Hacker News Reader

Comment by smeej | Hacker News Reader

Related: Why is there talk about banning Juul from selling its products in the U.S. entirely, but no such conversation about banning any of the big tobacco companies from selling theirs?

It's all about power.

There are so many things it would be useful to quantify and compare:

Does anybody know the difference between the percentage of non-nicotine users who begin smoking cigarettes and the percentage who begin vaping? It sounds like the percentage for vaping is higher, but how much higher? Is it as much higher as the risk of dangerous health complications smoking has over vaping?

Never mind the question of why nicotine addiction is so dangerous it must be prevented on a federal level, but alcohol addictions aren't? How much more dangerous is nicotine than alcohol?

View on HN

> Related: Why is there talk about banning Juul from selling its products in the U.S. entirely

Important distinction: I didn't say anything about banning sales, just marketing, which we've already done for both smoking and alcohol.

> How much more dangerous is nicotine than alcohol?

According to the CDC, "cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States...causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States" while "excessive alcohol use is responsible for more than 95,000 deaths in the United States each year, "

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...

https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-death...

Edit: as for vaping specifically, the risks are not yet fully known, but some health authorities argue "a growing body of evidence shows that smoking e-cigarettes, or vaping, may be even more dangerous than smoking cigarettes".

https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/emotional-health/...

However note that's comparing smoking not nicotine.

Inhaling smoke is very bad for you. Lots of people die this way in fires. Like, you cut the victims open and there is soot in their lungs. So, no surprise smoking cigarettes is also a bad idea even if it's less bad than being in a literal burning building.

Nicotine is poisonous, but so is booze. There may be other things about vaping which are bad for you, but it seems pretty clear that the main problem is the nicotine, which is why people are doing it anyway, so, fine.

Booze has another important difference though: The ones drinking aren't always the ones dying. That can be because they're impaired while operating machinery (e.g. someone has "a few beers" then drives home, next morning they don't remember anything about how they got home, but there's a blood red stain on the bumper and someone else is found dead in a ditch) or they might just become violent and cause deliberate harm to others.

> According to the CDC, "cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States...causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States" while "excessive alcohol use is responsible for more than 95,000 deaths in the United States each year,

The question was about nicotine; it is not generally the _nicotine_ in cigarettes that kills you. That's what keeps you smoking them (to a large extent) but it's not what kills you.

That last article says, "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suspects that exposure to THC, as well as a mix of THC, nicotine and vitamin E, an additive in many vape carriages, is causing serious lung injury."

Would you agree that exposure to THC, in itself, causes serious lung injury?

(Yes, I know, vitamin E acetate (an oil) in cannabis vaping products was likely the cause of a number of cases of lung injury.)

Also, "An FDA analysis of e-cigarettes from two leading brands found that the samples contained carcinogens and other hazardous chemicals, including diethylene glycol, which is found in antifreeze." Diethylene glycol is also used as "a humectant for tobacco, cork, printing ink, and glue. It is also a component in brake fluid, lubricants, wallpaper strippers, artificial fog and haze solutions, and heating/cooking fuel" as well as an industrial solvent. This statement is largely meaningless unless you know how much is in there: "The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations allows no more than 0.2% of diethylene glycol in polyethylene glycol when the latter is used as a food additive. The Australian government does not allow DEG as a food additive; it is only allowed at less than 0.25% w/w of DEG as an impurity of polyethylene glycol (PEG) even in toothpaste." (Wikipedia)

> How much more dangerous is nicotine than alcohol?

If you divorce nicotine from its problematic delivery systems, nicotine itself is a pretty good drug (albeit very addictive). It's potentially protective against diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, it's associated with weight loss, and it improves short term memory and attention.

It's also great in combination with caffeine, and it speeds up caffeine metabolism.

This is one of the main reasons why I vape.

I first got interested in the nootropic properties of nicotine long before I took up the pen when I came across Gwern's article on it. In particular, the possibility of reinforcing habits using it was the biggest thing that made me look into it. However, he uses gum instead.

https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine

Wouldn't be so sure about that. Nicotine alone has problematic effects on the heart and vascular system, especially since the addictiveness leads to constant admission. Vaping isn't all that great delivery system either.

Replace nicotine with amphetamine and your statement still holds true.

Exactly. Whatever positive effects nicotine has are completely overshadowed and undermined by its addictiveness.

That's really not true at all. Addictiveness in and of itself is not some hugely detrimental trait. Not to mention that nicotine delivered in vapor form is less addictive in the first place.

>Related: Why is there talk about banning Juul from selling its products in the U.S. entirely, but no such conversation about banning any of the big tobacco companies from selling theirs?

Juul is a product of one of those big tobacco companies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com