I know firsthand that smoking is still a huge part of the social culture in all Balkan countries and even Italy to a lesser extent. OTOH, many studies show that it’s better than vaping. I’ve had some conversations with my pulmonologist and a friend of mine who’s a board certified (nearly retired) cardiologist who both confirm this and tell me that they see increasingly younger patients develop serious disease very quickly after starting vaping, including a 16-yo patient who developed emphysema.
Don’t have them on hand (or necessarily put faith in them) but a couple of studies have claimed to show a link between vaping and higher susceptibility to ordinary lung disease (bronchitis) with the suspected cause being that people vape far more than they smoke in terms of air volume, and that the higher temp of some vape products adversely affects the lungs in a way that cigarettes don’t. I’m pretty skeptical that there’s anything as bad for you as smoking unless it’s obesity or a sedentary lifestyle- all 3 are correlated, as is alcohol abuse, depression, and a number of other bad things. I think vaping is probably too new to know anything definitive about it, though.
