Encourage or Discourage eCigs?

[Drael]

"This gets back to my point about irrational fears of novel minor risks as opposed to known common risks."

Well, your completely correct about this of course. People frequently underestimate familiar risks, like diet, or driving, while overestimating new risks.

Theres a primal biological basis for this of course, but when we have reason and science, we should rely on those instead of the fear of novelty.

 

[junkman]

For the same reason you might encourage someone who'd never tried fried foods to try French fries, even though fried foods increase risk of heart disease and weight gain due to their high fat count, calorie density, and their propensity to prime eaters for overeating: because they taste good and they're fun to consume. In fact, you'd be kind of a jerk if you actively discouraged people from trying French fries.

This gets back to my point about irrational fears of novel minor risks as opposed to known common risks.

Would you encourage someone to eat french fries for most of their waking hours on a daily basis for a number of years? I would hope not.

What do you hope to achieve by encouraging someone to vape? If they really enjoy it, then isn't it likely they will vape for much of the day, on a daily basis for a long period?

This is where you are not seeing the forest for the trees.

If they don't enjoy vaping and don't make it a habit, then you are right. Little to no harm would surely be done. But then your encouragement to vape was kind of just a waste of their time, since they didn't like it anyway.

But, if they do enjoy it, they will likely vape a lot. This is what you are encouraging then. So even if vaping for a day is only half as dangerous as eating a serving of french fries (and you don't know one way or another) it may over time be of some significant detriment to those you have encouraged. In your mind maybe you are only encouraging someone same as saying "Try the fries at such and such place", but it really isn't the same thing.

Your insistence on conflating the risk of vaping with eating nachos, fries and big macs makes for a really a weak argument.

 

[DC2]

Some examples of unknown risks...
--Diacetyl
--Silicosis

Do an ECF search for those words.

I will not comment on the potential for risk of those issues.
That is for each vaper to study and make their own decisions.

The answer that we don't know the long-term potential for harm is the only correct answer in my opinion.

 

[junkman]

Being the pretty well known and researched risks of nicotine alone are similar to caffiene, an appropriate warning would be something like "Do not consume if pregnant or nicotine sensitive, do no consume more than x amount of nicotine per day"?

Why do you consider the risk unknown? All the ingredients of vaping are researched and fda approved (nicotine inhalation, vg inhalation, pg inhalation, flavourings). The consistuents of the vapor, the liquid, and the nicotine absorbtion into the body is all known.

I can't see anything thats unknown about vaping, risk wise, apart from the inhalation of gras flavours, which most people on the street would not even consider as a health risk of any kind.... Please explain, this "unknown risk" thing.

Again, the impact of repeated long term inhalation of all ingredients in e-liquid has not been studied and is not known. It is believed to be much safer than smoking cigarettes, but I don't suppose many mature adults would encourage non-smokers to start smoking.

Caffeine can be dangerous given extreme doses, much as nicotine. However, I understand that long term exposure to nicotine may also affect arterial health. Or has that been dis-proven?

And in any case, I don't go around encouraging people that don't drink caffeinated beverages to start drinking coffee and cola either.

 

[Drael]

Again, the impact of repeated long term inhalation of all ingredients in e-liquid has not been studied and is not known. It is believed to be much safer than smoking cigarettes, but I don't suppose many mature adults would encourage non-smokers to start smoking.

Caffeine can be dangerous given extreme doses, much as nicotine. However, I understand that long term exposure to nicotine may also affect arterial health. Or has that been dis-proven?

And in any case, I don't go around encouraging people that don't drink caffeinated beverages to start drinking coffee and cola either.

I agree with most of what you say here. Certainly thats not reason to "encourage" use, as I myself said in my earlier post, whatever the low risk, or low level of habituation, theres no reason to encourage refined sugar intake, caffiene intake, drinking, or indeed e-cig usage. You don't need those things.

And yes, nicotine affects arterial health via damage to the artery. Nicotine does have some oxidation effects in this manner. I beleive lots of caffiene has similar effects on the heart though.

Nicotine may be low risk, but we should be honest about the risks it does have - the main ones, blood pressure, heart health and eye health, that I know of.

