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Comment by JamesBarney | Hacker News Reader

There has been an increase in vaping, but the health benefits of vaping instead of smoking are so large that they swamp the ill health effects from increased vaping unless you get 20 new vapers for each person who quits smoking.

In this debate people really underestimate how bad smoking is for you.

UK NHS estimates e-cigarettes about 95% less damaging than smoking. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/vaping-quit-smokin...

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Anecdotally, I (as a college student) know more than 20x the number of people who vape than people who smoke. Smoking is bad, but vaping is becoming incredibly mainstream with young people to the point where it's a bigger health risk.

I don't know if you realize how mainstream smoking was. Everyone did it. Eeeeeveryone.

I have a feeling most of your college friends will grow out of vaping.

I get that everyone smoking is way worse than everyone vaping, but nowadays smoking (cigarettes) isn't popular at all. Even without vaping claiming some of the would-be smokers, I doubt a significant portion of my generation would smoke.

Of course, I'm also biased by having only lived in LA and the Bay Area where I bet smoking is less prevalent than other parts of the country.

Some of those vapers would have been smokers. And the smoking rate for youth never got close to being below 5%.

Huff post says that in 2011 it was 16% for youth.

So if you know 20-30x vapers than smokers that's incredible evidence that vaping is reducing the number of smokers dramatically.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cigarette-smoking-decline_n_6...

For some historical context when I started college in mid 2000's 20-30% of the people I knew smoked.

I really don't think that this is a accurate statement at all.

There are a few dangers to vaping.

The biggest one is having a vaporizer that is malfunctioning and is burning things instead of heating them up. The complex chemical reactions are difficult to predict. But it has the side effect of tasting like shit.

The second biggest danger is the flavorings. However the community has been very good at self-policing and eliminating flavors that are found to pose a risk.

The last danger is a sort of being a idiot and using way too much nicotine.

On the flip side you can have zero nicotine. So peer pressure isn't really even a problem as you can get zero nicotine juices.

You can get zero nicotine, but not everyone does. I know a few people who accidentally got themselves addicted to nicotine by vaping too much without really thinking of the consequences.

Seriously, "I know a guy who didn't think" is not an argument for prohibition (and probably not an argument for anything at all).

Your friend didn't know nicotine was addictive?

Everyone knows nicotine is addictive, not everyone knows how much nicotine they are ingesting when they vape as you can take in much more way faster than you can by smoking.

Wouldn't regularly functioning vapes be a danger to your lungs simply due to the heated air? I.e. at what temperature does vapor become dangerous?

There's so much unheated air accompanying the vapour, through the air vents, that my recollection of vaping is it wasn't even warm. I'm sure there is a temperature difference after the vaporiser, but I never noticed it. Completely unlike smoking where you often noticed it was hot.

Sounds like something for a Youtuber to measure. :)

I never tried a Juul, just regular mods and vape pens if that makes a difference.

Interesting. I always thought hot air was the mechanism that causes a cough. Maybe it is just the lack of oxygen.

It's more likely particles that causes coughing.

The proportion of VG and PG, vegetable glycerine and propylene glycol, decides how hard it is on the throat. Known as "throat hit" on vaping sites. More PG gives more throat hit - it feels harsher, and more chance of a cough, but fewer clouds. I used to prefer the high VG liquids as I thought the throat hit part of the bad of smoking that I wanted to quit.

Maybe some of the flavours have impact too, I don't know. One thing that is different is it's "just" a cough from immediate irritation. None of the horrible green and yellow crap coming up from a coughing fit next morning that you got from tobacco.

That's ignoring Juul which works differently, I have no idea what goes on in those.

everyone vaping is better than the previous numbers of smokers. I don’t think you’re really grasping the difference.

Without vaping, that smoking rate would probably be 1/6 people, which is worse than everyone vaping.

~20 years ago when I was in high school/college, 90%+ of those people you know that vape would have been cigarette smokers. I don't think you grasp just how much harm reduction there is from all those kids vaping instead of smoking cigarettes.

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