
Clearing up some myths around e-cigarettes - DanBC
https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2018/02/20/clearing-up-some-myths-around-e-cigarettes/
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ShamelessC
The amount of misinformation on e-cigarettes/vaping nicotine has been
absolutely infuriating.

I went from smoking a pack a week, which was very likely to give me lung
cancer at some point, to vaping nicotine. The latter is very unlikely to give
one lung cancer and there have been no reported cases of lung cancer linked
solely to vaping.

Furthermore, the whole debacle with THC vaping juice containing a vitamin E
acetate that resulted in several deaths was reported in an absolutely
disgusting manner. THC and vitamin E acetate were rarely mentioned in these
reports. It was usually reported as "vaping mysteriously causing deaths" and
even associated with companies like Juul who don't deal with THC at all.

The irony that we've gone from "Reefer Madness" to "Nicotine Vaping Madness"
when black market THC pods were straight up killing people is so unfortunate.

Even NPR reported incredibly questionably on this.

Full disclosure - I don't think kids should be vaping or smoking, but there is
no proof that vaping nicotine causes anywhere near as much damage as smoking
cigarettes. I also have no problem with smoking marijuana in moderation (and
perhaps less so for developing minds), but won't be touching any THC vape pods
until it's clear that no one is using Vitamin E acetate in their juice.

~~~
chongli
The reason there was an uproar is that there's been a huge surge in vaping by
kids. People have been working tirelessly, for _decades_ , to lower the stats
on smoking among teens and when they see vaping spread through high schools
like wildfire you can see why they'd be pissed off.

~~~
dekhn
But if vaping isn't unhealthy, is it really necessary to reduce vaping by
teens? The primary reason for reducing smoking is that it's a huge risk factor
that leads to negative health outcomes and expensive treatments. If it's not
unhealthy (in the sense of causing respiratory disease or cancer), while I
would prefer teens not smoke, I'm not nearly as concerned about vaping
(however, I don't think we have nearly enough data about the long-term safety
of vaping to really say for sure).

~~~
chongli
We're talking about teenagers using and becoming addicted to nicotine.
Nicotine is completely inessential to life. Nicotine addicts (smokers or
vapers) don't show any benefit in life outcome from it. All it does is put a
drain on their finances just to make them feel better every time they
experience cravings, cravings which don't exist in non-addicts.

~~~
samdunham
That may not actually be true:

[https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/study-finds-nicotine-
sa...](https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/study-finds-nicotine-safe-helps-
in-alzheimers-parkinsons/2175396/)

~~~
AstralStorm
Did they weight it against coronary disease endpoints, of which we have
numerous studies, some even with pure nicotine?

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4958544/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4958544/)

All case mortality is worse in nicotine users.

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colonwqbang
Another alternative to smoking is Swedish Snus! It also falls in the "probably
not risk free, but certainly not nearly as bad as cigarettes". As an added
bonus, you don't have to go outside to use since nobody else is affected
(unless they want to kiss you or something).

But of course, although snus is a credible safer alternative to cigarettes, it
is banned in every other EU country while cigarettes remain completely legal.

~~~
strbean
Don't forget that American tobacco companies all have "snus" products that are
actually regular 'dipping' tobacco placed into pouches.

Swedish Snus is cold-cured, while other dip is heat-cured. It is well
established that partial combustion of organic matter creates a bunch of
different carcinogens. With cigarettes, you are inhaling partial combustion
products from plant matter that has already undergone partial combustion once,
and you have astronomical cancer risk. With dip, you are putting partially
combusted plant matter in your mouth and have quite high cancer risks. With
swedish snus, you are putting zero partial combustion, and no discernible
cancer risk.

~~~
Ductapemaster
I had no idea about the difference - interesting. I thought nicotine itself
was a carcinogen though?

~~~
p1necone
Nicotine on its own is no more harmful than caffeine, it's other stuff in
tobacco that gets you (and burning it doesn't help). So I'm still skeptical
that "cold cured" snus would be safe.

~~~
strbean
> it's other stuff in tobacco that gets you

I think the evidence regarding swedish snus shows that it is far less
carcinogenic than traditionally-cured oral tobacco, but still significantly
carcinogenic. In particular, swedish snus has very little in the way of
nitrosamines [1], a major carcinogenic element of heat-cured tobacco products.

RE: harmfulness of nicotine, my impression was that it was a little more
harmful to the heart than caffeine. I suppose this would depend on dosage,
which is difficult to compare.

[1]
[https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60677-1](https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736\(07\)60677-1)

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mikysco
Freakonomics did an excellent episode re e-cigarettes and the significant
public-policy differences between the US & UK. Adds to this piece and should
be interesting to anyone following this area: Episode 398
[https://freakonomics.com/podcast/vaping-
nicotine/](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/vaping-nicotine/)

------
lucasmullens
> UK surveys show that young people are experimenting with e-cigarettes, but
> regular use is rare and confined almost entirely to those who already smoke.

This is entirely not true in the US though, right? Curious how that can be so
different.

~~~
ShamelessC
Yeah that's incredibly interesting to me. If that's true, what the hell is the
UK doing so right that America isn't?

I doubt that statistic and would like to see the survey they referred to.

~~~
Symbiote
Perhaps there's less appeal when parents and other old, boring people have
e-cigarettes, with the approval of their doctor.

------
dvduval
I support the right of people to be able to go wherever they want and not be
exposed to smoke, to not have their kids playing atound people smoking, to be
able to open their windows on a nice day and not have the smell of smoke
coming in the window, and to be able to go for a walk and not feel like you
have to walk around people that are smoking.

I'm sure there will be more studies about what is safe. But I don't want to be
a participant in the study.

~~~
bdamm
Does this include the right to not be exposed to car exhaust?

~~~
kazinator
The right not to be exposed to car exaust is just a minor corollary of the
right not to have anyone ahead of you on the goddamned freeway.

~~~
bdamm
The car ahead might be an EV. If it isn't, then it's gassing you.

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ggm
As a former smoker, friends with other former smokers we have joked, in full
black-humour sense, that the best way out of the smoking mess, is to reduce
the cost of cigarettes for the old cohort who smoke, and let them die rapidly
so the public health costs are a blip in the overall curve.

The problem is the young cohort. I guess if we let vape companies sell Disney
branded pink princess vape kits, we might keep kids out of smoking, and so
this really is a blip and we can continue our black-humour approach to public
health and end-of-life statistics.

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dr_dshiv
Here's the backstory. Everyone's kids were vaping and parents were freaking
out. After all, it was "safe". But after the CDC scare, parents could tell
their kids that "vaping is deadly" with a straight face.

It is obviously impossible to prove that this played a role. But anecdotally,
I know many very rational people who are surprisingly antivaping -- because
kids.

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Angostura
Should have [2018] in the title

