Oh boy, I guess I asked for it so I have to give this a shot. I'm getting ready to go to work so I might have to come back later.
Ready and willing.
"Smoking kills" is sound bite. Would imply that smoking moderately kills. So, I'll ask you, do you think that smoking in moderation kills?.
That's a good question. If the dangers of smoking are real then I would expect a curve of some kind. Very low chance of COPD or cancer at low levels of smoking, running up to a high chance for heavy smokers. I would expect those graphs to exist somewhere but I can't remember seeing them. So I would have to say I don't know the answer.
I don't think it would take that much time to go through the smoking research. Might take that time to verify the research if wanting to do similar tests, but some to a lot of the data isn't based on hard science, but instead on surveys and deductive analysis that carries with it an inherent bias.
My understanding is that the mechanism by which smoking damages the lungs, if it exists, is unknown. There are too many chemicals involved that may work independently or in combinations. So statistical analysis is all we have. I don't think that's a deal breaker.
An individual's chances of getting lung cancer or COPD have a direct relationship with how long they have smoked. People on this forum often talk about the Snus effect in Sweden. Since Snus use started replacing smoking among male Swedes the rate of lung and oral cancer has dropped dramatically. Among Snus users it has dropped to the level of never-smokers. Those numbers are pretty convincing to me, even if we don't know the cell level biology behind it.
I feel it is all relevant to vaping. I see people saying "smoking kills." I ask for that to be backed up, and note that whatever source is chosen will likely have some rhetoric on vaping and is likely outspoken against vaping. Hence the bias I noted just a moment ago. Some of these groups have either already done surveys or are allowing survey type research to remain open, such that when a vaper contracts some sort of disease (any disease, pick a disease), the survey people will be able to reasonably associate it with vaping. That will be easy and won't be readily disputable. What will be disputed is that vaping caused that disease to occur. The cause part, especially as it relates to smoking, I feel very confident that I can argue and argue well. The associated part, I don't think I can win easily on, but also would say association cannot reasonably be seen as leading to an assertion of "smoking kills." Otherwise, by such a standard one could reasonably argue that (drinking) water kills.
There are some complicated arguments in there. You are definitely correct that disease numbers can and will be used to pin the tail on vaping. If I'm right about smoking causing cancer and COPD I would guess that vapers are far more likely to get those diseases than people who never smoked or vaped. That could be caused by vaping, or be a consequence of the fact that most of us here smoked before we started vaping, often for decades. Those diseases often appear in ex-smokers years after they quit.
I've seen the numbers for the prevalence of those diseases in ex-smokers. They slowly drop with time after quitting.
If vaping doesn't die out those numbers will be argued about for decades to come. It was hard enough to extract numbers for smokers compared to non-smokers. It will be almost impossible to pull reliable numbers out of the mess of ex-smoking vapers compared to still smoking non-vapers and dual users and never-smoked vapers and non-vaping quitters, etc.
I don't know how to address that, other than we have to be aware of the danger and be ready to argue the case.
And IMO, this whole paragraph shows me you will be able to be set up like a bowling pin and be knocked over. Easy. If you know nothing about long term effects, then you don't honestly know that it is (or isn't) less harmful than smoking. The short term harms associated with smoking aren't all that great in most cases. I don't know who would argue otherwise, but I'd like to see that argument put forth. It's the longterm ones that hold any water, and even those are disputable. The long term data that WILL come in for vaping WILL come about because of an inherent bias that is very visibly at work. You'd have to be willfully blind and politically ignorant to not see this bias at work. I know, because not too long ago, I was willfully blind to it, and was rather ignorant of the politics. Not any more.
I don't think I'm in too much danger of being conned by the propaganda. I really am aware of how statistics are used and how they can be misused.
At some level, I would hope all people (smoker, non-smoker, non-vaper, everyone) would recognize that this isn't hard science that is making these determinations about 'harms associated with....' smoking or vaping. It is very much closer to smear campaign than it is to hard science. But it is the hard science (and less hard science) that I'm willing to take on with regards to smoking cause once that is exposed beyond the blind sheep mentality, it'll make the other tangents much easier to argue.
Someone still has to give me a convincing explanation for why certain diseases show up so frequently among smokers. other than that smoking causes them. Big Tobacco used to use the Post Hoc fallacy argument. Something causes cancer, but there is no proof smoking is that thing. Just the observation that cancer happens after smoking. There could be some other thing that causes both smoking and cancer for example.
Anyway, thanks for brining this up. It's a discussion that needs to be had. I know I'll be giving it some more thought going forward.
. Why are you vaping with all your concerns why come onto a pro vaping forum to talk about it wouldn't you be better off on any of the thousands of medical forums?. Like many the vast majority I'd wager I'm sick and tired of people worrying on my behalf all the time always ready to educate me in how stupid or ignorant I am of my own health and assuming because they clearly didn't do over three hundred hours of reading scientific studies I didn't either even if I took a lot of time to understand much of it. Vape or dont vape choice is yours no one is forcing you to and if your as concerned as you say I honestly don't understand why you'd keep doing it but go elsewhere to get your answers rather then places that exist to help people make a healthier choice for themselves and yes I am getting angry with these threads started by supposed vapers who are enjoying or getting benefit from vaping but scaring people looking to make the same switch.
