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Comment by stinos | Hacker News Reader

While I also highly recommend e-cigarettes, your story is of course the ideal picture of how it should go. But it might not go that easy for everyone: even with the use of it I'm having a hard time to quit the actual cigarretes completely and it's not due to the nicotine (in fact I do not know what exactly still makes me crave for those hand-rolled cigarettes). Also nicotine can be a pleasant drug to use. Which is likely why I know several people who've been vaping for years and have a hard time quitting, or even just don't want to quit. But they did quit smoking so that's a huge win already of course.

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I'm not sure why the goal is quitting. Nicotine itself isn't the problem with cigarettes, it's just a stimulant and has the usual stimulant effects. If you have high blood pressure or trouble sleeping, probably not a great drug to use. But the same can be said of coffee, which is perfectly legal.

https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine is interesting reading.

Of course, e-cigarette liquid is not only nicotine, so who knows what the long term effect of that is. The chromium in the heating coils worries me personally. (Kanthal and stainless steel both contain chromium. Obviously stainless steel is designed to be relatively inert, so maybe it's OK. Titanium is another option, and is implanted in the body regularly. But things are different at high temperatures.)

For whatever little it's worth, and appologies if you knew this already: Kanthal wire should be generally more 'inert' than stainless at high temperatures. The aluminum in Kanthal forms a tougher and more temperature resistant oxide layer than the nickel in typical stainless steel.

(I actually used Kanthal wire sold for DIY vaping things professionally at one point, in a ~1200C heater in vacuum. It's not inert enough in those conditions, sadly)

The metal content of e-cigarette vapour has been analysed; even for relatively crude first-generation devices, the metal content is well within established safe exposure limits.

Stainless steel coils facilitate temperature-controlled vaporisation, which is a crucial advance in harm reduction. Controlling the temperature of vaporisation significantly reduces the production of aldehydes and aromatic hydrocarbons, which are created by the thermal decomposition of propylene glycol and glycerine; these decomposition products are by far the most dangerous components of e-cigarette vapour.

http://www.ecigarette-research.org/research/index.php/resear... http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.12942/abstrac...

do you know anything about the wire temperature in these things? I looked at both links and didn't see any numbers outside the paywall. Another comment mentions a vapor temperature of <260C, but nothing about the wire temperatures.

Stainless or Kanthal at 500C or something should indeed be quite inert, it's just not that hot.

200C to 260C is the normal temperature range, measured at the coil. Temperature-controlled devices use the coil itself as the temperature sensor by continuously measuring the resistance of the coil. The device calibrates each coil at room temperature when it is first installed. Stainless steel has a sufficiently high temperature coefficient of resistance to measure temperature quite accurately. Kanthal doesn't work with this method, because by design it has a very low temperature coefficient of resistance.

Power-controlled devices rarely exceed 300C in normal use, because there is considerable airflow over the coil combined with evaporative cooling. Excessive temperatures can be reached if the device is inadvertently activated, or if the liquid flow to the coil is inadequate.

As you say, kanthal and stainless steel should be very stable at these temperatures. Pure titanium wire also works with temperature control and completely avoids the issue of chromium, but there is some debate over the potential risks of titanium dioxide nanoparticles.

There's also breakdown products of the glycol and glycerine that include aldehydes such as formaldehyde and acrolein. Not as much as are in cigarettes, but enough to be somewhat concerning on their own.

Acrolein forms above 280 celsius, which is well beyond what the average vaporizer will be set for (from under 200 to around 260).

More than that, you'll know immediately it's happened because it tastes awful.

Same thing with formaldehyde - nobody is ever going to willingly inhale it, since its presence means your vape is going to taste awful.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/05/formaldehyde-fears-used-to...

> Nicotine itself isn't the problem with cigarettes, it's just a stimulant and has the usual stimulant effects

Agreed, it's tobacco that is the primary issue.

I've been curious to adopt the e-cig for the stimulant aspect. I likely won't, but will admit to being curious if it would be a productivity boost. I'd bet the e-cig companies could gain a whole new market if they published some quasi-scientific material on the productivity benefits of nicotine.

The problem is any potential productivity benefits are usually shut down at the employer level - I've never seen an employer (specifically office environment) that allows vaping in the workplace. My employer requires people to clock out for a smoke break and go outside anyway, so to get the next hit people have to go break momentum away from their desk for a while - and that'd probably be quite frequently too; from my somewhat brief stint(s) of trying to adopt vaping over combustion, I'd find myself puffing on it far more frequently than I'd go for a smoke (which at work is about 1 every 1-2 hours or so~)

Well for anecdotal evidence we've got two people with (multiple) vapers in our office and they totally use them at their desk. Only annoying bit is the permanent noise of using them. It seems less distracting overall to me than people running around for smoke breaks all the time.

I would personally be very concerned about the unknown secondhand vaping effects of someone doing it in close proximity to me at work.

I've adopted nicotine gum. I've never smoked. It helps me focus. (Or, at least, I have the impression it helps me focus. I havn't actually measured anything.)

Wouldn't the gum be easier and more discreet ?

