Posted video on youtube:
My respone (thanks youtube for totally screwing my formatting):
As a vaper, I feel I have to respond to this video. First of all, vaping was generally intended for people who smoked and wanted a safer alternative that gave similar feeling and effects. This whole craze of people who want to cloud chase and do tricks is a byproduct of people wanting to look cool ( yes this applies to young and old). After being a smoker for 17 years, I was able to quit smoking completely by switching to vaping after a few tries. Personally I prefer to mainly vape on a simple setup that mostly mimmics the act of smoking a cigarette (pulling into the mouth and then inhaling into the lungs). I also have a more advanced device for times that I want to give myself a treat that gives bigger taste/cloud, but use that maybe 2-3 times a day. Both, according to several studies, are at least 95% less harmful than smoking. I do take issue with a few things the doctors said:
1. Dr. Adam Leventhal "You take any mixture of chemicals, and heat it up to a temperature, there's going to be some chemical reaction. And some of those chemicals are going to be hazardous." - Yes. We already knew that. That temperature actually is known to be around 700 degrees farenheit. At that temperature, you are pretty much burning whatever wicking material you are using and at that point you have also switched from vaping to smoking since something is actually burning and producing smoke. Nowadays though, there are quite a few devices that actually have temperature control on them so you never hit that mark. Also, anything being vaped at that temperature would be pretty much disgusting and there would be no enjoyment to it.
2. Dr. Adam Leventhal on Diacetyl - This has been a commonly known chemical that most vapers stay away from. Pretty much any manufacturer that uses this chemical for flavoring has been ostracized and either stopped producing that flavor or noone will buy from them anymore. From Wiki on popcorn lung "This first came to public attention when eight former employees of the Gilster-Mary Lee popcorn plant in Jasper, Missouri, developed bronchiolitis obliterans." Out of an average of 214 employees per plant, that's about 4% of them contracted this effect. More than likely, they already had some sort of lung issue or were possibly smokers. On top of that, he said in the end "We don't know if you vape it, if it has the same effects". 20% of people who smoke, end up with lung cancer. Still, even using a flavor that uses Diacetyl, way safer than smoking.
3. Dr. Sean Nordt on lethality of juice consumption by direct ingestion" It might only be 1 or 2 ml" - That would be true... IF they drank an extremely high strength of nicotine juice( such as 36mcg/ml). Most people don't tend to use that high level, and if they do, they are just getting into vaping and tend to taper that down over time. Almost any toxicologist would tell you that it's not "what" chemicals are in it, it's the "potency" of "what" chemicals are ingested.
4. Dr. Sean Nordt on child resistant packaging - Most vapers agree that this should be a requirement. As a matter of fact, pretty much all respectable e-juice companies already employ child resistant caps even though not all states require it. These child resistant caps are just as "effective" as the ones on medicine and cleaning chemicals.
5. Dr. Sean Nordt on exploding/venting batteries - This one just flat out comes down to either lack of education or pure disregard thereof. This is something a lot of vapers will probably disagree with me on, but if a vape shop sells one of these devices and/or batteries, without properly instructing the buyer on the dangers of use/mishandling, they should be held liable for damages. Once instructed, the buyer should then sign a waiver of liabilities of the vape shop. If you buy these devices online, there is already a disclaimer on the website indicating this. So at that point, then the fault is soley on the user for not educating themselves. Some idiot that is just carrying around 2 18650 batteries without a protective case in his pocket and then puts change in his pocket and they explode, is just the next candidate for a Darwin Award. As for them blowing up in someone's face: Almost every instance of this happening has been because someone has used an inappropriate tank attomizer on a highly advance mechanical mod. In which case, see above.
I appreciate the fact that Wired wanted to get some information about vaping out there to the general public. However, outside of the "experience" at the vape shop he was showing, this video basically amounted to a political hit-piece. There are plenty of actual independant studies out there that have shown how much less harmful vaping is than smoking. And California is about the most anti-vaping state there is. So to use them as a resource without contacting ANY of the other institutes that have done some research is quite bias. I am 100% for useful and meaningful regulation of vaping such as no sale to minors( which has been the case for smoking for a couple decades now), and also requiring child resistant packaging. I also believe that flavorings should be regulated in the SAME way that food flavorings so that the integrity of the product remains high. The problem I have with them being regulated as tobacco products is that the ONLY part of the entire setup that comes from tobacco is the nicotine. And quite a few vapers use 0% nicotine solutions. Not only that, but nicotine can also come from other sources, such as potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant. Not as easily as tobacco of course, but some GMO could probably fix that.
No vaper is saying that vaping is absolutely 100% safe no matter what. Any one that does is completely ignorant. Vaping is about harm reduction. The argument about "There have been no long term studies done to prove how safe they are" is rediculous. Would you then, once those studies have been done, be willing to take responsibility for the MILLIONS of people that died who kept smoking instead of switching because of hit-pieces like this, once we find out that they would have instead prolonged their lives?
I apologize for the long post, and thank you if you read it all. I just felt like I had to invoke my position on the matter.
