E-cigarettes and vaping, how bad is it for you?

[Hungry81]

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There was a report to Congress a few years ago suggesting that the amount of nicotine that these deliver is damn near homeopathic. I think that's possibly right; as I have never gotten the buzz off one of these that I used to get from cigarettes or cigars. I think it's a shame, because I think that Nicotine is a rather good drug. So I doubt that it has much real value to get rid of people's actual dependency on nicotine. Plus, a lot of the fluids have no nicotine at all.

In which way is nicotine a good drug? Does it have medical benefits if used in certain ways? If you want to feel a buzz via drugs or get high, aren't alcohol or pot more efficient ways of doing so? Smoking tobacco just seems pointless to me, but I have never regularly tried it, just socially a few times when I was younger.
I think vaporisors are good for the sole fact they don't leave lazy people any butts to chuck on the ground, in garden beds or AROUND bins.

 

[RandyN]

I read a book called 'how to give up smoking', did what it said and successfully gave up a 25-a-day habit acquired in childhood. It takes three weeks to lose the nicotine dependence (I read) then it's all in your head. Stay away from other smokers and enumerate all the benefits of giving up of which there are very many besides health. I reckon a lot of folk will not get off properly if they switch to a nicotine-based method.

Disagree...I quit (the hardest thing I have ever done) a 35 year old habit that at the end was at two packs a day. I used the nicotine gum...also patches which I found ineffective ...perhaps if I had put them over my mouth...

The gum which just about ruined my jaws was something I relied on. I loved smoking. Still like the smell...not of the ashtray but of a nearby smoker...quit 15 years ago.

I would have tried the e cigs...that nicotine is a powerful drug. Subtle but terribly addictive...weaning off gradually worked for me...

Wait...I quit smoking on a certain date...I continued nicotine for about two additional years.

Haven't heard much about these e cigs...I get spam for them all the time. I still get an ever decreasing urge for a smoke...it now lasts for only seconds...too hard to quit to just go back to it.

Hard, but if I can quit.....anybody can quit. Loved smoking, weak willed, prone to secretly cheat...and I didn't feel better after quitting. In fact I suffered a year or more of almost constant upper respiratory infections...which was the devil saying "see smoking was keeping you healthy". ;-)

 

[gnome]

For those that found the e-cig they tried did nothing to satisfy their smoking urge--I have found that not all brands are created equal. The two people I live with tried several brands before discovering one that worked for them.
For what it's worth, they both settled on the White Cloud.

 

[Stomatopoda]

If you want to feel a buzz via drugs or get high, aren't alcohol or pot more efficient ways of doing so?

Umm... those are pretty terrible if you're looking for a stimulant, and alcohol in particular is a pretty terrible drug. Too many side effects.

 

[CriticalThanking]

Side note to the discussion - my workplace has declared that e-cigs are tobacco and therefore banned in company buildings. Vapers are forced to go to the one smoking area outside the building, which is making it hard for some folks trying to quit. Some employees are very upset. When they asked where they could vape away from smokers, they were told to go to their cars where 1) they are in violation of other company policies, and 2) it's summer in Texas.

CT

 

[Xulld]

I read a book called 'how to give up smoking', did what it said and successfully gave up a 25-a-day habit acquired in childhood. It takes three weeks to lose the nicotine dependence (I read) then it's all in your head. Stay away from other smokers and enumerate all the benefits of giving up of which there are very many besides health. I reckon a lot of folk will not get off properly if they switch to a nicotine-based method.

Another quitters anecdote here.

I tried for 5 years to quit using all kinds of strategies. One day at the last cig in a pack I just made up my mind.

No more.

Maybe 5-6 cigarettes at parties while drunk over the last 10 years, and 5-6 cigars at weddings etc. Otherwise completely non-smoker, cold turkey.

YMMV

 

[gnome]

Side note to the discussion - my workplace has declared that e-cigs are tobacco and therefore banned in company buildings. Vapers are forced to go to the one smoking area outside the building, which is making it hard for some folks trying to quit. Some employees are very upset. When they asked where they could vape away from smokers, they were told to go to their cars where 1) they are in violation of other company policies, and 2) it's summer in Texas.

CT

I wonder what the companies are finding is the problem? There's identifiable reason to corral smokers. Someone had to decide that it was important to do so for e-cigs.

I see a benefit as an employer--people running out for breaks less often.

 

[epepke]

In which way is nicotine a good drug? Does it have medical benefits if used in certain ways? If you want to feel a buzz via drugs or get high, aren't alcohol or pot more efficient ways of doing so? Smoking tobacco just seems pointless to me, but I have never regularly tried it, just socially a few times when I was younger.
I think vaporisors are good for the sole fact they don't leave lazy people any butts to chuck on the ground, in garden beds or AROUND bins.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/drugs-alcohol/nicotine-health-benefits1.htm

 

[CriticalThanking]

I wonder what the companies are finding is the problem? There's identifiable reason to corral smokers. Someone had to decide that it was important to do so for e-cigs.

I see a benefit as an employer--people running out for breaks less often.

