So many hypocritical ex-smokers.

[DT Artisan]

I've managed to be careful of what I say around my friends and relatives who smoke. With a little over a year off of the analogs myself, I find it AMAZING just how well I can smell cigarette smoke! I mean, a car can drive by at 40 MPH while I'm walking the dog...and if they're smoking, I can smell it! I went to a bar a while back and when I got home, took off my shirt and laid it in a chair. The next day...the WHOLE ROOM smelled like ciggys! Amazing.

I also find that if I say nothing at all around smokers and just sit vaping away....usually they'll come to me and ask about vaping.

vape Well,

Brian

 

[davec48]

I quit smoking two years ago and started vaping. Six months ago I quit vaping. I could not stand it anymore, so I started vaping again. Now I am using a 50/50 PG/Vg mix, no nic, no flavor and am finding it satisfactory. I think I have beaten the nicotine addiction, but just can't seem to beat the vape habit.

 

[sub4me]

I agree with the poster, a lot of ex smokers really seem to like slamming smokers and vapers and I also don't understand why so many vapers seem so down on smoking. Sometimes it comes off as if you still smoke them you don't belong on a vaping board. It makes no sense. I will say again every vaper I know still smokes, except for those posting on the internet. Now, I do know vapers who have never smoked sure, but every smoker I know that vapes hasn't stopped smoking nor do they want to, myself included.

 

[Rabbit Chaser]

Today I decided on a quick stop through the McDonald's drive-thru. I sat there vaping on my recent favorite flavor, Ballistic Vape's Butter Caramel 6mg, and while I waited I read the sticker on the window that basically said (paraphrased) "this facility is known to use products and ingredients that are known in the state of California to cause cancer..." There's your sign - McDonald's advertises that their food is known to cause cancer (that's how I read it anyway) and everyone is up in arms about vape juice? Truth be told, I do worry at times what I am inhaling, especially when I chain vape at night, but I watched both my aunts battle and lose the fight against lung cancer and it was ugly and terrifying. Should I quit inhaling chemicals? Probably, but honestly, I inhale them in hairspray, gas fumes, freon in my air conditioning unit in the car, household cleaners, nail polish, spray paint...and God knows what else from factories, airline fuel, et al. The list goes on. And thus, I vape. The lesser of many evils.

 

[Mark in Florida]

I think it's just human nature, to a certain extent, to pick at utter minutia just as an excercise. To sort of prove how smart we think we are. For example, if I were to say "I wick with cotton, but I don't really worry about boiling it because it probably wasn't soaked in formaldehyde at the cotton ball factory". The next person would say "I always boil mine". Then next "I boil mine for a day and a half and wear shoulder length gloves and send my house pets to a kennel the entire week before". Now as ex-smokers, some people will use that to feel better than others, and in so doing they completely forget where they were a few years before... standing in line at the gas station buying the cheapest, nastiest cigarettes they could afford. And a little packet of pickle salt for some odd reason.

 

[klynnn]

I smoked 47 years and have no one to blame but myself for that as I didn't have any other choice. When I found an alternative I had to take a chance and try it. For me it worked. Most don't give it that much effort. From what I have seen in my area the smarter people seem to be more successful .....take it how you will.

 

[AndriaD]

I smoked 47 years and have no one to blame but myself for that as I didn't have any other choice. When I found an alternative I had to take a chance and try it. For me it worked. Most don't give it that much effort. From what I have seen in my area the smarter people seem to be more successful .....take it how you will.

I felt exactly the same; I smoked for 39 yrs, because my choice was basically smoke or suffer, and I didn't want to suffer. When I found out about e-cigs, and discovered for myself what a great substitute they are, I felt like, if I have HALF a brain, I really need to give this every opportunity possible to work, because what other choice is there? Smoke, or suffer -- or vape, and don't suffer *much*.

I've been thru: dehydration and accompanying electrolyte mayhem, including cankles the size of my calves, and feet so sore I could barely walk; appendicitis, appendectomy, 4 days of pure hell when I literally COULD NOT eat, vape, or really much of anything else except lay there and moan, between bouts over the trashcan; going back to smoking for a month, having to go thru the phasing out/phasing in thing all over again, merciless cravings that only stopped when I added WTA, and lately, breathing so bad that I was using my inhaler TWICE as much as I ought to, and sometimes still being so out of breath I'd have to just sit, leaning forward, until the asthma attack eased on its own -- but I'm still vaping. I've finally figured out, I think, what was causing my breathing problems, and though I do have a problem with too much VG, just lately I think it's those "suspect" ingredients in the custard/cream/butter kind of flavors -- I was reading up on those last night, trying to figure out what's so bad about them, and one thing I read really resonated, when it said that problems associated with diacetyl, acetoin, and acetyl propionyl COULD BE MIS-DIAGNOSED AS ASTHMA! Bingo. Now I know exactly why I have to avoid those ingredients like the plague -- if I want to keep breathing.

