• Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    This is harmful misinformation that can literally lead to people dying from tobacco related disease.

    Vaping, while definitely not healthy, is NOWHERE NEAR as unhealthy as smoking tobacco is. Especially when you do it as intended: temporarily for smoking cessation like I added decades to my life by doing.

    I smoked for 18 years, the last 10 of which I tried every other smoking cessation method including prescription medicine and substance abuse therapy. They just didn’t work for me.

    Vaping did, though. In roughly 6 months I went from smoking a pack or two a day (depending on stress levels and alcohol intake) to neither smoking nor vaping at all and I haven’t for over 3 years.

    • kevincox
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      6 months ago

      I think the main problem is that the companies selling vapes and related products are not really targeting users who are quitting smoking. Obviously there is less money in temporary users. They are targeting people who will keep smoking, usually because it is “cool” and especially teenagers who are a good target for “cool” and can be customers for a long time.

      So yes, if you are using it temporarily ease off nicotine it is great and we should keep vapes available for these people as medical devices. However we should try to reduce the damage that vapes are doing to other people. How strongly we should do this is obviously controversial. Personally I would focus on education and personal choice, but there is a strong argument to be more forceful.

  • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Don’t vape, but if you’re going to pick up an addictive habit pick up vaping instead of cigarettes/drinking/gacha games. Much less hazardous to your health.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        That’s literally the opposite of the truth.

        Smoking tobacco is the world’s number one lifestyle cause of premature deaths in general and cancer in particular.

        Meanwhile, there’s no credible evidence that vaping causes cancer at all, let alone at the extreme rate that tobacco smoking does.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            TL;DR: That article is absolute garbage.

            It only makes it through one small paragraph (which is itself a vague lie) before its first specific and ridiculous lie: claiming that a hookah is an early form of vape 🤦

            It then links to a 2019 study of mice that, in spite of setting out with a clear confirmation bias, admits that their results showed more cases of cancer-like cell behavior in the mice subjected to tobacco than the ones subjected to e-liquid.

            Add to that the fact that they don’t reveal their methodology (beyond the fact that they subjected the mice to their experiments for a full year, which is much longer than most people tend to vape when using it for smoking cessation) and that study is basically useless for proving the hypothesis.

            The heavy metals inhalation they then go on to warn about is impossible in real life conditions as the heat required for that to happen simply cannot be achieved by the suction power any human can achieve and, even if you could somehow achieve that, you’d suffer severe burns causing you to stop immediately.

            • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
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              6 months ago

              I mean, hookah was an early form of vaping. You use coals to indirectly heat tobacco to vaporize the nicotine and flavor carrier.

              Everything else is accurate, though.

            • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              6 months ago

              I’m 100% with you on the health stuff, but out of genuine curiosity:

              its first specific and ridiculous lie: claiming that a hookah is an early form of vape

              It is, though? You might think of an e-cig when you hear “vape” but it’s short for “vaporization” or “vaporizer”, which are actually different from smoking.

              In smoking you light the material itself on fire and draw the smoke produced by the active incineration of the material into your lungs.

              In vaping you heat the air around a substance (even loose plant material) and cause the actual material to vaprize, not incinerate, and you inhale that vapor, not smoke.

              The key differences being a lack of tar and similar gunk from the actual flame, despite seeming like a mere semantic difference there are actual physical differences.

              It’s been a while since I saw a hookah in action, but my understanding is that they heat up the air with charcoal and that you then draw that past the tobacco and through water before it goes into your lungs. That’s the exact same thing my Ditanium desktop vaporizer does, except it uses a quartz heater and not charcoal. The plant matter itself doesn’t burn, so no tar. Maybe some from the charcoal, but even then the claim that it’s an early version of what is today called vaping is probably a fair assessment.

            • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
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              6 months ago

              Good lookin’ all around except I’d dispute this claim:

              (beyond the fact that they subjected the mice to their experiments for a full year, which is much longer than most people tend to vape when using it for smoking cessation)

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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        6 months ago

        Only actual study I have ever seen that even posits a reasonable way that vaping increases your risk of cancer is if you’re using shitty burnt out coils or overamping and basically inhaling atomized metals from the coil.

        Basically its the equivalent of smoking a cigarette down to the filter.

        It is not hard to keep your tank mostly full and swap out coils in a timely manner these days. Coil design, amount of electricity used and the juice itself have all changed to make it a lot more difficult for the burning up and inhaling your coil situation to happen.

        • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
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          6 months ago

          Yeah, they torched a CE4 cartridge at over 5V for 90 seconds with no airflow.

          Of course it’s going to produce harmful chemicals when it’s literally on fire.

  • TommySoda@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I mean I switched to vaping a few years back. Still getting a smokers cough and breathing has barely improved. I should quit completely. Vaping has made it slightly easier, though. But in all honesty, screw the health effects of either I’m just glad I don’t reek of cigarettes anymore. I didn’t realize how absolutely awful my clothes smelt until I switched.