One of my employees complained and was told a list of carcinogens in e-cigs. I don't think there is a universal common ingredient, so not sure where they got that. As with most things lawerly, I am betting this was the "least likely to get us sued for 2nd-hand smoke" solution. It may be silly, but policy is all about "least risk" and "keep it simple". Sigh.

CT

 

[Mudcat]

Sorry for the necro-bump, but I received a link this story in my email today:

They are touted as the healthy alternative to smoking. But electronic cigarettes could make superbugs more deadly.

A study found that vapour from trendy e-cigarettes makes the hard-to-treat MRSA superbug more toxic.

And, in a double whammy, the nicotine-laden vapour also weakens the body’s ability to fight the multi-antibiotic resistant bug.

I don't put a lot of faith in the story, however, because it also claims that normal cigarettes are worse at it. While I won't dispute that cigarettes are bad, people have been smoking tobacco products for quite sometime now and this is the first time anyone has made the link?

 

[Alphaba]

Sorry for the necro-bump, but I received a link this story in my email today:



I don't put a lot of faith in the story, however, because it also claims that normal cigarettes are worse at it. While I won't dispute that cigarettes are bad, people have been smoking tobacco products for quite sometime now and this is the first time anyone has made the link?

Yeah, anything about science & medicine in the Daily Fail is to take from within a salt mine.

Manifestly the article is based on an interview with the lead researcher of a couple of in vitro and preclinical studies, which results have just been presented at a conference:

Katherine Sladewski et al. (2014). "Cigarette smoke exposure increases methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) virulence via resistance to antimicrobial peptides and oxygen species whereas exposure to e-cigarette vapor increases MRSA virulence via alterations in Ph". American Thoracic Society International Conference Abstracts [Link].

Laura E. Crotty Alexander et al. (2014). "Electronic cigarette vapor (ECV) exposure decreases Staphylococcus aureus susceptibility to macrophage and neutrophil killing". American Thoracic Society International Conference Abstracts [Link].​

Without access to details of their 'Material and Methods' (apparently there's currently nothing more published than those 2 one page abstracts) it is difficult to judge the reliability and relevancy of these studies, and even more difficult to draw any valid inference as per any generalization to actual human situations.

I notably have my doubts about:

• The global validity of their 'methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus grown exposed to e-cig aerosol' paradigm (was exposure continuous or intermittent? Composition of the e-liquid? Of the vapor? How was aerosolization performed? What delivery system? Etc.)
  
• The external validity of "e-cigarette vapor extract" (what's that?) administered intranasally to mice.

 

[catsmate]

Pretty bad. You're deliberately ingesting an addictive toxin (and an unknown slew of other substances) and dispersing it to others around you with damn all actual testing.

Lancet article. E-cigarettes: closing regulatory gaps

Many questions about the benefits and harms of e-cigarettes remain unanswered. However, evidence of the aggressive tactics being used by e-cigarette manufacturers to market their products, especially to young people, is increasing.

It shows that companies are substantially boosting their advertising budgets, with some doubling expenditure between 2012 and 2013. Six companies sponsored or provided free e-cigarettes at 348 public events in 2012 and 2013, many of them geared towards young people. Most companies manufacture and market a wide variety of flavours such as Cherry Crush, Peach Pit, and Vanilla Dreams that could appeal to youth. Seven companies have television and radio advertisements for their products, some featuring celebrity spokespeople, and some aired during youth-orientated programmes. Companies also use social media to promote their products. And, although none of the companies reported using health benefit or harm reduction claims to market e-cigarettes, the investigation found that some are making misleading claims. Marketing for one brand states: “You get the feeling of smoking real cigarettes without all of their negative side effects.”

In the USA the Food and Drug Administration have proposed new rules which will require manufacturers

• make clear that their products contain nicotine and are addictive
• refrain from claims that their products are safer than tobacco cigarettes unless they can show the FDA some science that proves this
• to register all of their ingredients with the FDA
• prohibit sales to minors online

The NY Times itself has produced a report (link) about the neurotoxins contained in the liquids "for sale by the vial, the gallon and even the barrel".

The Centers for Disease Control have also concluded the "number of calls to poison centers involving e-cigarette liquids containing nicotine rose from one per month in September 2010 to 215 per month in February 2014".
Link.

E-cigarettes are just as addictive as the tobacco kind (each hit contains ~90% of the nicotine) and there's evidence that nicotine has even more deleterious consequences than previously thought (link) including causing developmental and mood problems.

Furthermore e-cigarettes have been shown to be a "gateway" drug encouraging teenagers especially to switch to conventional tobacco products e.g. this UCSF study.
There's also Gateway to Addiction though as this was released by the US Democrats it'll be ignored or rubbished unread by the Usual Suspects.

Finally the idea that e-cigarettes are a useful tool to eliminate conventional cigarette addiction has also been rubbished; less than 10% of users benefit and it doesn't appear to help long term elimination of the addiction at all.

 

[fagin]

Bit of hysteria in your post?