Long term studies have not been done on PG/VG in very regular dosage. Massive dose studies have been done. PG is used often multiple times daily by asthmatics, and thats well understood to be harmless, but thats a little less than a vaper would inhale.

Theres not really any reason for suspicion that these things would cause great harm. VG can actually be directly metabolised in the lungs, its a natural body compound, VG and PG has had all its metabolites studied, theres nothing to suggest carcinogenic qualities, toxicology itself has been done.

I am not sure I would describe these as having unknown risk personally, I think we know too much about them to describe it as some great unknown. There may be more research that can be done, the body is a complex thing, but there is not a vacuum of understanding either.

We certainly know a fair bit about what risks exist with nicotine or not.

I'd say the greatest unknown, if you can call it that is with the gras flavourings, when used as vapour. Which, are relatively unknown, even in their use in food. There are no long term studies for that application either, gras is more of an approximation or guess, than anything deeply scientific.

 

[Jman8]

This thread, as stated in OP, is about people you knew wanting to try eCigs, and not going out on some sort of campaign looking for people who could be candidates, but are otherwise non-nic users.

I hope this is clear. If not, I might post it a few more times.

So, it is essentially about people coming to you, showing interest, and how do you respond (if you know they are non-nic user / non-smoker).

I believe this happens on the forum, minus the knowing the person and knowing their history with smoking/nicotine. While this belief was something I was aware of before starting this thread, it wasn't why I started this thread. The reason I started this thread is because I am one who still believes vaping is relatively harmless and so I was curious if other vapers agreed with me that recommending / encouraging people in our lives who are not smokers but are interested in trying vaping, learning about vaping and such, is 'good idea.'

I have learned, believe it or not, that it is not necessarily a good idea and is something that is questionable. That doesn't mean for me that it is a bad idea, but in some cases, I believe it would be what I would call a bad idea.

At same time, this does somewhat come down to 'knowingly encouraging' the person who comes to me / us. Because I do think on any eCig forum (could be this one) that a non-nic user / non-smoker could come here and make false claims and that they would be met with encouragement. Which is where I think things get tricky in this debate. And has, IMO, everything to do with regulating this product if all people, includes vapers, are of the opinion that no one under 18 ought to be vaping. Sorry, no discussion on this. If you are under 18, you will be denied and discouraged. Yet, if any smoker can remember back to their life under the age of 18 (assuming you smoked then), you knew smoking then was not something to be engaging in, and yet you chose to do it anyway. Making false claims to obtain the product or finding other people who made false claims and obtained it for you.

And even if I'm somehow mistaken about the age thing from when some smokers started, I think that leads to a point that is intrinsic in this thread - that nicotine / smoking is far more harmful to people under 18. I know people that smoked as young as 14. Of those that are coming to my mind, I'm aware that they are all alive today (communicate with them on Facebook). So, while harm and relative harm and serious harm are always going to be debated (or denied a discussion), to me it is simply not as catastrophic to be a smoker as some claim, especially ex-smokers who despise smoking. In some cases, it is 'very bad' what smoking did to a person. I have awareness of that from people I know personally. In vast majority of cases, it is not 'very bad' nor catastrophic. In some, it for sure is.

And as I ramble here, and have no sure fire solutions to anything I bring up. I just note that it is obvious to me what we are 'up against' in the legal battle, and some of that clearly comes from our own attitudes. As if, this battle we are up against right now, is us doing this to ourselves.

 

[Drael]

"Some examples of unknown risks...
--Diacetyl
--Silicosis"

Neither of these things are compulsary components of vaping though. So these are not only a little speculative, but entirely avoidable.

 

[DC2]

"Some examples of unknown risks...
--Diacetyl
--Silicosis"

Neither of these things are compulsary components of vaping though.

That is true, but it illustrates the point that there might be some things that we don't know enough about yet.

 

[Drael]

That is true, but it illustrates the point that there might be some things that we don't know enough about yet.

Well fair enough. I mean, I said earlier that the least understood part of vaping is actually the GRAS flavourings, which even when used in food, arent well catergorised.

