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Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

nytimes.com

111–120 of 259 posts

Re: Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

#111
To me, vaping appears to be a significantly less harmful to the body than smoking: vaping is just inhaling steam infused with nicotine where as in smoking the fumes of combustion are being inhaled. I also think with vaping there also no risk of passive smoking. I am in amazement of WHO and other health bodies dragging their feet in declaring vaping almost harmless compared to smoking.

Re: Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

#112
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point but as I understand it, the source of the nicotine for those liquids is tobacco.

To his point, the source of the caffeine in coke is coffee.

Caffeine is cheaply synthesized, and that’s almost certainly what soda manufacturers use in their products.

Re: Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

#114
post #19
post #2

I think it is very important for everyone to keep in mind that vaping is probably safer than smoking. But it might not be, we don't know for sure. And it is certainly worse than not consuming any tobacco product. So trying to encourage active smokers to switch to vaping is probably beneficial, but increasing overall tobacco consumption rates is bad.

I agree that for traditional tobacco smokers it is likely a net-positive, and it is potentially a tool they can use to reduce their nicotine intake and even eliminate it altogether. The concern with the latest explosion in schools, however, is the significant number of kids getting addicted to nicotine who may not otherwise have tried smoking traditional cigarettes. The nicotine level in a Juul pod is incredibly high…

> The concern [is] kids getting addicted to nicotine

Non-snarky question: why is that a concern? Nicotine -- in the absence of burning tobacco -- isn't bad for you.

Re: Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

#115

>The 2017 Monitoring the Future survey on adolescent drug use found that 11 percent of 12th graders, 8.5 percent of 10th graders and 3.5 percent of 8th graders had vaped nicotine in the previous 30 days. Of those high school seniors, 24 percent reported vaping daily, which the study defined as vaping on 20 or more occasions in the previous 30 days I'm sorry, but is [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact…

Explosion refers to the increase rate in those percentages, not to the percentages themselves. Example: expecting in a relatively short amount of time, say, 0.1% and getting 4% qualifies as explosion to me.

Re: Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father's been smoking for over 50 years. I got him to switch to mostly vaping last year. The difference in his health has been profound. It almost eliminated his coughing, increased his ability to walk distances. His doctor was amazed at his last checkup. She said she couldn't recommend it to patients due to the uncertainties, but encouraged him to keep doing whatever it is that he's doing. Edit: I bought him the…

Another benefit I've seen a number of times is that people seems to have an easier time quitting. (Based on my sample of The pattern, as explained to me and IIRC, was as follows: Started vaping insteadof smoking. Tried vape with less nicotine. Worked equally well. Tried with half strength. Tried with even less. Also worked. At this point it just felt silly so they just stopped. (Note that these where young people.)

Cigarette companies devote significant resources to building the positive feedback loop to increase the addictiveness of their products (the experience of unwrapping the cellophane packaging is a classic example). Vapes are a much more straightforward delivery method that lack these enhancements.

Of course there's some parallels there for the software world, like the endless A/B testing social-media sites do to maximize the amount of time people spend glued to their product.

Re: Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

#117

What should the vaping kids do instead of vaping?

There was a golden era about 10 years ago where it looked like smoking was finally going to be conquered. The cessation aids were working. Smoking rates were plummeting. It wasn't cool anymore. It was no longer an impossible problem - people could quit and never look back. Then vaping screwed it all up. I hate the myth - which I assumed is being propagated by the companies that profit off of it - that vaping was a re…

> No.

Yes. In my social circle a whole bunch of us switched from smoking a pack+/day to vaping, about 10 years ago.

Re: Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

#118

To me, vaping appears to be a significantly less harmful to the body than smoking: vaping is just inhaling steam infused with nicotine where as in smoking the fumes of combustion are being inhaled. I also think with vaping there also no risk of passive smoking. I am in amazement of WHO and other health bodies dragging their feet in declaring vaping almost harmless compared to smoking.

I’ve used the odd vape here and there to stop smoking and I 100% agree with you that it’s safer than cigarettes but it’s way to early to say that it’s wholly “safe”. The problem is that if you declare it safe then everyone and their dog will start vaping, (which then amplifies any outlier problems as there are more data sources. Aka teens). The unfortunate thing is we likely won’t see any declarations one way or another for a few years now. The only way to see the true costs associated with vaping is to let time take its course. 15 years from now we will have a better idea of what daily vaping does to the human body and how safe it really is.

Re: Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

#119
post #2

I think it is very important for everyone to keep in mind that vaping is probably safer than smoking. But it might not be, we don't know for sure. And it is certainly worse than not consuming any tobacco product. So trying to encourage active smokers to switch to vaping is probably beneficial, but increasing overall tobacco consumption rates is bad.

My father's been smoking for over 50 years. I got him to switch to mostly vaping last year. The difference in his health has been profound. It almost eliminated his coughing, increased his ability to walk distances. His doctor was amazed at his last checkup. She said she couldn't recommend it to patients due to the uncertainties, but encouraged him to keep doing whatever it is that he's doing. Edit: I bought him the…

The UK's NHS says "particularly if you've already tried other methods of quitting smoking without success, you might want to give e-cigarettes a go" and "according to current evidence on e-cigarettes, they carry a fraction of the risk of cigarettes."

https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/smoking/Pages/e-cigarettes.aspx

Re: Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion

#120

>The 2017 Monitoring the Future survey on adolescent drug use found that 11 percent of 12th graders, 8.5 percent of 10th graders and 3.5 percent of 8th graders had vaped nicotine in the previous 30 days. Of those high school seniors, 24 percent reported vaping daily, which the study defined as vaping on 20 or more occasions in the previous 30 days I'm sorry, but is [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact…

Explosion refers to the increase rate in those percentages, not to the percentages themselves. Example: expecting in a relatively short amount of time, say, 0.1% and getting 4% qualifies as explosion to me.

Obviously the rate increased, it's a fairly new device. Nintendo Switch must've went nuclear. Pokemon Go caused utter annihiliation.
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