Vaping is definitely harmful and has been linked to pneumonia. Also it isn’t just made of nicotine.
E-Cigarette’s (ECs) contain a liquid solution mixture of nicotine, propylene glycol, water, flavoring agent and often vegetable glycerin, which is heated in a cartridge
Harm reduction is a worthy goal.
If that’s the goal, there are questions to answer like: how bad it is compared to smoking ? Does it help stop smoking and reduce health risk, or is it inneffective and just add another source of risk? If it does help, how does vaping compare to the safety and efficacy of existing methods (eg nicotine patchs)?
Apologies, upon re-reading my comment I see that I didn’t really spend enough time to word this appropriately. Vapes are not harmless. There is absolutely a harm to inhaling any vaporized liquid, or just inhaling hot gas in general. We don’t know the full extent of the harms it causes, but we have a decent amount of knowledge from similar hot inhaled substances to draw some high level conclusions.
I was mostly speaking towards the harm reduction angle and how many places around the world have taken a hard stance on this - banning the substance because it is problematic. It always struck me as rather shortsighted, especially when presented with the alternative, a much more adulterated and toxic substance, still being legal. In general drug prohibitions do not work and I appreciate an article talking about the intricacies of that.
Your comment rather well written. And you make a good point on prohibition potentially doing more harm than good, and didn’t present vaping as harmless.
I wanted to highlight that vaping isn’t a clear cut solution for smoking harm reduction. Probably should have posted as a separate comment rather than reply. It’s a reaction on the article itself as much as on your comment.
Vaping is definitely harmful and has been linked to pneumonia. Also it isn’t just made of nicotine.
Harm reduction is a worthy goal. If that’s the goal, there are questions to answer like: how bad it is compared to smoking ? Does it help stop smoking and reduce health risk, or is it inneffective and just add another source of risk? If it does help, how does vaping compare to the safety and efficacy of existing methods (eg nicotine patchs)?
The NIH summary on vaping highlights vaping health risks and concludes:
Apologies, upon re-reading my comment I see that I didn’t really spend enough time to word this appropriately. Vapes are not harmless. There is absolutely a harm to inhaling any vaporized liquid, or just inhaling hot gas in general. We don’t know the full extent of the harms it causes, but we have a decent amount of knowledge from similar hot inhaled substances to draw some high level conclusions.
I was mostly speaking towards the harm reduction angle and how many places around the world have taken a hard stance on this - banning the substance because it is problematic. It always struck me as rather shortsighted, especially when presented with the alternative, a much more adulterated and toxic substance, still being legal. In general drug prohibitions do not work and I appreciate an article talking about the intricacies of that.
Your comment rather well written. And you make a good point on prohibition potentially doing more harm than good, and didn’t present vaping as harmless.
I wanted to highlight that vaping isn’t a clear cut solution for smoking harm reduction. Probably should have posted as a separate comment rather than reply. It’s a reaction on the article itself as much as on your comment.