[replicatorblog]

Ecigs are likely one of the most impactful public health interventions of the last 50 years. They provide a substitute that is less dangerous and pleasurable which keeps compliance high.

Juul and their competitors were genius product managers paired with irresponsible to the point of malevolent product marketers.

I would like someone to do a "Years of life saved" calculation that tallies the expected years save by switching smokers to vaping balanced against those who were attracted by vaping who eventually went to smoking. My guess is even with the new entrants the years of life saved would be extraordinary.

[Judgmentality]

> I would like someone to do a "Years of life saved" calculation that tallies the expected years save by switching smokers to vaping balanced against those who were attracted by vaping who eventually went to smoking. My guess is even with the new entrants the years of life saved would be extraordinary.

My understanding is entire high schools are getting addicted to vaping, where before smoking was a relatively minor phenomenon. I suspect vaping is causing multiple times as much harm as it is providing relief, especially since they target young people for new customers.

I know plenty of people that have never smoked in their lives that vape regularly. I actually don't know a single smoker that switched to vaping, but I think that latter part is rare and unique to me.

So, if I'm correct, I don't think it should be "years of life saved" but "years of life lost," and I'd bet it's astonishingly high since many of those high school kids will be addicted for life. Don't forget Juul got billions (not millions) in funding from the cigarette companies in exchange for 35% ownership, so it's all the same to them - addiction is money.

[wholinator2]

Yes, it seems like the elder generations are benefiting greatly from vaping but the "kids these days" are having huge issues with it. I agree that majority of a high school will just suddenly be all in on vaping, the social pressure is just waayyy too high in a place like that and a bunch of people get pulled in that wouldn't just cause a couple of the more influential ones picked up something they view as a toy, but that they can portray as a status symbol, at least within the high school.

I will say that when those juul kids come to college, very specifically my college, they hit the reality that everyone there still looks down on it and that they're basically just broadcasting their "highschoolness", and then they realize how hard it is to quit. We had smoking at my non-smoking campus, just behind one of the buildings, but it was by definition not popular. Vaping existed but if you were walking around blowing huge clouds of cotton candy shit, people would both actively avoid you and look down on you. It was the culture at the time.

Disclaimer: I left a couple years ago, that was my experience, things could've greatly changed by now

[lolc]

So what's the harm of vaping? As far as I know, there is some evidence of harm, but it compares very favorably to smoking. It's a different class.

To talk about "years of life lost" is quite off from what I know about it. And I never vaped, just smoked.

[ehnto]

It's still a product using nicotine to form addiction so that you'll be reliant on their product, it's an evil practice. You can vape without nicotine, and it's a great way to quit smoking, but that's not what's happening with all the Juul hype. It's just teenagers getting hooked on nicotine again because marketing has told them it was cool.

It gets a pass because of it's relationship with smoking, giving them a believable reason to keep the nicotine, but if I started putting nicotine in bottled water there would be a class action in a week.

[Judgmentality]

We don't have as much data on vaping as we do for smoking, but this reminds me of what cigarette companies said for decades: "where is the data showing our products are harmful?"

We already know vaping causes popcorn lung. I suspect 1:1 between vaping and smoking that vaping is safer, but who knows? We won't know until we have decades of data about mortality related to vaping. It seems plausible that it increases lung cancer rates and we just don't have enough data to know yet.

https://www.cancertherapyadvisor.com/home/cancer-topics/lung...

[dntrkv]

> We already know vaping causes popcorn lung.

Not true. The data we have shows that it was being caused by Vitamin E acetate, which was used by off-brand THC cartridges. None of the major nicotine vapes used this chemical.

Also, this attitude of "oh we don't know" could be extended to any new product anywhere, including the vaccines we are using now. All of the current data supports vaping to be significantly safer than cigarettes, so let's proceed with that data and if the data later changes, we can update our guidelines.

Otherwise, you are killing people in the meantime.

[rsynnott]

> The data we have shows that it was being caused by Vitamin E acetate, which was used by off-brand THC cartridges.

That's a different, less well understood respiratory problem. Some ecigarette liquid contains (or used to contain; it's banned in Europe but maybe not in the US?) diacetyl as a flavouring; that causes popcorn lung and various other problems.

Regardless, neither of these are a concern where not present, which they generally aren't.

[deftnerd]

Well, there also incidents about 5 years of people making vape juice with Diacetyl, a food additive that gives a creamy buttery taste. Turned out that while it was food safe, bringing it to the temperature necessary for vaping did bad things to it and it also caused "popcorn lung"

[dntrkv]

I'm sure there were even more sketchy recipes used before, but it's not an argument against vaping, it's an argument against those recipes.

[Judgmentality]

> Otherwise, you are killing people in the meantime.

What? I'm arguing vaping is more dangerous than not vaping. I specifically said I believe vaping is safer than smoking.

For what it's worth, I believe all drugs should be legal. I don't care if you want to vape or not. I don't care if you want to inject fentanyl into your veins or not. It's your body.

[dntrkv]

"I suspect 1:1 between getting vaccinated and not, that getting vaccinated is safer, but who knows?"

See the problem with this type of rhetoric? There have been tons of studies done at this point with regards to vaping. Everything shows it as being safer. This is not equivalent to the tobacco companies lying to the public. Juul never makes any claim as to their product being 100% safe, just look at the packaging.

On top of that, you also repeated a known falsehood that vaping causes popcorn lung.

My point is that repeating these arguments and casting doubt on vaping being safer further promotes these bans on vaping, which in turn will kill more people.

> I'm arguing vaping is more dangerous than not vaping.

There is no need to argue an obvious fact that 100% of people will agree with.

[mcguire]

"We already know vaping causes popcorn lung."

We know that vaping fluid with a particular flavoring chemical caused popcorn lung. That chemical is now rare.

"The chemical that gave this condition its nickname is diacetyl. After workers at a factory that packaged microwave popcorn were found to have bronchiolitis obliterans more often than other people, some companies stopped using diacetyl as a flavoring. But it's still used in some electronic cigarette flavors in the US. Many e-cigarette makers state they aren't using this chemical in their products and its use in e-cigarettes is banned in Europe." (https://www.webmd.com/lung/popcorn-lung#1)

[mcguire]

"My understanding is entire high schools are getting addicted to vaping, where before smoking was a relatively minor phenomenon. I suspect vaping is causing multiple times as much harm as it is providing relief, especially since they target young people for new customers."

I think I'd want a citation for that. It's been a long time since I was in high school, but smoking was incredibly common (if reasonably well concealed) back then. I can see vaping as being somewhat more popular (if not "entire high schools"), but...

[s1artibartfast]

I suspect you are right about the age division, but would love to see some real numbers and studies about each side. Every study I have seen about the youth pushes your sentiment that "entire high schools are getting addicted", but when you look at the questions, they are typically very misleading and something along the lines of "have you ever tried a vape".

OTOH, being older, I have never met someone who vapes that didn't smoke before, and know several smokers who quit and switched over.