthetics though I think we're on the same page about those portable smoke monstrosities.