Today, I've left out the offending juice that I think may contain some of those bad ingredients -- and guess what? My breathing hasn't been bad at all. So I think I've found my culprit. Too much VG *does* bother my lungs, but those other things are even worse.

Someone who stops vaping because it doesn't taste good, it causes pimples, it's less cool to their smoker friends, or some other ridiculous reason... they're not even trying to make it work, so for them, it probably won't. Like they say at the end of every AA meeting... "it works if you work it!"

Andria

 

[sub4me]

I was reading up on those last night, trying to figure out what's so bad about them, and one thing I read really resonated, when it said that problems associated with diacetyl, acetoin, and acetyl propionyl COULD BE MIS-DIAGNOSED AS ASTHMA! Bingo. Now I know exactly why I have to avoid those ingredients like the plague -- if I want to keep breathing.

Andria

Its nice to see someone post the truth about possible bad side effects instead of insisting all liquids are perfectly safe. I realize the poster doesn't really care for me much but I can respect her honesty here.

 

[FlamingoTutu]

Its nice to see someone post the truth about possible bad side effects instead of insisting all liquids are perfectly safe. I realize the poster doesn't really care for me much but I can respect her honesty here.

Here are just two threads that discuss it, the first started in 2010 and we've learned a lot since then. ECF does have a search function that will return pages of threads dealing with this.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...-please-keep-just-listing-supplier-names.html


http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...s-may-contain-diacetyl-there-really-many.html

 

[Iffy]

It's ridiculous.

I think ex-smokers are so hypocritical.

It frustrates me.

Can we just chill?

Ummm, vapers still living in their parent's basement, Ebola on our shores, ISIS on da move, Starbuck price increases and ad nauseam, and you're upset with ex-smokers that can do nothing about your vaping enjoyment?

At least 100mg nic has dropped to $50 a liter now...

Up da nic level and chill indeed!

 

[sub4me]

Here are just two threads that discuss it, the first started in 2010 and we've learned a lot since then. ECF does have a search function that will return pages of threads dealing with this.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...-please-keep-just-listing-supplier-names.html


http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...s-may-contain-diacetyl-there-really-many.html

Yes I'm aware of those, thank you for that.

 

[AndriaD]

Here are just two threads that discuss it, the first started in 2010 and we've learned a lot since then. ECF does have a search function that will return pages of threads dealing with this.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...-please-keep-just-listing-supplier-names.html


http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...s-may-contain-diacetyl-there-really-many.html

As I said, I've started looking into this pretty closely; it looks like *most* of the actual flavor manufacturers are taking *some* steps, and just in the flavors themselves, I'm not finding a lot of instances of actual diacetyl inclusion, but I do still find flavors that contain acetoin and/or acetyl propionyl, and if those are present, there is some risk of *traces* of diacetyl, or, the diacetyl can form from those substances in a chemical reaction -- not exactly sure how that last part works; I'm no chemist, and some of the technical/chemical things I read went *swoosh* right over my head, but the upshot is that none of those ingredients are good for the lungs. For someone with normally-functioning lungs, the ill effects might be so slow that they're not apparent for some time, and by the time they do become apparent, they're irreversible, so perhaps those of us with existing lung problems are sort of the canaries in the coal mine, so to speak -- people who already have lung problems tend to be hyper-aware of whatever their lungs are doing.

I've found that bullcityvapor.com shows you right on the category page what flavors are potentially of some concern, with a "caution" background; all the ones I looked at, contained no diacetyl, but did contain acetoin and/or acetyl propionyl. Sometimes the quantities are very small, just traces, but considering that vapers aren't just in a room with the substance, but are actually inhaling it into their lungs with intent, I think even traces of the stuff is potentially very bad news, considering that these substances have the potential to DESTROY the lungs.

It also does appear that there are alternative flavors, for those wishing to avoid the dangerous substances. I have no info on whatever may be used in place of those potentially dangerous chemicals -- butyric acid, I think it was -- but I plan to start looking into that too, because with lungs like mine, I can't afford to inhale something that potentially destructive.

As for pre-made e-liquid, I have no info at all, other than that the juice I was mixing into my own probably has some type of butter flavoring -- you can't have pancakes without butter! I'm not going to name the liquid or the vendor; they may not be aware of the problem, and as far as I know, they are an upstanding and reputable business, so I have no right and no reason to slander them -- but I do plan to be in touch with them, to let them know of a potential problem in one and perhaps more of their products.

