Hacker News Reader

Vaping causes nicotine addiction which has the secondary risk using of tobacco products later in life. In other words ecigs is a gateway to smoking.

Youth Who Use Vaping Products Are More Likely to Smoke Cigarettes, Increase Use of Both Over Time

https://www.rand.org/news/press/2018/10/02.html

Specifically, vaping with nicotine causes the nicotine addiction. But there's a really awesome alternative: you can vape nicotine free. Any decent vape shop will let you pick out the strength that you like, and 0% is an option. One of my roommates did just that, because he liked the social benefits: getting to pretend he was a dragon, hanging out with his other friends during their smoke breaks, etc.

Of course this doesn't solve any potential other problems with the practice (the popcorn lung scare from a while back comes to mind) but in theory, if you simply must smoke, it's possible to do so without any nicotine at all.

The real long term danger here might be to get an entire generation hooked on vaping as a safer alternative, then remove vape devices from the market. That's a whole lot of potential new customers (nicotine addicts) for traditional cigarette companies.

If vaping is ever removed, I would think cigarettes would go with them.

In what world would vaping devices not be sold, but cigarettes?

Recent comments about regulation lead me to believe it is possible. The government has already pushed to remove Juul from gas stations while leaving cigarettes. Maybe it is far fetched to say this approach could be expanded but I’m not so sure anymore.

Vaping is illegal in Thailand, but cigarettes aren't

Vaping is banned in Thailand. And guess why? Right, because cigarette companies were threatened and they lobbied the government.

Correlation, causation. That link provides nothing to say that vaping leads to smoking apart from the say-so of their analyst. It’s equally possible that their smoking leads to vaping.

> vaping is (from what we know so far) legitimately a far, far healthier alternative to smoking cigarettes.

Cigarettes kill 50% of long-term users. It's reasonable to use that as the comparison if you're discussing smokers switching to vaping but it's crazy to use that as the basis of comparison for new vapers.

I am having trouble believing this figure. Lung cancer incidence for heavy smokers is 20%. Where do the other 30% of deaths come from?

Perhaps emphysema and heart disease?

It's mostly cardiovascular disease. The CDC has a breakdown of yearly smoking deaths[0]. And the 50% number comes from the WHO[1].

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...

[1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco

Respiratory diseases under the umbrella term COPD (which includes emphysema) are another large category represented in that table. And alas, in my family.

The highest risk of death from smoking is due to coronary artery disease. The chemicals irritate the vessels, causing atherosclerosis.

One would think, might even have been taught, that the tar clogs arteries. But the "chemicals" also lead to cramps, tension, increased heart rate, shallow breath. Perhaps that's one "stimulating" effect of nicotine, so vaping wouldn't help.

PS: I still think that nicotine alone isn't responsible for the addiction, but the warming, though consequently chilling effect, and the oral stimulation, that may affect neural pathways related to eating and drinking. And, arguably this counts all the more if it can be made to taste like apple, though cigarettes get flavors add from vanilla over cinnamon, honey, licorice and I don't wanna know what else, too.

> vaping is (from what we know so far) legitimately a far, far healthier alternative to smoking cigarettes

> given what we know right now

You are making assumptions and drawing conclusions based on what you don't know. That's exactly what doctors used to do when they smoked in hospitals and what vocalists did when they claimed that smoking gave their voice a rich, deep sound.

Funny how people want to insist that vaping is not good but “less bad than smoking.” You know what’s even better than vaping? Not vaping.

Cutting off your finger is not as bad as cutting off your arm. But I prefer not cutting off my finger.