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Vaping Can Be Addictive and May Lure Teenagers to Smoking, Science Panel Concludes (nytimes.com)

A national panel of public health experts concluded in a report released on Tuesday that vaping with e-cigarettes that contain nicotine can be addictive and that teenagers who use the devices may be put at higher risk of switching to traditional smoking. From a report: Whether teenage use of e-cigarettes may lead to conventional smoking has been intensely debated in the United States and elsewhere. While the industry argues that vaping is not a steppingstone to conventional cigarettes or addiction, some antismoking advocates contend that young people become hooked on nicotine, and are enticed to cancer-causing tobacco-based cigarettes over time. The new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is the most comprehensive analysis of existing research on e-cigarettes. It concluded the devices are safer than traditional smoking products and that they do help smokers quit, citing conclusive proof that switching can reduce smokers' exposure to deadly tar, numerous dangerous chemicals and other carcinogens.

14 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. To be human by DigiShaman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Scientists discover that teenagers make poorer decision to that of adults. Shocking, I know!

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
    1. Re:To be human by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Then how do you explain adults (which I'll define here as "at least 25 years old") who are smokers? Who are aware of the enormous preponderance of incontrovertible medical and scientific evidence that smoking is among the worst things you can do to your health, and smoke anyway?

      1. Because it is fun/pleasurable

      2. They may be addicted and can't stop.

      That pretty much sums it up I think.

      I quit smoking last year. I was never a heavy smoker, maybe a half to pack a week...except for the weekends. If drinking, I could almost chain smoke a pack in a night.

      That's the real time I miss smoking, it just is so much fun when drinking, especially in a bar with your friends that are smoking too.

      And frankly, the only reason I quit, is that it started to physically hurt and bother me. I would get headaches after smoking (very noticeable if not drinking too)....and it would just make my whole body feel poorly.

      It didn't used to do that..so, I quit.

      I DO miss it when out drinking....but I'm over it and it isn't worth it, so, I"m staying quit.

      The other time I miss it...was the workday smoke break. When I worked on site, it was a GREAT couple of breaks a day. If stuck on a problem, get up, down downstairs smoke one, and often I'd solve problems or have inspiration on my smoke break and run back in after.

      Smoke breaks also were VERY social....I would often rub elbows with upper management on smoke breaks, which did help in my career at times.

      Is it bad for you? Sure, but no one really thinks about that when you're young and in your teens-early 40's even. Hell, till you are about 39 you often still feel bullet proof.

      But to keep from temptation, I avoid some of the bars I used to go to, with everyone smoking inside....if I catch a buzz, I'll want to bum a couple smokes which turns into buying a pack from the bartender that sells them behind the bar...etc.

      But lung cancer just really never crosses your mind, when you're young, you're drinking a beer and chatting up a chick and you're both smoking.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  2. The gateway drug theory doesn't make sense by Lord+Kano · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We understand how people can get addicted to opiates and when the supply runs our or their money dries up, they switch to heroin as a cheaper and more widely available source of the high but with eCigarettes, that doesn't hold up.

    Vaping is CHEAPER than smoking. Vaping supplies are widely available.

    It's nonsensical to think that people would seek alternatives to the cheaper method that they're already using.

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    1. Re:The gateway drug theory doesn't make sense by burtosis · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's nonsensical to think that people would seek alternatives to the cheaper method that they're already using.

      LK

      Sorry but you failed to not apply logic. Branding, trends and popular culture all push people far away from sensible cheap alternatives, teens rarely make rational reasoned decisions - it's how it feels instead.

      That said caffeine is the real gateway drug, once I got high on that, around 6 or so, I was hooked on how good drugs can be.

    2. Re:The gateway drug theory doesn't make sense by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 3, Informative
      You are overlooking an important part of this:
      • various levels of government entered into an agreement with the tobacco companies for those companies to pay them a certain percentage of their revenue each year.
      • Many of those governments issued bonds with a repayment schedule based on what those payments were projected to be.
      • Partly as a result of vaping, the tobacco company revenues are not as large as projected
      • As a result of lower than projected tobacco company revenues, payments to those government bodies is less than projected.
        • This set of facts leaves those governmental bodies with insufficient revenue to pay the bonds they issued without dipping into tax revenues. Therefore, the NYT is shilling for the tobacco companies to prop up their revenue.
      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    3. Re:The gateway drug theory doesn't make sense by Orgasmatron · · Score: 5, Informative

      Tobacco contains a variety of psychoactive chemicals, mostly alkaloids and nitrosamines. Nicotine is the most well known, and tobacco plants produce a large amount of it. Several of the alkaloids would be called "antidepressants", if they were being sold by a pharmaceutical company.

