E-Cigarettes Are Effective At Helping Smokers Quit, a Study Says (nytimes.com) 143
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The study, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that e-cigarettes were nearly twice as effective as conventional nicotine replacement products, like patches and gum, for quitting smoking. The success rate was still low -- 18 percent among the e-cigarette group, compared to 9.9 percent among those using traditional nicotine replacement therapy -- but many researchers who study tobacco and nicotine said it gave them the clear evidence they had been looking for. The study was conducted in Britain and funded by the National Institute for Health Research and Cancer Research UK. For a year, it followed 886 smokers assigned randomly to use either e-cigarettes or traditional nicotine replacement therapies. Both groups also participated in at least four weekly counseling sessions, an element regarded as critical for success. The findings could give some new legitimacy to e-cigarette companies like Juul, which have been under fire from the government and the public for contributing to what the Food and Drug Administration has called an epidemic of vaping among teenagers. But they could also exacerbate the difficulty of keeping the devices away from young people who have never smoked while making them available for clinical use.
iCigarettes (Score:1)
I'm waiting for Apple's iCigarette to come out and make smoking cool again.
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And attract 10,000's of men with man-buns? Stay away, Apple!
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No headphone jack and non-replaceable batteries. Actually, the iStogie has a jack.
Perfection is the enemy of the good (Score:5, Informative)
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Vaping is still a net killer even when compared to tobacco
No haha. The health problems of vaping are small compared to the problems of tobacco.
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"Nope, just yet to be fully established due to the linear nature of time and the recent nature of vaping. You're an assumptive derivative moron."
So just to be clear, there's no reason to believe that Vapes are more hazardous than smoking tobacco, but you somehow "know" that it will be? You must understand time cube real good there, tiger.
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Hopefully vaping is safer than smoking tobacco, but the margin of safety is likely to be far less than proponents of vaping would lead us to believe.
I can agree with both of those statements, but the question was whether vaping was safer than smoking tobacco. So far, it looks like yes, and a lot of people have been looking into it pretty intently.
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"So far, it looks like yes, and a lot of people have been looking into it pretty intently."
Indeed. Given that the funding is largely behind finding dangers which carries a bias the results are even more promising.
The real risk is people who want to paint everything with a brush and say "this is safe" or "this is dangerous" we just need to keep adjusting to new data. Unfortunately most of the benefits are disappearing as e-cigs get added by ignorant people to public non-smoking policies.
The only thing out th
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Usually. I am concerned about the ceramic blanket material used rather than cotton in many vapes, the cotton itself which always burns, and the ceramics being used for heating elements.
In particular the ceramic components are concerning because the fine particles you'll inhale as a consequence are cumulative.
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In particular the ceramic components are concerning because the fine particles you'll inhale as a consequence are cumulative
That is a reasonable concern. Tar is cumulative also.
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Unlike extreme consumers of microwave popcorn (yes really!), no vaper has ever been diagnosed with popcorn lung.
So by your logic, we should ban microwave popcorn?
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"What isn't obvious is the new and unstudied conditions, disorders and diseases that vaping every 15 minutes will cost this newest generation."
Maybe, maybe not. Any restaurant, cup of coffee, or any number of other food and candy products puts much of the same things into the air. The flavorings weren't invented for e-cigs, they borrowed FDA approved food additives. You don't just eat food you know, you also heat it and breath the exhaust.
Re:Perfection is the enemy of the good (Score:5, Funny)
If all smokers switched to vape tomorrow, would there be a massive overall improvement in health? Of course there would be.
Yes, but they would risk being lost in giant vape-clouds of hipster douche-baggery -- a great detriment of the rest of us. :-)
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If all smokers switched to vape tomorrow, would there be a massive overall improvement in health? Of course there would be.
Yes, but they would risk being lost in giant vape-clouds of hipster douche-baggery -- a great detriment of the rest of us. :-)
But a massive reduction in the amount of foul, acrid smoke clouds that hang around for hours, not to mention smokers dragging that smell into the office with them which have long been the domain of arrogant arseholery that have long been at great detriment to the rest of us.
On balance, the vape clouds are a huge improvement.
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If all smokers switched to vape tomorrow, would there be a massive overall improvement in health? Of course there would be.
Yes, but they would risk being lost in giant vape-clouds of hipster douche-baggery -- a great detriment of the rest of us. :-)
The nice thing about cig smokers who vape, they know that any "clouds" coming out is wasted nicotine, so when a smoker is vaping, there are zero clouds.
