[ThrustVectoring]

>E-Cigarrettes / "Vaping", which is also Tobacco and poses the same health risks as traditional tobacco.

This is wrong, and absolutely harmful information to spread. Cigarette smoking causes cancer through burning tobacco plant matter, a process that releases a variety of toxic chemicals. Vaporization of e-liquid does not burn tobacco plant matter, and thus doesn't have the same issues.

E-liquid is basically nicotine, glycerol and/or proplyene glycol solute, and flavoring. Nicotine replacement products aren't associated with cancer risk. The solute is much the same stuff as in asthma inhalers. There isn't really good research for the flavoring, but it's generally ingredients that are recognized as safe to put in food.

Overall, vaping is likely at least an order of magnitude safer than smoking. Probably two. That's not anywhere near "the same health risks as traditional tobacco." I'm personally more worried about spending lots of time near busy roads. If a policy causes X more people to vape per person that no longer smokes, X would have to be at least 100 for me to think it's a net negative.

[manarth]

  Nicotine replacement products aren't associated with cancer risk

There is evidence that Nicotine replacement products do increase the risk of cancer. Every source I've read says that the risk is less than smoking cigarettes, but vaping (for example) is still an increased risk over not using nicotine at all.

Current NHS advice puts vaping at 95% less risk than smoking, which is to say an increased risk (5% of the smoking risk), compared to not vaping.

- https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree/help-and-advice/e-cigarettes

- http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2009/04/24/can-nicot...

- http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/04April/Pages/NicotineGumCancer....

- http://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/prevention-and-...

[ThrustVectoring]

Yeah, the research on nicotine replacement products isn't very mature. The links you gave are interesting, but more along the lines of "nicotine can do the same sort of things to mouth cells that happens when you have mouth cancer", not "we took a look at X number of people and looked at mouth cancer incident rates".

The NHS advice is interesting, thanks for contributing it. It's a good sign that I'm on the right track - I put it at "one to two orders of magnitude", or to use the same units, 1% to 10% of the cancer risk of cigarettes. The NHS is likely biased towards saying things cause cancer (because incentives - nobody causes a ruckus if something they thought causes cancer is safe, but everyone gets way riled up if something the NHS thinks is safe causes cancer). So my updated belief is now that vaping causes less than 1% of the cancer that smoking does, per user.

[ktRolster]

It's probably worth avoiding e-juice with diacetyl, though.

[sean_patel]

> Nicotine replacement products aren't associated with cancer risk

This is what's really wrong, and absolutely harmful information to spread.

Your source for all these claims you are making about Vaping being "Safe"?

[ThrustVectoring]

Stealing a source from elsewhere in the thread:

The NHS estimates that vaping is no more than 5% of the danger of smoking.

(https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree/help-and-advice/e-cigarettes)

Heavy smoking is roughly the equivalent of losing somewhere between one and three healthy years of life.

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361023/)

Combine the two estimates at their most conservative, add a tad of fudge factor, and heavy vaping use will at worst cost you two months of healthy living. People regularly make worse tradeoffs than this - obesity, amount and recklessness of driving, playing professional American Football, and many others are likely worse.

Whether or not that counts as "safe" is up to you and your risk tolerance, of course. As a non-smoker, that's safe enough for me to try vaping to see if nicotine a stimulant worth using.