Andria

 

[sub4me]

Problem is even if a vendor says their product to be free of harmful substances we can't just take their word for it. All vendors are gonna say they use the highest grade ingredients. But what does that really mean without verification that those statements are true?? Its means nothing other then their trying to convince us their product is better then the next.

Listen if a seller wants to use dangerous ingredients in their product fine go ahead. But they should obligated to list that on the bottle so people can make an informed decsion to use or not. Many people will see a product advertised as high grade USP FEMA gras and assume its safe, which is of course the idea in using those terms. But in reality non of it may even be true.

 

[ProjektMayhem]

I think a lot of the hooraw about different things in flavors is that, having finally ditched all the tar and poison from cigarettes, we don't want to find out that we're no better off, thanks to toxic crap in e-liquid. But I do think a lot of the frenzy about it is somewhat hysterical. Some people may vape unflavored, but I certainly would never do that -- when I first started vaping, I wanted something similar to the cigarettes I smoked for donkey's years. Now I don't really care for that taste except right after eating, but the rest of the time, I like sweet stuff -- bakery flavors, in fact, which are some of the "worst offenders" for those supposedly-bad things in the flavors.

If those who vape unflavored are ok with that, then great, for THEM -- but I'm not about to ditch flavors, I want it to TASTE LIKE SOMETHING. If it tastes like nothing, I'm not going to be happy with it, and so probably would go back to smoking.

I'm 53 yrs old. If I stayed a smoker, I could perhaps expect another 10-15 yrs. As a vaper, that's almost certainly been boosted somewhat, but who can know the future? I might die in a horrible car wreck next week -- god forbid. The point is that everyone is going to die of something. The best way to have a long life is to stay in a closet and consume nothing but bread and water -- and who on earth would want THAT? Not me! I refuse to martyr myself for some hysterical concept of "purity." I *like* nicotine and I *like* flavors.

Bring on the blueberry muffin e-juice!

Andria

Well said.

 

[AndriaD]

Well said.

Well, after I posted that, I went ahead and did the looking-up and reading that I'd been thinking about for days -- if I'm going to be making my own ejuice, I want to know what flavors actually might be harmful to my lungs, and I turned up all the stuff in the last 2 posts -- I'd been wondering for some weeks why my breathing kept getting worse, not better, and it seems I finally found the reason -- since leaving out the suspect juice today, my breathing has remained far more stable all day, and this is just the first day -- I expect that improvement may continue, since I'm not going to use that particular juice any longer.

I do think there is a lot of hysteria, and I think a lot of that stems from simple ignorance -- most of us are not chemists, and reading those chemical papers is a real chore, and leaves most of us mostly still in the dark, even if we can find them. But there are in fact alternatives to the flavors containing the suspect ingredients, and tedious as it is, I think we need to be aware of what is safER and what is less safe. Even if a person has no lung problem currently, why create one for the future?

Andria

 

[chopdoc]

I agree with the poster, a lot of ex smokers really seem to like slamming smokers and vapers and I also don't understand why so many vapers seem so down on smoking. Sometimes it comes off as if you still smoke them you don't belong on a vaping board. It makes no sense. I will say again every vaper I know still smokes, except for those posting on the internet. Now, I do know vapers who have never smoked sure, but every smoker I know that vapes hasn't stopped smoking nor do they want to, myself included.

I think and this is just my own opinion, that you actually blow peoples mind by smoking and vaping. Many of us vaped to quit smoking where as your enjoying both. My own personal perspective on it, if thats what you enjoy then go for it. And I agree with you that ejuice should be labeled with whats in them. We as the consumers would like to know what chemicals we are ingesting into our lungs but I dont want it bad enough for the government to force it thru regulations.

Well, after I posted that, I went ahead and did the looking-up and reading that I'd been thinking about for days -- if I'm going to be making my own ejuice, I want to know what flavors actually might be harmful to my lungs, and I turned up all the stuff in the last 2 posts -- I'd been wondering for some weeks why my breathing kept getting worse, not better, and it seems I finally found the reason -- since leaving out the suspect juice today, my breathing has remained far more stable all day, and this is just the first day -- I expect that improvement may continue, since I'm not going to use that particular juice any longer.

I do think there is a lot of hysteria, and I think a lot of that stems from simple ignorance -- most of us are not chemists, and reading those chemical papers is a real chore, and leaves most of us mostly still in the dark, even if we can find them. But there are in fact alternatives to the flavors containing the suspect ingredients, and tedious as it is, I think we need to be aware of what is safER and what is less safe. Even if a person has no lung problem currently, why create one for the future?