Stanton Glantz is perhaps not the most neutral of scientists. Two sides to every story, even fiction. Gateway indeed.

stanton-glantz-is-such-a-liar-that-even-the-acs-balks

"Stanton Glantz recently published a paper, Electronic Cigarettes and Conventional Cigarette Use Among US Adolescents; A Cross-sectional Study, whose conclusions do not even remotely follow from the analysis."

From the NY Times article, which seems a bit light on evidence:

"one woman was admitted to the hospital with cardiac problems after her e-cigarette broke in her bed, spilling the e-liquid, which was then absorbed through her skin."

Maybe, but look on the bright side - if she'd been smoking, she could have burnt the house down.

No one is arguing that a bit of regulation, like that with food and drink is a bad thing, but something comes along that can actually get smokers off cigarettes and onto something unarguably less harmful, and the most persuasive argument is 'think of the children'?

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyhomes/bytopic/poisoning.html

"Every 13 seconds, a poison control center in the United States answers a call about a possible poisoning. More than 90% of these exposures occur in the home. Poisoning can result from medicines, pesticides, household cleaning products, carbon monoxide, and lead"

That equates to approx. 2.5 million calls a year.

"Poison centers reported 2,405 e-cigarette and 16,248 cigarette exposure calls from September 2010 to February 2014."

So roughly 6 or 700 a year. Or a tiny percentage. And one death - a suicide. A bit of proportion maybe?

Final word

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-tobacco-control-crowd-what-a-bunch-of-cnuts/14692

"(Note to sub-editor: that’s definitely ‘Cnuts’, as in the Danish king who famously – probably apocryphally – tried to turn back the sea. Honest.)"

 

[fagin]

ps as a smoker for well over 35 years, I haven't touched one for the past three. I do however mix my own juice, from pharmaceutical grade ingredients.

I haven't hacked on a morning for years, so I'm probably biased as well.

 

[Cuddles]

Furthermore e-cigarettes have been shown to be a "gateway" drug encouraging teenagers especially to switch to conventional tobacco products e.g. this UCSF study.
There's also Gateway to Addiction though as this was released by the US Democrats it'll be ignored or rubbished unread by the Usual Suspects.

Pretty sure you've already posted those links, in fact almost this exact post, just recently, and it's not any more accurate or credible this time. I especially like this part from the UCSF study you cite:

The study’s cross-sectional nature didn’t allow the researchers to identify whether most youths initiated with conventional cigarettes or e-cigarettes.

As evidence that e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking, you cite a study that was explicitly unable to look at whether e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking. Brilliant.

On the other hand, there's yet another study once again confirming that they actually have the exact opposite effect:

Smokers who use e-cigarettes to quit are more likely to succeed than those who use willpower alone or buy nicotine replacement therapies, such as patches or gum, a study suggests

However, lead researcher Prof Robert West, one of the UK's leading experts in this field, said: "E-cigarettes could substantially improve public health because of their widespread appeal and the huge health gains associated with stopping smoking."

And he added: "Some public health experts have expressed concern that widespread use of e-cigarettes could 're-normalise' smoking. However, we are tracking this very closely and see no evidence of it.

 

[luchog]

I started on the e-cigs a few months back, to quit regular cigs. I am not a heavy smoker, and was going through a pack a week at most, usually about half that, but it was hard to give even that up. I smoked a similar amount a number of years ago, and quit cold turkey at that time, but have smoked off and on since then. Since starting the e-cigs, I have not touched a regular cigarette, and still have a half-pack of Camels sitting in my jacket pocket.

I do still enjoy the occasional pipe, and have a small collection of rather nice smoking mixtures I got from my father in law who has recently quit. But of course, I don't inhale those.

 

[luchog]

In which way is nicotine a good drug? Does it have medical benefits if used in certain ways? If you want to feel a buzz via drugs or get high, aren't alcohol or pot more efficient ways of doing so? Smoking tobacco just seems pointless to me, but I have never regularly tried it, just socially a few times when I was younger.

Nicotine is a moderately effective anxiolytic/calmative, and pain-reliever; which is why those with mental illnesses tend to smoke heavily, particularly schizophrenics. Effect is also dose-dependent, and can vary considerably by person.

 

[macdoc]

Thought is on cancer and cigs is that tobacco leaves collect naturally present radioactive particles and that is the primary link to cancer.
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/tobacco.html

 

[Lensman]

I buy my vaping supplies from Jaqvapour, I don't find it difficult to draw through their e-cigs & the various flavoured liquids are reasonably priced & give a decent throat hit. An extra battery I bought seems to have failed, I informed their customer service dept. & they're sending me a replacement & packaging to return the failed one for testing.

 

[kookbreaker]

I had been pipe smoking for just shy of 20 years and switched to an E-Pipe this year after too many complaints from my wife that the smoke was still getting into clothes. All the air filters and fans weren't cutting it.

While there are some aspects of pipe smoke I miss (such as the warm heat and sense it is going into your lungs) I am finding the E-pipe works for me as a substitute. Mind you I was never all that addicted as I would at least once a year forgo the pipe for a week while on vacation.