I vape all the time in public. Not a single person has noticed. I have not smoked a single cigarette in two weeks now. The reason this has been a successful experiment so far is that the vape device I am using is a super-tiny device that is hidden in the palm of my hand and it feels a bit like a pacifier.
It is the pacifier aspect that has made vaping a viabl
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I have not smoked a single cigarette in two weeks now.
Congratulations, keep it up! (sincerely)
the vape device I am using is a super-tiny device that is hidden in the palm of my hand and it feels a bit like a pacifier.
That last bit should tell you something. Keep working so you don't need anything, especially a pacifier. :-)
Yes, I even vaped at a kids birthday party last week. Nobody noticed or cared.
As long as you're not exhaling those iconic giant (hipster-douche) vape clouds onto everyone around you. Perhaps they're just harmless water vapor, but keep it to yourself man -- *no one* other than hipster/douche vapers thinks that is or looks cool -- you're still an addict constantly sucking on something just to get by. (sorry so harsh.)
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Congratulations, keep it up! (sincerely)
Thank you.
That last bit should tell you something. Keep working so you don't need anything, especially a pacifier. :-)
Indeed. To me, the oral fixation part is the hardest part of quitting smoking. Once I get past the oral fixation, I am "permanently" cured. I stopped for 9 months previously but the oral fixation never left. This time, I have a plan for that. :)
As long as you're not exhaling those iconic giant (hipster-douche) vape clouds onto everyone around you.
Ugh!
Perhaps they're just harmless water vapor, but keep it to yourself man
Nobody else signed up for my issues; therefore, I keep them to myself. I would hope others would do the same. :)
I just noticed. You changed your .sig... not terribly long ago?
I remember.
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As long as you're not exhaling those iconic giant (hipster-douche) vape clouds onto everyone around you.
Ugh!
Perhaps they're just harmless water vapor, but keep it to yourself man
Nobody else signed up for my issues; therefore, I keep them to myself. I would hope others would do the same. :)
It's interesting (to use that word) that the top N results when googling vape cloud [google.com] are like:
How do I get more clouds from my vape?
How to get massive vape clouds?
What is best for vape clouds?
Makes you wonder about peoples' motivations ...
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You don't need to put in the effort to overcome the addiction, if you are a smoker, switch today!
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Re:also even better at gettng people to start smok (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, no. Vaping is not smoking. Would you rather the teens vape or smoke? I ask because history has long proven that your preferred option of neither one just doesn't happen in the real world.
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But it's neither a XOR and history also shows it's far more difficult to rid of addictions than to introduce them and a percentage of the population simply doesn't stand a chance against addictive substances.
Because really, the same point has been made about weed in het past just to find out addictive substances
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Ecigs are actually less addictive than cigarettes. Cigarettes include a MAO inhibitor that potentiates the addictive qualities of nicotine. And again, teens have been smoking in spite of school rules, parental prohibition and laws against selling to minors for decades. It's better they get into the less addictive and less harmful e-cigs.
As for weed, you do know it's not addictive, don't you?
Re:Perfection is the enemy of the good (Score:4, Informative)
It's not just that - you've got a lot better control over your nicotine dosage with a vape pen or e-cig. That makes it a lot easier to quit, since you can slowly wean yourself off the drug while keeping the same habits otherwise.
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It worked for me. I quit after almost 20 years thanks to vaping. And I don't need a study to tell me it's healthier. I knew that when I stopped coughing up phlegm and waking up in the middle of the night with fits of smoker's cough. Is it as safe as not smoking or vaping at all? Probably not. But I can tell you without a doubt that it's a helluva lot better than smoking. And it's the only thing that ever actually worked at helping me quit.
Re:Perfection is the enemy of the good (Score:5, Informative)
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Whilst I agree that e-cigs are a good way to quit, I don't agree with this. A traditional cigarette gives a handy cue when to stop (the cig is all smoked, if I want to continue I have to light another one). When I tried an e-cig this cue to stop was absent, once I started puffing and then got distracted I often found myself still puffing away an hour later, consuming many times more nicotine than I would have from a single normal cig. YMMV.
You're comparing different things than apoc.famine is. He's comparing the difficulty of a cigarette smoker gradually weaning while smoking to the difficulty of a vaper gradually weaning while vaping. You're talking about the transition from cigarettes to vaping. Clearly, if you want to vape in order to quit entirely, you have to make that transition, but you have to do that first, and establish a new set of habits. In the short term, it's possible that will result in an increase of nicotine intake. In the
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Whilst I agree that e-cigs are a good way to quit, I don't agree with this. A traditional cigarette gives a handy cue when to stop (the cig is all smoked, if I want to continue I have to light another one). When I tried an e-cig this cue to stop was absent, once I started puffing and then got distracted I often found myself still puffing away an hour later, consuming many times more nicotine than I would have from a single normal cig.
