• Thanks for this article, it starts out with a strong Scientific background. What I personally found interesting as I started to investigate nicotine vapes a few years back was the lack of solid evidence out there which showed any real harm from nicotine vapes and also how shoddy nearly all the science on how addictive of a substance nicotine was (almost all of it is conducted on cigarettes, failing to control for other chemicals or used outdated animal models of addiction which exaggerate addictive quality).

    As we’ve seen throughout the entirety of human history, making substances illegal does not stop people from using them. I’m glad someone has taken the time to investigate this, and I hope we can learn in the future that banning substances doesn’t work. In fact, all the evidence points towards declining usage and increasing safety as drugs are legalized and controlled as they become less adulterated and the taxes can be used for purposes such as fighting addiction.

    • 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)?

      The NIH summary on vaping highlights vaping health risks and concludes:

      More research is needed to determine if vaping nicotine can be as effective as smoking cessation aids already approved by the FDA.

      • 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.

        •  Hirom   ( @Hirom@beehaw.org ) 
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          1 year ago

          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.