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Comment by jarym | Hacker News Reader

I spoke to a number of researchers several years ago before vaping really became so mainstream.

To be honest a number had a rather surprising view: if it has nicotine in it then it must be bad.

I formed my own opinion back then: the researchers did not seem that inretested in the effects of vaping and preferred to instead just associate it with cigarettes.

This article talks about us not knowing the long term effects (which is true) but then goes on to regulating vaping. Why not advocate for more research instead?

I don’t think vaping is without side effects but it’s my personal view and I have no scientific basis for it. But we should be doing more research before we clamp down on it.

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Articles like this always ignore the other side of the issue. Assuming half of vapers would be non-smokers, then every time we eliminate two vapers through clamping down on vaping we generate a cigarettes smoker.

And cigarette smoking is one of the worst public health hazards.

Given that nicotine has been known to have harmful effects since the first time it was isolated, nearly 200 years ago [1], that is not an unreasonable approach to take. Just because it is being delivered in a slightly different mechanism doesn't mean that the previous research in entirely inapplicable. If I know that banging my head against a brick wall hurts, it is reasonable to assume that banging my head against a wooden wall will also hurt.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363846/

Nicotine itself is bad.

Yes, it's probably much better for you to not inhale hot smoke particles in your lungs and all the other ancillary chemicals from cigarettes, but if vaping is undermining decades of hard-fought progress against the single largest preventable cause of death globally (responsible for ~30% of cancer deaths) by bringing in new smokers and reducing the urgency to quit among current smokers I can see how public health officials would be cautious about embracing it.

Smoking-related cancer is mostly due to nitrosamines. Nicotine can have adverse effects on heart, pancreas, and blood vessels, but replacing sooty nicotine inhaling with non-sooty is less cancer-risky.

Addiction aside (looking at you too caffeine)... how is nicotine bad exactly?

Nicotine itself promotes tumor growth and metastasis. It increases your risk of getting cancer.

This is dumb because I vape thc or cbd but never nicotine. I still want to know if it's harmful.

Why is that surprising? The negative effects of nicotine are well known and extensively documented and tested. It's not hard to find, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine.

Smoking is worse than getting nicotine from other than tobacco related substances like a juul. But n. on it's own is a deadly substance. Please see this article:

Increased clotting tendancy, atherosclerosis, enlargement of the aorta, passes into the milk to infants, also: (didn't copy all the references)

"Nicotine induces both behavioral stimulation and anxiety in animals.[4] Nicotine addiction involves drug-reinforced behavior, compulsive use, and relapse following abstinence.[18] Nicotine dependence involves tolerance, sensitization,[19] physical dependence, and psychological dependence.[20] Nicotine dependency causes distress.[21][22]"

Someone wants this?

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