Why is that nagging at me? In my more-recent dealings with the "newbie" community (yes, they are basically their own community -- and it's quite large), there is a growing segment of them that were not previously smokers (proportionately more now than I think in previous years). Never smoked. Nope. And never would! So what does that mean? Vaping is for anyone (18 and up) that wants to do so. Too many of us ignore this and always fall back on a harm-reduction type stance when, for many in our community now, there was never the initial "harm" to begin with. Nothing being reduced! Sure, obviously vaping should be considered harm-reduction to those that smoked -- it is for me and it saved me from a lot more -- but it's not like you need proof of past history to partake in vaping (regardless of what I think). To constantly make the comparisons to cigarettes that are "bad", therefore, as long as vaping is less than that it's okay -- well, that's not okay as an argument, at least when the common wisdom is that vaping's basically a fun and "safe" activity of "water vapor" and innocuous flavors.
On the surface, if what you say is correct, this would seem quite troubling. However, true understanding of the implications requires a little counterfactual thinking: to wit, what proportion of these "never smoking" vapers would, without access to vaping products, have otherwise started smoking? I don't credit the "never would" very much, since I remember saying the same around a week before I started smoking (admittedly at age 14).
Much is made of the reduction in adolescent smoking in the developed world, but what is rarely addressed is that smoking initiation has moved upwards in age. Carl Phillips makes a very interesting point, in that smoking is often treated as if there's a "sensitive period" for smoking in adolescence which if avoided means an individual is no longer "at risk" from smoking initiation, whereas the data shows a different story - more smokers now initiate at or after the age of majority than under. My view is that there's some truth in this notion of a sensitive period insofar as the developing brain probably is more likely to lead to greater dependence as a function of earlier exposure to nicotine.
Regardless, it is smoking which is strongly associated with life-time use (and early mortality). The addictive potential of e-cigs remains in question, and will likely not be ascertained for many years. Personally, on this question, I favor the (equivocal) prediction of Karl Fagerstrom, that e-cigs are likely to be dependence creating, but not as much as smoking.
So, what are the factors affecting non-smoking vaping initiators. What predicts the initiation of smoking in all age groups, and are the same predictors true of vaping? The obvious predictors are personality factors and social pressures (and those two are not independent, in any case, for obvious reasons). So, the social factors we might worry about are the expanding popularity of vaping, and the theme that vaping is safe, in absolute terms. The personality factors are somewhat immaleable and so exposure to vaping will be a function of social environment.
Simple health economics says that if vaping is 100th as dangerous as smoking, you would need 100 new lifelong smokers (that otherwise would not have smoked) per new vaper for there to be a net negative public health impact. Of course, the population level thinking masks the rights of the individual to have good and accurate information about what it is they are being exposed to or at least, if not masks, doesn't address it.
Again, this brings us back to regulatory pressures. For one, the very fact that vaping is safer in relative terms and its absolute safety is unknown is something vendors are not allowed to discuss, and will be specifically addressed under PACT by the MRTP clauses (i.e. manufacturers will have to gain an MRTP license to state what is obviously true, that vaping is less dangerous than smoking). The rest will be "taken care of" by the social environment - whatever the community(s) decide is true of vaping, and which ever narrative ends up dominating. This is a ludicrous state of affairs and obviously runs counter to the aims of tobacco control/public health.
If there are ways to reduce the potential harm of vaping -- not just vaping reducing the harm of smoking by offering an alternative -- we ought to have some kind of go at it from within the community for those that want it. Not obligatorily, but voluntarily. Options and information. Take it or leave it. Just having the options of no flavoring/flavoring or nicotine/no nicotine is not going to be enough much longer considering the door is so wide open. Getting better as a market and community does not only include developing more tasty flavors, fancier gear and bigger-cloud producing devices, but having some impetus to develop liquids and gear devoid of things that are, to some consumers, more questionable than necessary. For that we will need science. I don't ever want to see a situation where we are forced to vape our vegetables (LOL) if we want to vape, but it would be great if those that were concerned about such things knew exactly where to go.
This is something I want to address specifically on vaping.com (our new sister site to ECF) - I want to ensure that the latest, most accurate information can be gained easily by anyone interested in vaping. One of my big concerns is actually less that non-smokers are initiating vaping, but that smokers are being put off trying vaping products because of misinformation about e-cigs in the press and from the medical community.