    • Bartsbigbugbag
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      6 months ago

      When I first hugged my little brother after I switched to vaping he said, “you don’t smell like cigarettes” and my heart just broke. I can’t ever go back, even if vaping isn’t really helping me quit nicotine, it’s still saving them from being around the smell like I was when I was a little kid, and I hated that damn smell. Should’ve never started, but it’s easier said than done.

  • VulKendov@reddthat.com
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    6 months ago

    Healthier than cigarettes is such a low bar to clear that it doesn’t really mean much.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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    6 months ago

    So, ok, absolutely if you go through disposable vape after disposable vape, yes you are literally throwing batteries away…

    But if you get a rechargeable, refillable pocket vape, which you can get for maybe the cost of two or three disposables…

    Then you are just recharging a battery. Usually a much smaller (in terms of energy capacity) battery than even the crappiest phone.

    Obviously you should not pick up vaping as a habit, but it is faaaar less bad for you than smoking, and if you were already addicted to smoking, well switching to a vape is healthier and less expensive.

    Myself I spent almost a decade smoking, switched to a vape and my lung capacity is greatly improved, oral health is way better, oh and no more horrific coughing. I am slowly dialing down the concentration in the hopes that one day I’ll be able to quit.

    Before that it was years of trying to quit cigarettes, making it a week or a month with none, giving up and getting a pack, feeling like a piece of shit figuratively and literally as they’d make me sick again.

    People do not seem to widely realize or appreciate that nicotine withdrawals are as bad or worse than heroin withdrawals.

    Another hand grenade you can throw into this is: Sure, smoking weed has varying medicinal properties, but it also has the problem that you are smoking something.

    Do you smoke your blunts through a filter?

    No?

    Oh, ok so thats about the same tar and particulate matter as the same amount of smoking hand rolled cigarettes.

    Ive known plenty of habitual weed smokers with the traditionally tobacco associated ‘smokers cough’, and they would tell me that smoking MJ is actually healthy for you as they are weezing and out of breath, hacking up a lung after a flight or two of stairs.

    • Bartsbigbugbag
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      6 months ago

      The coughing, holy shit. I used to wake up and sound like I was dying and spit out so much nasty shit every morning. My family could literally tell when I was awake by the sounds I made.

  • Maxe@feddit.de
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    6 months ago

    A lot of comments here are saying that vaping is apprently healthier than smoking. But we don’t actually know that. All independent studies I know of say that we can’t tell the long term consequences to vaping lungs yet.

    Everyone that says that vaping is healthier than smoking is just parotting the companies that sell vapes.

    Edit: Some videos about that topic:

    https://youtu.be/XuTQbOo3Y30

    https://youtu.be/bbV6I8VRMG8

      • Maxe@feddit.de
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        6 months ago

        9 years of evidence is a lot of time when it comes to signs of long term damage. Especially with a new technology

        • redfellow@sopuli.xyz
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          6 months ago

          Yup. They have updated studies, as late as last year, without much change in the outcome. People have been vaping for 13-14 years now too.

          My point being, we have studies its less unhealthy by a huge degree, and it’s also backed up by anecdotal evidence.

          Whatever the case, if you are a smoker, you definitely will live longer if you switch to vaping.

          How much longer compared to no smoking/vaping remains to be seen in long term.

          Anecdotally: just about every smoker I know has had the effects of smoking related problems go away just after few months of vaping. No wheezing, smokers cough going away, respitory issues and sleep apnea either reduced or gone.

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 months ago

          Ok, fair, but you’re missing the blatantly obvious here:

          Even if at 20 years you suddenly drop dead of vaper’s lung, those first 19.99 years were significantly less unhealthy than smoking cigarettes was.

          So, the longer we go without seeing long-term issues, the more extreme those issues would need to be to actually outweigh cigarette danger.

    • dumbass@leminal.space
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      6 months ago

      List the chemicals in a vape and then list the chemicals in a cigarette and tell me that vaping isnt a healthier alternative to smoking.

    • Hucklebee@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Actually, it was on the Dutch news recently that doctors find that it’s really unhealthy for teenagers.

  • Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    My only problem with people that vape is they think they can do it where you can’t smoke a cigarette and/or joint. Sorry bro, get over here with the rest of us, no one wants to smell your shitty strawberry flavored whatever.

  • witty_username@feddit.nl
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    6 months ago

    Check out this comprehensive review from 2022 about vaping and health:
    https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-065997

    The last bit in its conclusion section states:
    “The true impact of vaping on respiratory health will manifest over the coming decades, but in the interval a prudent and time tested recommendation remains to abstain from consumption of inhaled nicotine and other products.”

  • umbrella
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    6 months ago

    to be fair it is, especially in the quantities you would need that huge power bank for

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Vaping isn’t smoking. It’s a smoking cessation method that involves no smoke or burning and contains no tobacco.