That is the neat thing about vaping. If you find yourself zoning out and just "puffing" constantly, put a lower dose of nicotine in so the average is closer to your target. Flexibility is nice. :)
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I got the purest available raw liquids - nicotine, menthol, glycerin, and made my own juice - stronger in nicotine than you can normally buy (> 36 mg).
Basically a couple hits would handle the jones with that stuff, no huge clouds - my lungs were already pretty shot a
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It's also notable that e-cigs don't include a MAO inhibitor along with the nicotine. The MAOI in tobacco smoke potentiates the addictive properties of nicotine. After vaping for a while, the former smoker finds that the nicotine craving becomes a lot less urgent than it was while smoking.
The danger is folk will treat vaping as safe (Score:2)
Great! (Score:2, Insightful)
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Still not gonna let you vape in a meeting though. It's your disgusting habit, not mine. Go away.
Same rules exist for e-cigarettes as for normal cigarettes. Here in the UK this means they can't be used in any enclosed shared environment.
However you'll lose any criticism for vaping once you've used it to help a family member kick the habit for good. My brother in law is, was, a life long smoker. I bought him a vape kit from the UK in 2016 and he hasn't had a smoke for over 2 years. He's even winding down the amount of nicotine he's vaping.
It'd be great if everyone in my office switched to vaping.
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That's cool just keep your food and hot beverages out of meetings since they put the same stuff in the air. It's your disgusting habit, not mine.
Or you could just QUIT, using will power. (Score:1, Informative)
I speak from experience.
I smoked for over ten years and I quit, for good.
One day my 8 year old niece said to me : "Uncle, I don't want to see you die from lung cancer". And she meant it. A little girl making such a statement was quite powerful to me.
I quit smoking that week. For the first 3 weeks I had many urges to smoke a cigarette. I countered each and every one of those urges with a "NO, I am not going to smoke" thought. And I succeeded in not smoking. The first three weeks were the most difficult and a
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Exercise works too.
I wasn't even trying to quit, but the association between smoking before or after an hour on a treadmill and it making me feel like shit broke the addiction.
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But got on the Nicorette gum and weened off of it in about 4 weeks.
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I strongly believe the crutches will greatly increase the probability that a person won't quit smoking.
Yes, lots of people strongly believe stupid shit despite all available evidence to the contrary that makes them feel better about themselves. See SUVs and anti-vaxxers.
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It's difficult to quit nicotine when you have it surging through your body every do often. I tried Nicorette lozenges for 2 years. The only thing that ultimately worked for me was ... wait for it ... COLD TURKEY. Cessation. Anything else and you're kidding yourself. I was a can a day snuff user. Cold turkey works. Get yourself some support. There are a few good forums out there that can help. I have over 10 years since the last time I used nicotine. Period.
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Yes, but it is much easier to quit smoking cigarettes. When you switch to vaping you trade one habit for another but I can promise you there are definitely other addictive elements in the cigarettes. I got to smoking them again when I got a lung infection and kept on smoking them for a few months. Back to vaping and it was hard. Not like quitting cold turkey was at a prior point but the first week was about the same.
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Do you get an irritated red spot when you thump your chest that much?
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I did this. I quit for better than 10 years, maybe 12. I'd even regularly stand out with the smokers on their breaks so I didn't miss the social aspect without issue. You never stop getting the urges entirely but they can be months or even years apart and easily dismissed. It's like there is this little voice in your head and it will whisper (mmm that sounds good) and you freak out because nothing about that sounds good and you have no idea where the thought came from.
That voice got me after during a round
Where's the 3rd group (Score:2)
The ones who were giving up on their own?
What about the control group, how many of the regular smokers who were not told to give up actually gave up?
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The control group? Zero, every time.
old-school (Score:2)
E-Cigarettes are obsolete. F-Cigarettes and G-Cigarettes are already shipping. Get with the times or be outsourced to cheap hungry countries.
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Oh I don't know, there are no shortage of additives they blend in and spray on that tobacco. You are burning all that crap as well. Surely the ammonia isn't too good for you.
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Vaping is not smoking there is no smoke inhalation involved.
No they don't give up their nicotine addiction but nicotine is not the only addictive thing in a cigarette.