But theres nothing to prevent these factors from being avoided, or considered, if indeed they are risks. In that sense you can't say these unknown risks belong to vaping generally, just that they exist within vaping. Somewhat similar to how flavours, food additives and preservatives exist with the food industry, but these are not general risks of all food.

 

[DC2]

Well fair enough. I mean, I said earlier that the least understood part of vaping is actually the GRAS flavourings, which even when used in food, arent well catergorised.

But theres nothing to prevent these factors from being avoided, or considered, if indeed they are risks. In that sense you can't say these unknown risks belong to vaping generally, just that they exist within vaping. Somewhat similar to how flavours, food additives and preservatives exist with the food industry, but these are not general risks of all food.

That is also fair enough.

If we were talking about vaping with unflavored zero-nicotine liquid using ceramic atomizers, I would not hesitate.
But there isn't a lot of point in vaping unflavored juice, unless you want to kick a nail-biting habit.

And the only reason I would not recommend nicotine liquid is in case vaping becomes problematic.
As noted previously, I would hate to see a non-smoker be forced to move from vaping to smoking for any reason.

 

[worthatry]

This may be the least interesting thread on ECF.

 

[Thucydides]

i really dont want to get into too much detail but im pretty sure you are well aware of the difference between "never in your life eating fried foods" and "never in your life vaping a liquid containing nicotine"

Yes. Eating fried foods is common in the developed world. Vaping is comparatively rare. Thus, people don't generally concern themselves about the risks of fried foods, but they go ape-sh** over vaping. Remember how I keep saying, "people have an irrational fear of very minor risks when they are novel, but they don't think twice about embracing serious risks of every sort provided that they're common"?

 

[PersonaNonSmoka]

I would certainly be in the "discourage" camp. I've tried countless times to quit analogs and used every trick in the book all the while and nothing has worked like the switch to vaping.

With that said, do I wish I had never picked up a nicotine habit? Of course, but now I'm resigned, at least for the time being, that I can appease my need for nic while doing significantly less harm to myself and those around me.

 

[BuGlen]

I would do neither. I would simply educate the person(s) who are interested with my experiences with nicotine addiction and vaping as best as I can. We are talking about an adult (over 18 years of age), after all. It's up to each person to decide what risks (known or otherwise) they are willing to take with each of their actions in life. This is how each of us learn and become the people we are meant to be.

 

[junkman]

Yes. Eating fried foods is common in the developed world. Vaping is comparatively rare. Thus, people don't generally concern themselves about the risks of fried foods, but they go ape-sh** over vaping. Remember how I keep saying, "people have an irrational fear of very minor risks when they are novel, but they don't think twice about embracing serious risks of every sort provided that they're common"?

Seriously missed the point

 

[Jman8]

Seriously missed the point

Point being nicotine carries with it a potential of addiction that consumes the user.
And not just random users, but vast majority.

And is not like potential addiction to:
- fried foods
- coffee (well maybe a little bit)
- working
- playing video games (well maybe a little bit)
- texting

It's not all that much like other addictions. It's in a class all its own.
For this reason, you may want to think three times before suggesting someone try it.
That is unless they already have an addiction to nicotine.
Then it's totally cool.

 

[J.R. Bob Dobbs]

is this thread still alive?

 

[Racehorse]

I'd encourage vaping because I think of vaping as enjoyable and the potential addiction as rather harmless.

I am not sure I consider any addiction as "harmless".

Even from a purely psychological rather than physiological perspective.

Addiction implies *dependence* which is not independence.

So, I would discourage.

 

[Worzel]

I have never experienced a nonsmoker asking me if they should start vaping. I have had a few people who smoke stinkies or "blacks" once in a great while. I get hookah people too. In that case I tell them "By all means!" With all the smoking bans, I cannot see why people would start smoking! That's kind of dumb!

 

[John Top]

This question reminds me of the ever so popular "Oxygen bars" in the late 90's early 2000's. There were bars where you could sit down and order a shot of pure O2, with your choice of flavorings.

Also, there are quite a bunch of people out there who smoke that hookah thing and say it isn't smoking (I call BS.)