A person has died from a vaping-related condition • Hacker News Board

Re: A person has died from a vaping-related condition

#131

Post by nucleardog » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

RhysU wrote: post #106

dmix wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A whole lot of society and social policy is about lesser of evils. It's about being realistic and practical. Which is something far more policy should be conscious of, instead of some idealistic perfect world you wish to impose on other people. Not to mention people could just as quickly harm themselves going to a 7/11 every day to eat carbs or driving a motorcycle or drinking alcohol or engaging in 'extreme' sports.…

> Not to mention people could just as quickly harm themselves going to a 7/11 every day to eat carbs or driving a motorcycle or drinking alcohol or engaging in 'extreme' sports. Motorcycling feels odd in that list of otherwise self-inflicted harms. Sure, one can run into brick wall in a solo accident. But, often it's someone else that kills the motorcyclist.

Technicality. You're still putting yourself into a situation that's known to have a high likelihood of resulting in your serious injury or death.

You're talking like if you were to run across a live gun range and get shot it's not really your fault, but instead it was the shooter that killed you.

That may be technically true but you knew the risks were basically a certainty and chose to do it anyway.

Re: A person has died from a vaping-related condition

#132

Post by nyolfen » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #68

noname120 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monoamine oxidase inhibitors [1] which are present in cigarettes seem to greatly contribute to the nicotine addictiveness. See this literature review from Gwern for more information. [2] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_inhibitor [2] https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine#addictiveness

How is gwern eliminating their own bias?

it’s a compilation of links to academic studies

Re: A person has died from a vaping-related condition

#133

Post by dazzawazza » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

EpicEng wrote: post #113

dazzawazza wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaping fumes trigger my asthma, there is all sorts of stuff in the second hand smoke. The smoking ban in the UK basically stopped me being admitted to hospital every few years and I appreciate that most bars/clubs have banned vaping inside (certainly in London).

I vape and I'm with you in that we cannot just assume it's benign. You do have to be careful of some studies which have shown things like Formaldehyde though as the conditions (far too hot, burning cotton, etc.) we just wrong. That said, would excessive water vapor trigger an attack? Water based fog machines have been known to[1], but are harmless for most people. The flavorings can add all sorts of bad crap though.…

I don't really know about fog machines. I've certainly had asthma in an environment with fog machines but people were also smoking and that's a definite trigger.

I was on a train a few years ago and had a very weird rapid-onset asthma attack while sitting down. I could feel something weird in the air and taste something very bitter. I looked around and someone was vaping behind me. You're not allowed to vape on UK trains so I guess they turned the "smoke" down? There was no visible cloud. Could easily be a coincidence but the lack of regulation for the "carrier" chemicals is a bit worrying.

Re: A person has died from a vaping-related condition

#134

Post by OrgNet » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

jowsie wrote: post #108

colechristensen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely nobody can say with any amount of certainty. There are vaporizers and liquids to treat very cautiously. Many materials you could make a vaporizer and especially the heating assembly would include hazardous offgassing. Likewise you would want to be very careful about knowing the source and content of liquids. They are essentially unregulated. Strangers on the internet selling you ingest to make a small amount o…

The DynaVap is a dry herb vaporiser. No liquids involved. As such, I'd assume it's as safe as whatever you put in it.

Some people spray herbs with some other drugs to make them more potent and/or addictive

Re: A person has died from a vaping-related condition

#135

Post by nyolfen » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

EdwardDiego wrote: post #119

singingfish wrote: post #14

I'm guessing that if this really is associated with vaping then it's likely due to the limited regulation of the ingredients. Bad batch of VG/PG/nicotine? Some problematic flavouring? I think the best article I've found is at the BMJ: https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l5228 - sorry, paywall. Very much inconslusive at the moment completely in the public health triage stage. Good idea to regulate it properly. I just…

From what I understand, some vaping liquids contain diacetyl, the culprit in "popcorn lung".

diacetyl is present in cigarettes at 700x the level of any vaping liquid containing it[1]; besides that there is no actual documented case of a vaper (or smoker) developing popcorn lung; afaik this has only happened to some employees at a popcorn factory. as others in the thread have mentioned, almost all juice manufacturers moved away from using diacetyl after this scare arose a few years ago.