My respone (thanks youtube for totally screwing my formatting):
As a vaper, I feel I have to respond to this video. First of all, vaping was generally intended for people who smoked and wanted a safer alternative that gave similar feeling and effects. This whole craze of people who want to cloud chase and do tricks is a byproduct of people wanting to look cool ( yes this applies to young and old). After being a smoker for 17 years, I was able to quit smoking completely by switching to vaping after a few tries. Personally I prefer to mainly vape on a simple setup that mostly mimmics the act of smoking a cigarette (pulling into the mouth and then inhaling into the lungs). I also have a more advanced device for times that I want to give myself a treat that gives bigger taste/cloud, but use that maybe 2-3 times a day. Both, according to several studies, are at least 95% less harmful than smoking. I do take issue with a few things the doctors said:
1. Dr. Adam Leventhal "You take any mixture of chemicals, and heat it up to a temperature, there's going to be some chemical reaction. And some of those chemicals are going to be hazardous." - Yes. We already knew that. That temperature actually is known to be around 700 degrees farenheit. At that temperature, you are pretty much burning whatever wicking material you are using and at that point you have also switched from vaping to smoking since something is actually burning and producing smoke. Nowadays though, there are quite a few devices that actually have temperature control on them so you never hit that mark. Also, anything being vaped at that temperature would be pretty much disgusting and there would be no enjoyment to it.
2. Dr. Adam Leventhal on Diacetyl - This has been a commonly known chemical that most vapers stay away from. Pretty much any manufacturer that uses this chemical for flavoring has been ostracized and either stopped producing that flavor or noone will buy from them anymore. From Wiki on popcorn lung "This first came to public attention when eight former employees of the Gilster-Mary Lee popcorn plant in Jasper, Missouri, developed bronchiolitis obliterans." Out of an average of 214 employees per plant, that's about 4% of them contracted this effect. More than likely, they already had some sort of lung issue or were possibly smokers. On top of that, he said in the end "We don't know if you vape it, if it has the same effects". 20% of people who smoke, end up with lung cancer. Still, even using a flavor that uses Diacetyl, way safer than smoking.
3. Dr. Sean Nordt on lethality of juice consumption by direct ingestion" It might only be 1 or 2 ml" - That would be true... IF they drank an extremely high strength of nicotine juice( such as 36mcg/ml). Most people don't tend to use that high level, and if they do, they are just getting into vaping and tend to taper that down over time. Almost any toxicologist would tell you that it's not "what" chemicals are in it, it's the "potency" of "what" chemicals are ingested.
4. Dr. Sean Nordt on child resistant packaging - Most vapers agree that this should be a requirement. As a matter of fact, pretty much all respectable e-juice companies already employ child resistant caps even though not all states require it. These child resistant caps are just as "effective" as the ones on medicine and cleaning chemicals.
5. Dr. Sean Nordt on exploding/venting batteries - This one just flat out comes down to either lack of education or pure disregard thereof. This is something a lot of vapers will probably disagree with me on, but if a vape shop sells one of these devices and/or batteries, without properly instructing the buyer on the dangers of use/mishandling, they should be held liable for damages. Once instructed, the buyer should then sign a waiver of liabilities of the vape shop. If you buy these devices online, there is already a disclaimer on the website indicating this. So at that point, then the fault is soley on the user for not educating themselves. Some idiot that is just carrying around 2 18650 batteries without a protective case in his pocket and then puts change in his pocket and they explode, is just the next candidate for a Darwin Award. As for them blowing up in someone's face: Almost every instance of this happening has been because someone has used an inappropriate tank attomizer on a highly advance mechanical mod. In which case, see above.
I appreciate the fact that Wired wanted to get some information about vaping out there to the general public. However, outside of the "experience" at the vape shop he was showing, this video basically amounted to a political hit-piece. There are plenty of actual independant studies out there that have shown how much less harmful vaping is than smoking. And California is about the most anti-vaping state there is. So to use them as a resource without contacting ANY of the other institutes that have done some research is quite bias. I am 100% for useful and meaningful regulation of vaping such as no sale to minors( which has been the case for smoking for a couple decades now), and also requiring child resistant packaging. I also believe that flavorings should be regulated in the SAME way that food flavorings so that the integrity of the product remains high. The problem I have with them being regulated as tobacco products is that the ONLY part of the entire setup that comes from tobacco is the nicotine. And quite a few vapers use 0% nicotine solutions. Not only that, but nicotine can also come from other sources, such as potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant. Not as easily as tobacco of course, but some GMO could probably fix that.
No vaper is saying that vaping is absolutely 100% safe no matter what. Any one that does is completely ignorant. Vaping is about harm reduction. The argument about "There have been no long term studies done to prove how safe they are" is rediculous. Would you then, once those studies have been done, be willing to take responsibility for the MILLIONS of people that died who kept smoking instead of switching because of hit-pieces like this, once we find out that they would have instead prolonged their lives?
I apologize for the long post, and thank you if you read it all. I just felt like I had to invoke my position on the matter.
