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

nytimes.com

211–220 of 269 posts

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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It varies with the type of drug, definitely. Most people can’t just kick opiates once addicted; often they end up just abusing methadone instead of heroin or pills. But I think addicts don’t generally want to be addicts. In this case, legalisation and regulation of a different drug—kratom—could help users self-rehabilitate. Kratom is to opiates much as e-cigs are to cigarettes—some of the effects, but far milder, mor…

Yeah, Kratom definitely has a lot of potential to do a lot of good for opiate addicts. I disagree with the analogy to e-cigs though. With e-cigs you can put a much stronger concentration of nicotine in each hit depending on the liquid used. It's still exactly the same chemical, ie. nicotine, binding to the exact same receptors in the same way. With Kratom, you are binding to the same receptors as opiates, but it's a…

Sorry, I was being unclear. I was speaking only in terms of addictive potential and difficulty of quitting. MAOIs in cigarettes make them more addictive than e-cigs (nicotine alone) as the different action of other opiates makes them more addictive than mitragynine.

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

#212
post #2

The reality is that tobacco taxes fund a lot of the government, and there is no replacement for that income source if people stop smoking cigarettes. Thus the tobacco companies are happy to lobby against e-cigarettes to protect their revenue stream and the government is happy to support them because it's their revenue stream too. It's unfortunate, because it's largely a tax on the poor. The rich can afford prescripti…

I heard alot of lobbying by tobacco has an end goal of putting the third party ecig industry out to pasture(high regulatory standards) so they can seize it themselves sans any price competition with every taobao vendor in China.

They see the future is ecigs but realize it's a race to the bottom in profits.

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

#213
post #2

The reality is that tobacco taxes fund a lot of the government, and there is no replacement for that income source if people stop smoking cigarettes. Thus the tobacco companies are happy to lobby against e-cigarettes to protect their revenue stream and the government is happy to support them because it's their revenue stream too. It's unfortunate, because it's largely a tax on the poor. The rich can afford prescripti…

I heard alot of lobbying by tobacco has an end goal of putting the third party ecig industry out to pasture(high regulatory standards) so they can seize it themselves sans any price competition with every taobao vendor in China.

They see the future is ecigs but realize it's a race to the bottom in profits.

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

#214
post #21
post #2

The reality is that tobacco taxes fund a lot of the government, and there is no replacement for that income source if people stop smoking cigarettes. Thus the tobacco companies are happy to lobby against e-cigarettes to protect their revenue stream and the government is happy to support them because it's their revenue stream too. It's unfortunate, because it's largely a tax on the poor. The rich can afford prescripti…

> Thus the tobacco companies are happy to lobby against e-cigarettes I saw this on Reddit a while back, someone pointed out that "we get it, you vape" was probably introduced by tobacco companies to create a stigma around the practice. I'm a quitting smoker, on vape (RBA) and it bloody works. If only there were such great tools for quitting other addictions.

I remember that thread. I think someone mentioned big tobacco realizes the future is vape but wants to kill thier current ecig market competitors via the law. It's a race to the bottom with Chinese ecig vendors unless the law bans them or greatly reduces their ability to sell in the USA.... Assuming It's truly harmless, they don't have to worry about being taxed/sued like crazy or severe advertising restrictions anymore... Ecigs are a no Brainer for any tobacco exec.

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

#215
post #200

I find it really interesting that the bulk of the comments here are about folks using them as a smoking cessation aid. In my case, every friend I know who's started using e-cigarettes took them up without having an existing tobacco habit. Some of them add nicotine to the vape juice, some don't. I don't know how common this is, but it's certainly given vaping a negative impression for me. At the very least, it seems l…

You sure they're not vaping weed?

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

#216
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Went from 18mg to 0 in the last 6 months of me using. Continued using 0 nic for 2 months. Now I am 8 months clean of all nicotine products and 6 months clean of ecigs in general. Congratulations! But being a non-smoker, I don't understand. Can you explain why you couldn't have cut down on nicotine by just smoking fewer cigarettes per day?

Because cigarettes deliver nicotine very, very fast, giving an instant and pleasant rush. After an hour or so the nicotine level in your blood has fallen quite a lot and you'll be craving another one. E-cig nicotine delivery happens slower and you avoid both the highs and the crashing lows. That makes it a lot easier to cut down to insignificant amounts of nicotine over a few months.

In a lot of drugs, euphoria is at least partially proportional to the rate of blood level increase, e.g. [1].

[1] http://www.dddmag.com/article/2009/07/question-opioid-euphor...

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

#217
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my experience as well. 10 years of smoking analogs lead me to ecigs. Used ecig for 3 years. Went from 18mg to 0 in the last 6 months of me using. Continued using 0 nic for 2 months. Now I am 8 months clean of all nicotine products and 6 months clean of ecigs in general. It was easy because of how gradual it was and that I was still able to satisfy the oral habit of smoking while kicking the chemical dependenc…

Same story here. Smoker for 20 years, been vaping for 2. Started at 18 mg, went to 12, then 9 (made this myself by mixing equal parts 12 and 6). Currently at 6 mg. Already have large quantities of 3 mg and 0 mg juice purchased. When my supply of one strength runs out, I move on to a lower one. I always make a point of sticking at each level for at least 2-3 months. This way I can be sure I've grown fully accustomed t…

I noticed the same - I tried to jump too quickly from 18 to 12 to 6 to 3, once I hit 3 I started smoking again. It's a nice way to wean yourself off and gives you a ton of options for flavor, ingestion, and strength

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

#218
post #44

I wonder about the culture around vaping. From my observations, pretty much everyone I see doing it is young and from appearances seem to be counter-culture. Doesn't mean they're bad people, but if they're the only one doing it, it doesn't make it mainstream.

Too be fair, smoking is already counter culture in the USA.

I'd imagine alot of reasons you don't see more vaping is age. Younger folks don't care as much(and smoke less in general) but some dude smoking malboro at 50 is far less likely to roll up with an ecig at a casual BBQ. Its a hard enough battle getting old people using email... Let alone vaping.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Kratom definitely has a lot of potential to do a lot of good for opiate addicts. I disagree with the analogy to e-cigs though. With e-cigs you can put a much stronger concentration of nicotine in each hit depending on the liquid used. It's still exactly the same chemical, ie. nicotine, binding to the exact same receptors in the same way. With Kratom, you are binding to the same receptors as opiates, but it's a…

Sorry, I was being unclear. I was speaking only in terms of addictive potential and difficulty of quitting. MAOIs in cigarettes make them more addictive than e-cigs (nicotine alone) as the different action of other opiates makes them more addictive than mitragynine.

I see. I wasn't aware of the MAOIs in tobacco. Though I wasn't able to find a good source on how much they might contribute to the addiction (lots of questions about it around the web though).

Do you happen to know of credible sources or studies which have looked at this?

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

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Because diesel is commonly used for non-vehicle purposes, diesel fuel is frequently marked with color to indicate if it was taxed at the vehicle rate or not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_fuel#Taxation However, if you're talking about a carbon tax instead of a roads maintenance tax, burning diesel or gas is the same, whether it's in a car or not.

A carbon tax is a vice tax, not a use tax.
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