Less Positive News (Score:4, Insightful)
https://www.webmd.com/smoking-... [webmd.com]
I haven't read further to see if they controlled for latent effects of prior smoking (which would presumably explain most of the increased risk for the subset of vapers who had switched from smoking to vaping), but researchers recently found that people who vape (but don't smoke) had a 71% higher risk of stroke, 59% higher risk of heart attack or angina, and 40 percent higher risk of heart disease.
The sample size is impressive: "The researchers included nearly 66,800 people who said they had ever regularly used e-cigarettes, comparing them with about 344,000 people who'd never tried the devices."
And they controlled for some major factors: "The increased health risks linked to e-cigarette use held strong even after Ndunda and his colleagues accounted for other potential risk factors, such as age, excess weight, diabetes and smoking."
But this study would be far more compelling if it compared people who vape but have not smoked to people who do neither. I hope you found it interesting anyway.
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Re:Less Positive News (Score:4, Interesting)
But I sincerely wish you the best with avoiding issues like that in the future. They're life-changing
Hopefully genetic testing will help give people more accurate personal risk assessments in the next few decades.
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Patches are usually tapered too fast. (Score:3)
As my wife was instructed by a doc after several tries with patches: Following the instructions tapers you too fast - like by a factor of two to three. You get withdrawal and give up.
So she followed the doctor's instructions and went through more than one box of step one - until she wasn't feeling withdrawal symptoms - then went to step 2, etc. (There may have been a scheduling tweak in there, with partial overlap and staggered timing of two lower dose tabs to achieve an additional intermediate step.)
She's been smoke free now for several years.
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I just stopped. It was easy once I got my lady to quit. Sort of an interesting conditional since I started because I had a girlfriend who smoked. I only stopped smoking tobacco though, which is how I got through withdrawal.
I've been tobacco-free for some years now myself. I'm back to thinking it's disgusting.
Juul... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Juul... (Score:1)
Vaping is illegal in Taiwan. Yet, somehow, half of office workers that smoked in my software park now vape instead on their breaks.
Nothing needs changing quite like other people's habits. If everyone was like you the world would be a better place. Won't somebody think of the children!?
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Meanwhile, we have a vaping epidemic hitting schools. Are we going to do this all over again?
Well that settles it. There is a vaping epidemic. The way to stop it is to ban it! Go go gadget ban hammer!
Do you have ANY idea how idiotic that sounds?
I think there are some questions to be answered before we decide to act without thinking. BAN THEM ALLLLLLLLLL aryoooooooooooooo
Why are the kids vaping?
What is the nicotine content of their vape?
Would these kids have started smoking if vapes had not been available?
Is the vaping hurting them?
I dunno. I would think that we should know the answers to some of th
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Hey, strikethree... Do you work for Juul or something? You seem to be more than a little defensive about acknowledging that Juul have played an instrumental role in causing an epidemic of underage vaping in the USA.
Do you think that millions of American teenagers vaping is a problem, and if so, what would be an effective way to address the problem?
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Hey, strikethree... Do you work for Juul or something?
Valid question. Would it change the validity of my words if I did work for Juul? That is the wrong path to go down at this time. I would have led with a different question if I were you and sincerely asking the questions you are asking. Short answer: No. I do not work for Juul or anyone associated with Juul.
You seem to be more than a little defensive about acknowledging that Juul have played an instrumental role in causing an epidemic of underage vaping in the USA.
Obviously, this can't be a discussion. The conclusion is forgone: There is an epidemic of underage vaping. Now, the only question is whether or not Juul played any part in it.
Fuck off asshole. Prove ther
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Vaping by minors was declared an epidemic by the US Surgeon General.
Juul is being investigated for this by the FDA & has already found multiple violations.
I'm guessing from your offensive language & incoherent speculation that these facts have hit a nerve & you've lost control of your feelings. Is that correct?
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Vaping by minors was declared an epidemic by the US Surgeon General.
Ok.
Juul is being investigated for this by the FDA & has already found multiple violations.
Ok.
I'm guessing from your offensive language & incoherent speculation that these facts have hit a nerve & you've lost control of your feelings. Is that correct?
I could see how it would appear that way. I am guessing that the subtleties of pointing out that the "offensive language" was used to demonstrate the incoherence of the public is beyond what you will admit to in this "conversation".
You have no interest in having a honest discussion about this. You are convinced that everything that is being put forward by the Surgeon General is objectively true. You have never witnessed or understood manufactured moral panic and you seem quite invested in avoiding the
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You are convinced that everything that is being put forward by the Surgeon General is objectively true.
Dude, it's the Surgeon General & the FDA.
You have no interest in having a honest discussion about this.
Man, if you're not gonna believe the Surgeon General & the FDA, who *are* you gonna believe?