      Traditional electronic cigarette juice contains none of these other chemicals. They contain nicotine has has been extracted from tobacco leaves, and then purified. Which is important, because...

      Different people react to the different chemicals in different ways. Some people develop an addiction to nicotine only, while other people also develop addiction to the other alkaloids. The people who do not get addicted to the lesser chemicals generally stop smoking permanently within a day or two after getting an electronic cigarette. It really is almost like flipping a switch in them.

      I know at least a dozen people in real life like that, and I've read hundreds of their stories online since like 2009 or 2010 (whenever I first started looking into electronic cigarettes). I've never heard of anyone in this group ever having gone back to smoking, ever, for any reason. Quite a few of them have reduced their nicotine intake to zero and a several have stopped using their electronic cigarettes entirely, but most don't see any point because nicotine isn't very harmful by itself.

      Other people, if their brains get more involved with the other alkaloids, fit on a spectrum. Some of them took months to quit smoking, others haven't quit entirely and maybe never will. For those people, things like snus can be used to fill in the missing chemicals, and work is underway to develop liquids that contain the full spectrum of tobacco-derived alkaloids.

      These other chemicals were poorly understood 10 years ago, at least by laymen. Possibly researchers in some specific fields were well aware of them, but pretty much no one else was. Today, they are fairly well understood by (at least) the enthusiast portion of the electronic cigarette community. But I haven't seen any reason to think that they've entered the general consciousness.

      No offense intended towards you, but your knowledge of the subject appears to be about on the level that a high school student would learn in health class in the 1990s. Thinking in terms of "nicotine addiction" is a dead giveaway! I encourage you to educate yourself on the subject matter if you find it likely that you will be offering your opinion to others in the future.

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
  3. Unbiased data hard to find by xtal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nicotine is an interesting drug with a lot of psychoactive properties. There's a reason it's popular.

    However, try to find data on health impacts from infrequent use, or infrequent smoking, or even to suggest such a thing is possible, is not very easy to do.

    Likewise, quantitative data on the beneficial effects of smoking is very difficult to find. There is evidence for increased memory performance, mood stabilizing, and possible anti-psychotic effects.

    There's no question smoking is bad for you.. but drugs have benefits and side effects, and personally, I'd like to know both.

    --
    ..don't panic
    1. Re:Unbiased data hard to find by Linux_ho · · Score: 3, Informative

      As someone who struggled with nicotine addiction for decades, I can testify to its addictive nature. There is also pretty compelling evidence that nicotine is bad for your heart, just like cocaine which has a similar addictive mechanism.

      --
      include $sig;
      1;
  4. Re:In other news... water is wet! by Anon-Admin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nicotine is optional in e-cigs. I know a lot of people that smoke the flavors without nicotine.

    In those instances, I would assume that e-cigs are not addictive.

  5. Re:Not this again. by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've never in my life heard of ANYONE who went from vaping to smoking. I have, however, known quite a few people who went from smoking to vaping. And I can tell you that it's nice to switch to an alternative that doesn't leave you hacking up phlegm, gasping for breath, and smelling like shit. Vaping may not be as healthy as not vaping, but it's sure as shit a lot healthier than smoking tobacco.

    Of course moral puritans want everyone to quit cold-turkey. But never let perfect be the enemy of good.
     

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  6. Doesn't do a body good by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is an enormous push by the tobacco industry to take over vaping via regulation to hinder competition. If they can press into service "useful idiots", i.e. moral busybodies, all the better.

    See also taxi services trying to tie up Uber and Lyft.

    I'm ready for my downmod, busybodies^H^H^H^H^H^H Mr. Demille!

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  7. Big tobacco not getting that HEETS traction... by cloud.pt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I guess phillip morris and co aren't really getting the desired product adherence on their "heat-not-burn-definetely-not-vape" product, so they're back to old tactics of subsidizing "may" studies about vaping. I am a vaper, and I will tell you for sure: vaping IS addictive, surely a habit, and to an extent can be a social reason to transition to cigarretes, but the correlation of that transition on the young population is more likely to be out of individuals' environment for vaping already being a biased environment for smoking.