Out of curiosity, I tried this instead of going back on caffeine. I got the lowest-dose gum, cut a piece into tiny fractions, and still found it too intense. I don't know if was just my metabolism or if smokers have all just built up a big tolerance, but it was definitely not for me.

I've been chewing nicotine gum semi-regularly for a couple of months. I use 2mg pieces, and I found a single piece to be pretty intense at first; I'm a bit more tolerant now.

Did you read the instructions? You're supposed to chew on it for a bit, than 'park' the gum between your gum and teeth, let it sit for a minute or two, rinse, repeat. If you chew continuously you get the whole dose quickly, which can be a bit unpleasant if you don't like the nicotine buzz.

That's pretty common. You develop a tolerance to nicotine pretty quickly.

Gum and/or lozenges are a lot cheaper and easier to use. I haven't found them to be habit forming.

Indeed. What e-cigarettes have done for me, and a few friends who have quit smoking, is help alleviate (my friends, who then later completely quit all e-ciggs), or replace (myself) the habitual addiction of cigarettes. Namely, the act of puffing, exhaling, and the sociability of going outside, etc.

That's a big part of the cigarettes many persons (anecdota) have trouble with quitting outside of the addictive properties: the learned habits.

What stops you from becoming addicted to the e-cig for the same reasons?

Caveat: I've never smoked or vaped, but I have plenty of friends that do both.

I think the idea is that when vaping, you are able adjust the level of nicotine you are consuming without having to adjust how often you engage in the physical act of vaping/smoking. The act is a comfortable ritual, a chance to take a break, step away, relax for a few moments, whatever. It's a habit itself, distinct from the nicotine dependency. Quitting smoking is doubly painful if you are craving both the chemical and the act. Vaping gives you the act without the chemical.

This doesn't even touch the fact that nicotine is not particularly harmful - simply a habit-forming stimulant like caffeine, adderall or modafinil. Vaping delivers the nicotine without the tar, and the tar is what kills. The thing that makes people nervous about vaping is not the nicotine, but the behavior of the (largely unstudied and unregulated) substances in the vapor being inhaled.

Indeed. Stimulants tend to form habits. It's not as noticeable with caffeine, because there is a 15-60 minute lag time for it to take effect. Nicotine (largely due to the delivery method, I assume) takes effect in 10 seconds. So it's easy to start forming associations with the feeling, leading to the psychological dependence.

One other point I have yet to see mentioned here that occurred to me when I made the switch from smoking cigarettes to vaping several years ago is that vaping also changed how I engaged in my smoking ritual.

A cigarette has become a somewhat expensive object. When I light it up I would finish it, or at least try to. If the time I had for my smoke break was short I would puff that thing hard to get it done in the time I had allotted. An e-cig can be used for a few puffs and then dropped back into my pocket with nothing wasted. I could be much lazier about how I smoked and as a consequence I tended to smoke less.

What temperature does the heating coil hit? We put stainless steel through 400-600 degrees in ovens & stovetops all the time.

Nicotine has stimulative and depressant effects, depending on environment/ mood of the user. It's actually one of the more interesting facets of the drug

I found it harder to quit as a rollie-smoker myself. My theory is the ritual of rolling up a quick cigarette is just as compelling as the actual smoke. I'd find myself rolling at my desk when in a stressful situation a fair bit.

Yep, as someone else who also smokes rollies exclusively (straights are disgusting and so fucking expensive), I can attest to that.

Vaping just didn't fill that void and I think that's part of the reason I gave up (the other being that I just couldn't find a flavour I actually liked, no matter how close the name of it is to 'golden virginia', it never tasted remotely as close)

I wonder if another fidget would help. I just heard a recommendation in this week's MacBreak Weekly, but I don't remember the name of the company. Maybe it was called Fidgetopia?

Rolling cigarettes feels good. E-cigarettes allow you to keep all of your addictive habits and mannerisms other than rolling, and it's all of those habits that are the addiction; you're physically off nicotene in a couple of weeks, and you're mentally off within a month or two. I was once able to roll a cigarette while riding a bike; now I have a skill that I'll never use again.

I'm creeped out by whatever's in e-cigs. I'm don't know why everyone is so sure that constantly inhaling propylene glycol for years on end is safe, or that all that's in that mystery imported off-brand liquid is propylene glycol. I of course find it extremely likely that it's less unhealthy than smoking.

I quit through using Swedish snus. I think it was crucial that snus isn't fun, and gives you nothing to do with your hands. To gradually wean off nicotene, just leave the portions in longer. Twenty-year smoker, two-year snuser, four years tobacco-free.

I hate to say it, but after puffing an e-cig for a couple years, it became extremely painful for my throat and lungs, to the point I couldn't even bear a single puff anymore without pain and a coughing fit. I actually went back to tobacco.

That sounds like a PG or VG sensitivity issue to me.

Is it more likely I developed sensitivity after 2 years, or switched types without realizing it? I liked all the other benefits of vaping.

I really don't know to be honest, if you're not paying attention it's pretty easy to accidentally buy the wrong mix and then end up with something that'll fuck your throat up for weeks.

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