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High-Nicotine E-Cigarettes May Make Teens Vape More, Study Warns (philly.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Philly.com: Teens who vape e-cigarettes with higher nicotine levels are more likely to start smoking conventional cigarettes soon after, new research shows. E-cigarettes are sold with nicotine levels ranging from zero to more than 25 milligrams of nicotine per milliliter (mg/mL). In this study, a high-nicotine device was defined as having levels at or above 18 mg/mL. Leventhal's team tracked outcomes for 181 grade-10 students from high schools in the Los Angeles area. All of the teens said they had used e-cigarettes within the past month, and they provided data on nicotine levels in the devices they used. Six months later, those who used higher nicotine levels in their e-cigarettes were more likely to report use of both e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes within the past month. These teens also reported vaping and/or smoking more intensely. While 43 percent of the students who'd used high-nicotine e-cigarettes said they were "frequent smokers" of traditional cigarettes six months later, that was true for only 10 percent of those who'd vaped using lower-nicotine devices, Leventhal's group found. And teens who vaped using high-nicotine e-cigarettes smoked an average of 14 times as many "regular" cigarettes per day six months later compared to those who'd tried nicotine-free versions of the devices, the findings showed. The study was published in JAMA Pediatrics.
The study also shows that 6 months after they started smoking traditional cigs, the subjects began straight up injecting the liquid into their veins... which eventually lead to them booty bumping the e-cig liquid.
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"In this study, a high-nicotine device was defined as having levels at or above 18 mg/mL." I vape in the high 90 watt, low 100 watt range depending on device, but holy shit hitting a liquid with anything higher than 12mg/ml at that power is straight up painful. And while you certainly can find it online, the local shops I go to sell mostly in the 3mg and 6mg range. So yeah, if 18 or 25 isn't doing it for you, you almost have to go to cigarettes because vaping with liquid that strong at even moderate wattage is like having your throat scraped with a thousand tiny ice picks.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here
Vaping by itself is completely harmless with nicotine being on par with caffeine in terms of harm and effects.
This is nothing more than the anti cigarette brigade getting their panties in a wad over the fact that people flat out love nicotine and want to enjoy it without the bad effects of cigarettes (which are bad).
Better the young'ins be vaping rather than smoke cigarettes.
Nicotine is addictive.
... but not particulary harmful. Nicotine addicts are way better off vaping than smoking.
The article didn't indicate if these users were already smoking traditional cigarettes, the study only indicates that they were asked if their friends smoked cigs or hookah.
In the high mg group 95% of their friends smoked(and likely they did as well). Without having the numbers of who the smokers were at the beginning of the study, the conclusion is suspect. Another study out of nannystate cali with a couple harrumphs from their cousin NY. This comes out as Gottlieb is re-evaluating the regulations that were released with the deeming ruling of 2016.
This data was gathered from 2013-2015, which was still in the stone age of vaping. Modern devices utilize a much lower range of nicotine from 0-6mg/ml.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2657310
Listen up, you younger Slashdotters: Don't start smoking. It's a filthy, smelly habit and nobody wants to be around a smoker. Now nicotine is a pretty decent recreational drug, and if you're going to use it, vaping is how you want to go, but stay off it until you're fully grown. I don't know if it's true or not, but people used to say that if you smoked when you were young, it would stunt your growth, so just don't take a chance. And that applies to all recreational drugs. Wait until you're fully grown, then do as thou wilt.
Also, stay in school and always wear a rubber. And be nice to each other.
I'm glad we had this talk.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I mean, sure, just like an alcoholic is better off drinking light beer or spirits so they don't ingest so many empty calories.
That is not a very good analogy. To an alcoholic, it is the alcohol that is harmful. But to a smoker, it is not the nicotine that causes cancer and heart disease. It is the tar and other crap in the smoke. If you vape, you don't get that.
Beyond the misleading choice not to baseline the high-nicotine vapors/smokers for prior smoking levels, I also find it curious that the study didn't track the youths' opinions on e-cigs vs cigarettes in terms of health/harm. Considering that over the past 5 years the "official" US government "message" has been that vaping is as, and sometimes more, dangerous than smoking cigarettes (obvious hogwash), I have found a lot of smokers who had switched to vaping (some, entirely, completely off cigarettes) go back to smoking "because the government says there is no difference." This would have been a useful data point to track, especially in a nanny-state like California where such mixed-messaging is too-often used as a governmental propaganda tool. That the researchers decided not to track a simple question of "WHY smoke?" is, to me, quite telling as to the purpose of the study, since that basic question would have shed a lot of light on actual causation (vs mere speculation).
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
And I think it's pretty clear that e-cigarettes aren't really doing a damn thing to prevent or deter the traditional product.
I don't know what the statistics are, but I have switched from smoking to vaping (hate that term). I feel a lot better and can breathe more easily. I don't know about others, but personally a vaporizer has helped me completely quit smoking.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
There ought to be a cap on the amount of nicotine in the vapes, and that cap should be lowered at a steady rate over a fixed number of years until it hits zero. We need to stop supporting these legalized addictive drug dealers as a permanent establishment and seek to shut down the addictive drug industry entirely in the foreseeable future.
"We" are not supporting this industry. Its customers are, because they value the product enough to spend money on it. You really think we should be legislating what vices people are allowed to have? That's been tried, you know. From Prohibition to the War on Drugs, it hasn't worked out very well and has not achieved the desired outcomes.
You gotta let people do what they want to do with their time and their bodies, even if you think it's bad for them. That's part of living in a free country. No one lives a perfect, harm-free life and that's okay. Just let people do their thing and give them help if they ask for it. If you want to give them information about the harmfulness of their actions, I think that's great and would support it. But legislation and the punishments that result from noncompliance are not the answer.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)