Andria

One thing we hear a lot of and actually the naysayers are right about is that we dont really know what vaping is doing to us. There has been some studies but not many on the effects of vaping plus it just hasnt been popular on a wide scale for long enough to see any detrimental effects from vaping. We can kid ourselves all day long that its safe but none of us really know. All I know is that in the three months since I started vaping and quit the smokes I feel a lot better than I ever have but I do still cough up some junk at times.

 

[AndriaD]

I think and this is just my own opinion, that you actually blow peoples mind by smoking and vaping. Many of us vaped to quit smoking where as your enjoying both. My own personal perspective on it, if thats what you enjoy then go for it. And I agree with you that ejuice should be labeled with whats in them. We as the consumers would like to know what chemicals we are ingesting into our lungs but I dont want it bad enough for the government to force it thru regulations.

One thing we hear a lot of and actually the naysayers are right about is that we dont really know what vaping is doing to us. There has been some studies but not many on the effects of vaping plus it just hasnt been popular on a wide scale for long enough to see any detrimental effects from vaping. We can kid ourselves all day long that its safe but none of us really know. All I know is that in the three months since I started vaping and quit the smokes I feel a lot better than I ever have but I do still cough up some junk at times.

If I wasn't such a hard-core addict, I might be one of the dual users myself -- but I already found out that if I give my addiction one cigarette, before I know it, it's taken a whole pack and is looking around for more. For me, it's strictly an either/or proposition, and as an asthmatic, I damn well needed to quit smoking anyway, so I'm just glad I finally found a fairly easy way to do it -- a lot easier and more effective than those stupid patches!

I agree that most vapers really don't know what's in their juice, and if they aren't vaping flavors that need creams and custards and butter flavors, there's really no particular reason for them to be concerned about it -- until I added that one juice, the only problem I ever had from vaping was from high-VG -- it just doesn't suit my lungs at all. But once I started really liking the bakery flavors, and then decided to start getting serious with real DIY, not just blending pre-made flavors, my eyes began opening to the real problem those "diketone" (I hate that word, it sounds like a lesbian vocal group or something!) ingredients can pose for those who aren't just around, in the room where those ingredients are aerosolized, but actually inhaling them directly to the lungs -- and when I read that the damage from those ingredients can often be mis-diagnosed as asthma (or COPD), I realized exactly what was wrong; eliminating that juice today has just demonstrated it to me, that this was exactly what was going on with my breathing. I'm just glad I figured it out, before it got any worse -- being unable to breathe is no laughing matter.

Andria

 

[jmur]

I think a lot of the hooraw about different things in flavors is that, having finally ditched all the tar and poison from cigarettes, we don't want to find out that we're no better off, thanks to toxic crap in e-liquid. But I do think a lot of the frenzy about it is somewhat hysterical. Some people may vape unflavored, but I certainly would never do that -- when I first started vaping, I wanted something similar to the cigarettes I smoked for donkey's years. Now I don't really care for that taste except right after eating, but the rest of the time, I like sweet stuff -- bakery flavors, in fact, which are some of the "worst offenders" for those supposedly-bad things in the flavors.

If those who vape unflavored are ok with that, then great, for THEM -- but I'm not about to ditch flavors, I want it to TASTE LIKE SOMETHING. If it tastes like nothing, I'm not going to be happy with it, and so probably would go back to smoking.

I'm 53 yrs old. If I stayed a smoker, I could perhaps expect another 10-15 yrs. As a vaper, that's almost certainly been boosted somewhat, but who can know the future? I might die in a horrible car wreck next week -- god forbid. The point is that everyone is going to die of something. The best way to have a long life is to stay in a closet and consume nothing but bread and water -- and who on earth would want THAT? Not me! I refuse to martyr myself for some hysterical concept of "purity." I *like* nicotine and I *like* flavors.

Bring on the blueberry muffin e-juice!

Andria

Breath of fresh air. I appreciated this post.

 

[ThomasC]

A lot of you have completely missed the point I was trying to make.

As ex-smokers a lot of the community on here are coming across as, 'ohhh, this e liquid contains this' etc etc.

But it's better than smoking analogues.

I have changed to an e-cigarette because I want to be healthier, but then I see all these threads about dia...or whatever its called and I just think, FFS.

As someone new to it all I just can't be bothered with it. I want to enjoy the hobby and just know that I have made a healthier change.

 

[bluecat]

what are you doing on here if you aren't an ex smoker?

Since when is vaping only limited to ex-smokers?

I guess I am just lucky, I have never had someone tell me I was going to die from e-cigs.

Diacytel... Same stuff on butter popcorn. Read up on popcorn lung. It doesn't really make sense to drop one bad habit for another bad habit.