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Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

nytimes.com

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Re: Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

#181

Post by stale2002 »

redblacktree wrote: post #155
the_watcher wrote: post #147

It's only briefly alluded to in the piece, indirectly at that, but one of the most frustrating things about vice taxes is that they are sold as methods to disincentivize behavior, but as governments use the revenue, as that behavior falls, there's a tendency to try to create an equivalent tax on the new behavior. The worst of these are the periodic proposals for a "mileage tax" on high efficiency vehicles in states l…

Gasoline taxes aren't "vice taxes." They're usage taxes that pay for the maintenance of roads and bridges.

They are absolutely a vice tax.

Every time you drive your car, you damage the road, increase traffic congestion, and put toxic chemicals into the air.

The purpose of a gas tax is to discourage marginal usage.

Since driving is more expensive, it makes that person who was deciding between driving their car or taking a bike to work and makes them just a little bit more likely to use the bike.

Re: Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

#182

Post by hueving »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #35
inimino wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about sugar?

Sugar does cause some harm (obesity and associated health costs). Its tax should be commensurate with this harm. However, it is used in both healthy and unhealthy foods, so perhaps the tax should be on unhealthy foods rather than on the sugar itself.

I don't believe wine is considered unhealthy in small amounts either.

Re: Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

#183

Post by SamReidHughes »

KirinDave wrote: post #125
alexdumitru wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You scared me a bit, as I'm using 0.25 ohm. Can you explain what's the problem or provide some resources to read? I was pretty scared of ecigs before, seeing so many exploding.

Okay, so... Extremely simplified (slightly incorrect) but good rule of thumb for you at the end. What happens when you hotwire a battery (a wire between positive and negative)? Current flows, discharging the battery but also often melting or exploding the battery. Normally current flow is the whole reason for a battery, but why is hotwiring bad as opposed to tossing a LED+resistor in the circuit? In a circuit, heat a…

It's really just that the current is less.

Re: Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

#184

Post by indigo_rex »

Spooky23 wrote: post #38

How do you know they are safer? My understanding was that many ingredients, particularly for flavored formulas are proprietary and unknown.

"If you’re reading this as a member of the public, please don’t be put off by the conflicting headlines – we all agree cigarettes are bad for you, most of us agree vaping is probably much safer than smoking regular cigarettes, and if you’re a smoker we all really want our research to help you to quit. Don’t let us get in the way."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/sifting-the-evidence/201...

Re: Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

#185

Post by deadmik3 »

thirdsun wrote: post #14

For anyone looking to quit smoking I can't recommend e-cigarettes enough. As a very passionate former smoker I got off the habit pretty much accidentally and without even trying in a timeframe of about half a year. And it actually started with the intend to find a cheaper alternative to expensive cigarettes without any desire to quit. The key is to steadily reduce the amount of nicotine in the liquid you're using. On…

Smoked until I got an ecig (not one of the huge monsters, just a cheap $20 refillable) then smoked that until it broke then I didn't really want to smoke anymore

Re: Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

#186

Post by the_watcher »

redblacktree wrote: post #155
the_watcher wrote: post #147

It's only briefly alluded to in the piece, indirectly at that, but one of the most frustrating things about vice taxes is that they are sold as methods to disincentivize behavior, but as governments use the revenue, as that behavior falls, there's a tendency to try to create an equivalent tax on the new behavior. The worst of these are the periodic proposals for a "mileage tax" on high efficiency vehicles in states l…

Gasoline taxes aren't "vice taxes." They're usage taxes that pay for the maintenance of roads and bridges.

If the gas tax was pitched and passed as a usage tax, rather than as an incentive for purchasing more efficient vehicles, I'd have a different perspective on moving to a mileage tax. However, in California, at least some gas taxes were pitched and passed as vice taxes, and the mileage tax here was explicitly pitched to replace the revenue generated by it (by at least one CA representative). Thankfully, thus far we've resisted.

Related: a usage tax for maintenance of roads and bridges has a far simpler option than taxing gas that may be used in boats, tractors, and other non-road uses: toll roads, which tax everyone who uses the roads equivalently. And before anyone argues that such a tax is regressive: a gas tax is far more regressive, as those with older, less efficient vehicles are hit harder than those with the money to buy a Tesla.

Re: Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

#187

Post by randyrand »

badsock wrote: post #129
thirdsun wrote: post #14

For anyone looking to quit smoking I can't recommend e-cigarettes enough. As a very passionate former smoker I got off the habit pretty much accidentally and without even trying in a timeframe of about half a year. And it actually started with the intend to find a cheaper alternative to expensive cigarettes without any desire to quit. The key is to steadily reduce the amount of nicotine in the liquid you're using. On…

This, IMO, is a good reason to legalize and regulate all drugs, including hard drugs like heroin and meth. The user having the tools to regulate the potency and amount of the drug in order to use this taper-down strategy is not available via the black market.

why not?

diluting drugs is not hard. many dealers dilute the drugs for you!

Re: Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

#188

Post by the_watcher »

stale2002 wrote: post #181
redblacktree wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gasoline taxes aren't "vice taxes." They're usage taxes that pay for the maintenance of roads and bridges.

They are absolutely a vice tax. Every time you drive your car, you damage the road, increase traffic congestion, and put toxic chemicals into the air. The purpose of a gas tax is to discourage marginal usage. Since driving is more expensive, it makes that person who was deciding between driving their car or taking a bike to work and makes them just a little bit more likely to use the bike.

Yea, the argument that it's a usage tax falls apart when you point out that, even before the movement to fuel efficient vehicles, a gas tax always applied to different people differently, regardless of their usage, as so many cars get different mileage, require more expensive forms of gas, etc. Unless someone somehow tries to make an argument that the variation in tax burden is somehow progressive (which is ridiculous unless they're arguing that wealthy people as a rule drive less efficient cars), then there's really no way to claim that it's actually a use tax.

Re: Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

#189

Post by jwr »

Safe or not for smokers, non-smokers should certainly not have to inhale the same substances that smokers do. I find it alarming that e-cigarette marketing managed to convince smokers that what gets exhaled is just "water vapor", and thus they can now smoke anywhere they want.

Re: Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace

#190

Post by vertex-four »

KirinDave wrote: post #125
alexdumitru wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You scared me a bit, as I'm using 0.25 ohm. Can you explain what's the problem or provide some resources to read? I was pretty scared of ecigs before, seeing so many exploding.

Okay, so... Extremely simplified (slightly incorrect) but good rule of thumb for you at the end. What happens when you hotwire a battery (a wire between positive and negative)? Current flows, discharging the battery but also often melting or exploding the battery. Normally current flow is the whole reason for a battery, but why is hotwiring bad as opposed to tossing a LED+resistor in the circuit? In a circuit, heat a…

> You can engineer circuits around this problem in a variety of ways, but the cavemun solution is just to give the battery time to discharge the heat by transferring the charge to an intermediate element

Of course, most people use regulated mods which do just that.

As someone who vapes, I wouldn't be opposed to banning the sale of mechanical mods (i.e. mods which are literally just a battery, a button and a resistance element in a circuit). They're dangerous. On the other hand, people would just build them themselves, they're not difficult.

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