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Comment by ulrikrasmussen | Hacker News Reader

From a health and harm reduction perspective they are probably saving lives by replacing cigarette smoke which is much more harmful. But I agree that from an environmental perspective they are much worse. Perfectly good Li-ion are thrown in the trash which is insane.

I don't understand why people buy these. I don't vape, but it is my understanding that you can get reusable vapes with cartridges that are very easy to replace, and which are probably more enjoyable to use.

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> From a health and harm reduction perspective they are probably saving lives by replacing cigarette smoke which is much more harmful.

There is some evidence that they are used by people who never smoked, though. The smoking reduction seems like a convenient excuse for these companies. In actual fact smokers or former-smokers is a limited and dwindling market. They want to expand aggressively, notably in younger populations.

I was one! For, heck, I think six years I picked up Nicotine 'thanks' to vaping. It hit several boxes - appetite suppressant, stimulant, tasty.

At the time I was having to put in a lot of long shifts. It helped until it didn't. Patches work great, strongly recommended.

As someone who recently quit vaping I can shed some light.

My understanding is that the FDA recently banned flavored vapes, however the wording of the rule made some reference to the ban being for “cartridge-based” vapes, presumably to target Juul over roll-your-own-vape-juice type systems.

This lead to a loophole where the disposable vapes, being disposable and not cartridge based, can be flavored.

We have no idea how their health effects compare to cigarettes, they're too new.

People should just smoke pure tobacco (pipes, cigars) but those are too inconvenient.

There's no world in which atomized nicotine, glycol/glycerin, and some flavors, is comparable, let alone worse, than inhaling smoldering tobacco leaves. Even the purest, organic tobacco made from the nicest leaves lovingly collected by happy family farmers, is still gonna give you cancer if you burn it and inhale the smoke. That's just chemistry.

The only exception is if the vape juice contains something it "shouldn't", like the vitamin E acetate debacle, but if you put the same wrong things in tobacco, you get the same issue. This problem is avoided entirely with a verified source of ingredients.

Partial combustion products will always contain, at minimum, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a verified carcinogen. The hotter the conditions, the more complex the precursors, and the more incomplete the reaction is, the more nasty junk you will create. Vaping might or might not be bad, but the chemistries of smoking includes the full set of chemistries of vaping, and then way way more, due to the incomplete combustion of the much larger molecules in plant matter.

Bottom line: probably don't put the volatile reaction products of substances heated above 100°C into your lungs: tobacco smoke, vape, campfire smoke, car exhaust, brake dust, etc. But some reactants are far worse than others.

You don’t inhale cigars or pipes tho

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigar#Health_effects

https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article-abstract/96/11/853/252...

They're still terrible for you and disgusting to be around.

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