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It is a shame that you an Anonymous Coward as there are some points to discuss here.
They're kids. They're really stupid.
I will grant that kids could be vaping because they are stupid. I honestly don't think it is really that simple all of the time, but I also have no doubt that it is true some of the time.
Juul has twice the nicotine content compared to other e-cigarettes.
OK. Are kids vaping Juul brand though? They can't buy them directly. Are all versions of Juul twice the nicotine or are just some? How many kids are we talking about here? What are the distributions concerning brands, nicotine content, and a
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Riiiiight (Score:3)
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Re: Riiiiight (Score:2)
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No one actually quits, they just switch from smoking to vaping.
I thought you were onto some interesting subtleties that are being missed in the discussion.
And sometimes back and forth as money permits (or doesn't).
And then I realized you weren't. *sigh*
If you want to solve the problem of smoking, your best bet is to keep your ideas and voice completely out of it. You are so wrong that you have wrapped back around again and almost became right. Just wow. :)
Re: Riiiiight (Score:2)
Well, I suppose ... (Score:2)
Harm Reduction in America (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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It's not the melting plastic tank, it's the well known fact that propylene glycol breaks down in to formaldehyde when heated.
Not just formaldehyde, but a whole bunch of different carbonyls.
Not as much as burning tobacco, but not insignificant either.
e-cigarettes are not as bad as real cigarettes, but they're still not good for you.
Later this year a lot of countries are planning on regulating vaping in a similar manor as tobacco.
New Zealand is banning their use inside public places (bars, restaurants, etc) l
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It's not the melting plastic tank, it's the well known fact that propylene glycol breaks down in to formaldehyde when heated. Not just formaldehyde, but a whole bunch of different carbonyls. Not as much as burning tobacco, but not insignificant either.
e-cigarettes are not as bad as real cigarettes, but they're still not good for you.
Later this year a lot of countries are planning on regulating vaping in a similar manor as tobacco. New Zealand is banning their use inside public places (bars, restaurants, etc) like we did with smoking years ago. They're also restricting advertising and sale to minors too.
The FDA applies a lot of the same rules to ecigs as they do it regular cigrettes.
I don't think anyone is saying that e-cigarettes are harmless. But as you say they are much less harmful than tobacco cigarettes. That is the point, at least as far as helping people stop smoking.
I quit smoking 4 years ago with the help of a vaporizer. I feel much better now, can breathe more deeply, and perform better in my workouts. My lung capacity has improved noticeably, and I don't cough nearly as much as I used to. I will certainly not claim that vaping is the same as just breathing air. But my
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My concern with the coils is the ceramic materials being used and the particles those create. The effects of that kind of particulate is cumulative so it builds up over time in the lungs even at small doses.
"With some proper advancements in legislation and technology"
Seems unlikely, The government does a poor job of regulation so you'll have to pick one either the legislation advances along or the technology does but if the legislation advances it will almost certainly kill the advancement of the technology
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Metallo-Americans unite!
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It goes like this
Anti-smoking groups get a 'sin tax' on every pack of cigarettes purchased.
When smokers started switching to vapes, the sin tax revenues declined.
In California (2010, I think) the lost 'revenue' from sin taxes on cigarettes due to vaping was in the Billions of dollars.
That is when we saw the anti-smoking groups start attacking vaping
Their goal is to get similar sin taxes applied to vaping so as to continue their revenue stream
As effective as the anti-smoking campaigns have been, this is clea
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I still have a pack of Marlboro on the dinner table that I tap into... more often than I should. And I have a pack in the car which
You're probably right that the massive decrease in smoking has been financially damaging to many people around th
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Meth, heroin and cocaine are still completely illegal and you go to jail forever for addicting yourself to them. But since there's an industry behind nicotine, deceptively packaged and marketed and scientifically backed, well... profit away!
You're comparing nicotine with meth, heroin and cocaine? Those drugs are much more powerful and potentially harmful than nicotine. That is ostensibly why they are illegal (leaving aside the political reasons they are illegal), not because they are addictive. Caffeine is addictive too, but I don't see you comparing it to any of those drugs. And right fully so, because nicotine is more on the level with caffeine than any of those other drugs.
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Nicotine has an addiction potential that is on par with those substances.
Caffeine and Nicotine are actually similar in that we use them at extremely low doses but they would outright kill you if you used them like meth, heroine, and cocaine.
Outside of Caffeine being extremely deadly it is actually quite similar to Cocaine and Meth. Neither cocaine or meth would approach the addiction potential or danger of caffeine if used in proportionally low doses and concentration. The danger with cocaine mostly came af