Okay, so still the nonsmokers in my life are all super happy for me that I quit smoking, but alot of them keep asking after saying how great it is, so when are you going to quit vaping? What is that? Is this just me, or is anybody else getting this? I quit smoking after 30 years. I feel extremely annoyed and angry with them, that they are so freaking rude. As if there is any comparison. So, am I alone with this? What do you say, cause I say I have absolutely no intention of stopping since I had no intention of starting. It happened when the better part of me said hey, try that, while cruising the internet. Lucky me for being in a mood to act!
You are definitely not alone, 36tinybells. We all get that question, and it puzzled me at first. Finally I figured out the problem is that the public has been brainwashed to believe that the smoking-related health problems are directly related to nicotine. When they hear the Surgeon General stating that nicotine is as addictive as <insert name of most dangerous illegal drug you can think of> they mistakenly believe that nicotine's effects on not only your health, but also on your ability to function, are equivalent.
Nicotine is not like those other addictive drugs. Have you noticed that there are no laws against driving under the influence of nicotine? There's good reason for that. The other "addictive" drugs that the government's health messages have linked to nicotine all impair the user. They slow down reflexes, reduce ability to concentrate and pay attention, and impact short-term memory. Nicotine affects all these, too, but in the
opposite direction. Most of nicotine's effects are beneficial. It is being studied as a treatment for attention deficits, memory problems, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and others. It may be able to postpone or prevent Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Another contribution to the misunderstanding is the pairing of "tar and nicotine" all those years when the cigarette companies were advertising filter cigarettes and then "light" cigarettes. Everybody thought that by lowering "tar and nicotine" they were taking out the bad stuff.
As it happens, in smoke, tar is the vehicle that carries nicotine into the lungs for absorption. Thus if you lower the tar (by using special filters, for example), the amount of nicotine is automatically lowered. The reason that "light" cigarettes backfired is due to an unforeseen and unintended consequence. Smokers unconsciously compensated for the missing nicotine in a number of ways: by smoking more cigarettes, by inhaling more deeply, by covering the extra air holes near the filter that they didn't even realize were there. So the cases of COPD and lung cancer didn't go down at all.
The smoking-related diseases are caused by the tar, carbon monoxide, particulates, and thousands of chemicals that are newly created by the process of combustion. In other words, it's the smoke that kills, not the nicotine. Take away the smoke and you immediately eliminate the risk of lung disease and greatly reduce the risks of heart disease and stroke. Most of the cancer-causing chemicals are also created when the tobacco is burned.
However, tobacco itself does contain some naturally occuring carcinogens called Tobacco-specific Nitrosamines (TSNAs). At one time, all the smokeless tobacco products had high levels of TSNAs. Scientists in Sweden worked on ways to reduce the TSNA levels in tobacco both via the growing and via the curing process. As a result, smokers who switched to the low-TSNA Swedish snus (a type of moist snuff), live just as long as, and have the same level of health risks as those former smokers who became totally abstinent. US tobacco companies now offer low-nitrosamine smokeless tobacco products, as well as the new dissolvable tobacco products such as orbs (like a Nicorette lozenge), strips, and sticks.
Our e-liquids are made from pharmaceutical grade nicotine (same as used in patches, gum, and lozenges) and contain extremely low levels of TSNAs.
If you are interested in the comparative levels of TSNAs, there is a table in my presentation to the FDA on Dissolvable Tobacco products, here:
http://www.casaa.org/files/CASAA_Dissolvables_110722.pdf
...do you really want me to quit vaping?"