    So until we get a study that takes into account this correlation, to me this is just more propaganda from a scientific lobby that is financed by an industry that has been in steep decline, not only due to e-cigarettes but also from societal patterns changing in evolved countries. I hope vaping goes away eventually - I love it, but it is a lesser evil. And by being the lesser evil of tobacco, I hope tobacco goes away much sooner than vaping. Because I know with a high degree of certainty I am more likely to die if I have a political reason to stop vaping and going back to smoking, you know, like the government baning ecigs...

    If you really want solid science about ecigs, vaping, HEETS and real tobacco products comparison, you should lookup Doctor Konstantinos' Farsalinos work - he has been a reference in the unbiased nicotine research for the last 10 years now.

  8. Of course this again. by OrangeTide · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oxygen - the ultimate gateway drug. Once you start inhaling oxygen in a few years you'll move onto the smell of frying bacon, stopping to smell the roses, and eventually crack.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  9. I hate misleading titles by Coldeagle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This kind of stuff drives me nuts. The title of this article is misleading. If you read through you'll find this piece:

    "The panel found evidence among studies it reviewed that vaping may prompt teenagers or young adults to try regular cigarettes, putting them at higher risk for addiction, but that any significant linkage between e-cigarettes and long-term smoking has not been established"

    From what I read it looks like there is no significant linkage. The article also didn't give any specifics. Based on my reading it sounds like someone may have tried a cigarette after vaping. I bet if you compared those numbers to those who have tried a cigarette without vaping you would probably see a corollary. This article seems to try imply that there is a larger linkage. It feels like folks are trying to slant this towards their own agenda.

    I hate how people try to villainize vaping. Here are some facts as someone who has quit smoking by switching to vaping:

    • I quit smoking because vaping tasted better. One day (when I was alternating between smoking and vaping) I started smoking a cigarette and said to my self, "This tastes like sh** why am I doing this?" I proceeded to switch back to vaping and gave away the remainder of my cigarettes. I have had one cigarette since and it was so unappetizing that it's ridiculous. I haven't wanted another one since.
    • Vaping can be significantly less expensive than smoking. I spend about $200 a year on e juice (because I buy in bulk), I used to spend that in a month on cigarettes, now it would probably be closer to 300 because of tax increases.
    • I keep vaping because it's a habit replacement. I still use a little nicotine (3mg/ml), just enough to get a little buzz. I vape ~6 ml per day, so I'm getting ~18mg of nicotine per day. One cigarette is on average 12 mg of nicotine. I can go for hours without vaping without real issue. Smoking I couldn't go more than an hour or so without getting anxious.
    • After completely switching to vaping for a month, I was able to go up four flights of stairs without getting winded. I used to get winded going up two.
    • I don't wake up coughing everyday like I did when I smoked
    • My sense of taste and smell have improved. My overall health has improved

    Now I would like to emphasize that vaping is a habit replacement for me. Habits can be a mother f***er to break. I think it's the habit that is what makes smoking so difficult to quit. Read a great book called, "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg. It was very eye opening. It's habits that are difficult to break. The physical addiction is over fairly quickly, but coming up with a habit replacement is what really made the difference for me quitting smoking and succeeding at it. I smoked for 15 years, tried quitting at least 15 times. I have been smoke free for nearly 3 years thanks to vaping.

    Why keep vaping? Well see above. Also, the primary ingredients in most ejuice are vegetable glycerin (VG) and propylene glycol (PG). Both of which have been studied and been found to be safe. PG has been used in fog machines for years with no ill effects found.

    Also, most of the studies that find toxins and the such related to vaping are from what's called a dry hit, meaning that you're essentially burning the wicking material because it doesn't have enough liquid, thus causing a different reaction than heating. One generally doesn't like the taste of a dry hit, it's nasty and if it happens you fix the issue by adding more liquid or replacing the atomizer. You still get more carcinogenics and toxic byproducts from a cigarette puff than a dry hit.

    Not looking to start an argument, just wanted to put out what I've experienced and why articles like this tend to piss me off. As a rule I don't think anyone should start smoking. I would rather kids not vape too, it's a habit and there are risks of habit formation (even without nicotine, which creates an addiction on top of the habit); however, kids are going to want to rebel and b