
FDA Should Act Fast Amid Youth Vaping ‘Epidemic’ - drkimball
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-09/vape-epidemic-fda-should-act-fast-on-youth-e-cigarette-use
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LinuxBender
I've asked many parents to be ready to remove funding from the FDA, should
they block teens from getting vapes that would otherwise be smoking tobacco.
Vapes are saving lives.

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RickS
What are your thoughts on this chart?

[https://media.boingboing.net/wp-
content/uploads/2018/12/blog...](https://media.boingboing.net/wp-
content/uploads/2018/12/blog_cigarettes_vaping_adolescents.gif)

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LinuxBender
It is interesting, but I base my opinions on all the people I know that have
teens who smoke, have stopped smoking and instead vape. If the FDA attempt to
block teens from vaping, they should be treated as a compromised agency.

~~~
RickS
I think it's tricky because it's both ways. If you are a current smoker,
switching to vaping at an equal interval is a healthy move. I know many people
with the same story about switching to vaping and it being great.

If you're a non-smoker, picking up vaping at any meaningful interval is a
negative move.

How many positives outweigh the negatives? I don't know how to quantify that
thing.

And all of that assumes that smokers vape at the same interval. It gets even
more complicated if they vape more than smoking.

I went through a strange thing with this recently. Long anecdote:

I'll have the occasional cigarette when drinking. I find them too gross when
sober, so that situation enforced itself in a way I found acceptable. All my
smoker friends switched to Juul, so I eventually did the same, for all the
health reasons expected. But the thing about the Juul is that it's minty and
delightful and suddenly I'm ripping that thing at the end of the night, or
between chores, and within days I noticed that both my breathing was impacted,
and that I had a budding nicotine addiction. I gave the Juul away and went
back to cigarettes. I think a few marlbros once in awhile are better than
vaping constantly, and I need to be realistic with myself: I don't have the
discipline to enforce boundaries on the vape.

So it's not apples and oranges. Plus, if kids could get cigarettes illegally,
they can get vape stuff the same way. It's easier to conceal. And I think a
lot of teens are like me – finding Juul enjoyable, but cigarettes gross, so if
you take the vape off the table, they don't actually switch to cigarettes.
This would save a lot of harm, I think.