[1] https://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/12/new-study-finds...

Re: A person has died from a vaping-related condition

#136

Post by nyolfen » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #95

szbalint wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to weight a complex set of circumstances: - smoking is an exceptionally harmful habit, so just by coming up with any other activity at random one is likely to end up healthier - this also means advising smokers to switch to vaping even without knowing the health effects of vaping makes sense - marketing vaping to non-smokers should be severely limited though - marketing vaping to kids like juul does, should b…

> marketing vaping to kids like juul does do/did they actually do this? I did a quick Google search and I can find a lot of articles making this claim but the only evidence given is that they have twenty-somethings and bright colors in their ads. if this is "marketing to kids", then that bar seems awfully low.

you are correct; people just get rightly alarmed that it took off with high school students. their marketing is pretty typical in that it’s aimed at young people but i’ve never seen anything particularly nefarious.

Re: A person has died from a vaping-related condition

#137

Post by nyolfen » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #105

decebalus1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vaping is in its infancy and already people's mantras sound like old Camel commercials. I agree. I'm one of the people who managed to quit smoking using vaping and at one point I had some sort of awakening. After vaping for a couple of years I stopped and asked myself what the hell am I doing? I had countless mods, juices, RDAs, RTAs, etc.. and was a frequent contributor to the electronic_cigarette subreddit. I rep…

you make some good points here, especially regarding the wide range of quality available in the vape market (gas station cig-a-likes vs rda with coils and juice you made yourself) and the echo chamber of r/electronic_cigarette, but I do want to point out that nic salts are not some scary weird thing. alkaloids (like nicotine) all have freebase and salt forms. usually the freebase has a lower boiling point, while the…

salts in vaping have less ‘hit’ (tingling sensation in the throat) and higher but slower absorption efficiency. i actually prefer freebase because it gives more feedback about the level of nicotine i’m taking in instead of accidentally pushing my blood pressure up noticeably five minutes later

Re: A person has died from a vaping-related condition

#138

Post by nyolfen » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 5:13 PM UTC

mirekrusin wrote: post #42

okcando wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep in mind that “vapor” is used to disguise that, in all cases whether nicotine or pot or etc, people are heating up a substance to its smoke point and inhaling that smoke. They use “vapor” because it sounds like “water vapor” - which is harmless - but it’s definitely not that. This is not true. It's producing an aerosol, partially by condensation of vapor produced by heating the glycerine and propylene glycol mi…

There are also “coils” that vibrate to create vapour which happens at room temperature.

wow, this is the first i’ve heard of that for vapes. any recommended reading?

Re: A person has died from a vaping-related condition

#139

Post by dmix » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

eurasiantiger wrote: post #116

macintux wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to get enthusiastic about something deadly and noxious just because it’s less noxious than something truly awful. Walking behind someone who was vaping recently is one of the least pleasant experiences I’ve had for a while.

Pure nicotine is not deadly, though. Plenty of studies have shown that.

It's very addictive though which was my main concern. Low nicotine counts == far easier time quitting

Re: A person has died from a vaping-related condition

#140

Post by WillPostForFood » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

EpicEng wrote: post #109

WillPostForFood wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article has a sentence touching on it, but other sources that almost all these cases of vaping related hospitalizations are from vaping THC, so the sourcing/manufacturing of the product is highly suspect. Who knows what drug dealers are using.

iirc THC was being used by a number of people affected, but they haven't yet gone as far as saying that "almost all these cases of vaping related hospitalizations are from vaping THC".

You are right, the national stories say many are THC, not most or all. I was conflating it with a local California story, where in Kings county where 8 people were hospitalized, and all had been tied to CBD oil:

The Kings County Department of Public Health, in rural central California, said it identified eight patients between ages 18 and 60 who developed lung illness after vaping products with CBD oils they had bought from unlicensed vendors.