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NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

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Re: NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did my research before letting coffee loose on my body. The coffee acts by blocking tiredness/sleep receptors on the brain, so brain builds more of them to work normally. This is how coffee dependence and tolerance builds. When you stop coffee, brain detects that the number of receptors is too high and starts to break them down. This is why you get the headaches. That "one week" period is not an edge case, it's the…

> I did my research before letting coffee loose on my body. Was this research similar to you drawing conclusions about nicotine based on the handful of your friends that vape?

Yes. I read papers about both subjects. Also read papers about other drugs because of an addicted friend who I don't talk with anymore.

What I gave was an example, and looks like you're upset about it.

Please keep in mind that while itsoktocry, itsnotoktosnark at HN [0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what’s so bad about nicotine? Is it any worse than caffeine? I’m genuinely curious, because isn’t tar and carbon monoxide the dangerous byproduct of smoking, not the nicotine?

Nicotine addiction is chronic and very hard to break. You can reset caffeine tolerance and dependence in 10 days.

Can you link a study for this? I'd like to read more.

Re: NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

#103
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opium War 2.0 - we have too much inertia to stop the "good times", and while everyone had the right to ruin their bodies, they're doing it out of complete ignorance. The Western relationship to addictive substances is insane, and I hate to admit this, but to a certain extent Wang Huning's thesis about America is right.

But smoking and coffee are still popular throughout the rest of the world, and I don't think we top the leaderboard in alcohol consumption...

Tobacco usage in the US is much higher than peers in other developed countries [0] due to limited sin taxes and lack of enforcement of black market tobacco sales (eg. Cigarette smuggling).

Also, our rate of spirits consumption is higher than most developed countries and comparable to Russia [1]. Most other developed countries tend to stick to beer and wine.

[0] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-smoke

[1] - https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption

Re: NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a word, that it is a civilization without society, or perhaps a society without culture, which (by this lack) is engineering its own decay.

Not exactly. It's hard to translate but I'd recommend taking a read.

You wouldn't say "civilization without society" is pretty close to your first two paragraphs in your comment? Maybe I need a refresher.

Re: NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

#105

I just want my mango pods back... Seems really arbitrary to ban things on a flavor by flavor basis. I don't see anybody banning fruity flavored vodka.

I just get the tobacco flavored pods, use them up, and refill with various nicotine salt liquids. I get ten to twenty refills out of a cartridge.

Haven't found a juice that matches the OG mango pods but I have a few in rotation that I like. I do miss the brief Cambrian explosion in third-party pods, before the FDA decided that "the youf" should switch to disposables, but at this point I'm just grateful that Juul is still in business, it's pretty much in a class of its own.

Re: NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

#106
post #32

It really is amazing. We were thiiiiiiis close to having a generation that wasn't addicted to nicotine for the first time in hundreds of years (like, since trade between North America and Europe really became a thing) and these guys pulled this thumb drive that tastes like cotton candy out of nowhere and every young person is just jonesing . And the regulatory/public opinion environment isn't what it was in the 80s a…

We socialized people to realize smoking is dirty, then went ahead and legalized marijuana so now kids who would never have smoked cigarettes are filling their lungs with tar: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/14/health/marijuana-smoke-wellne... . At least cigarettes made people skinny and hot.

Way more of those kids are vaping marijuana, which has an orders of magnitude lower threat profile than both smoking AND tobacco vape oil rigs.

Also, even full smoking of marijuana is less dirty than smoking cigs, and a significant amount of marijuana smokers use things like bongs, bubblers, and other water filtration systems which do (slightly) reduce the harm of the smoke.

Marijuana is straight up harm reduction over big tobacco.

Re: NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

#107
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what’s so bad about nicotine? Is it any worse than caffeine? I’m genuinely curious, because isn’t tar and carbon monoxide the dangerous byproduct of smoking, not the nicotine?

Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known to man. Quitting cigarettes is about as hard as quitting heroin. In contrast, quitting coffee is much, much easier. On a more personal note, when "The King's Speech" was in theaters I kept watching people smoke cigarettes on screen, and went out and bought some Drum. (Loose tobacco that comes with rolling papers.) Within a few days I started getting a voice in my…

Nicotine is only addictive when the delivery method causes a concentration/time spike in the bloodstream. Cigarettes, vaping, and gum in particular cause large concentration spikes, but many other delivery mechanisms do not.

I've been on nicotine patches for several years (treating ADHD - very effective) and I'm not addicted at all. I still forget and my wife often has to remind me to put on one! There are no reports to the contrary among patch users.

In fact, even moderate pipe smoking reportedly isn't addictive - although it certainly is pleasurable (partly due to the nicotine, but mostly due to other compounds in the smoke). Pipe tobacco doesn't have all the additives (and nicotine salts) that cigarettes have; moreover, unlike cigarette smoking, pipe smoking normally does not involve inhalation—all of which smoothes and limits the nicotine blood concentration/time curve significantly compared to cigarettes and vaping, thus eliminating most of the addictive potential.

More info on nicotine itself - this is essentially a very broad bibliography with some commentary mixed in: https://gwern.net/nicotine

Re: NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

#108
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately people perform better when they have nicotine. This is the first time I've ever heard someone bring this argument. Ignoring the health risks involved with nicotine, the 'performance boost' is negligible. It's less than caffeine. > but we are way too quick to dismiss the possibility that nicotine itself may have been a civilization booster. There are nicotine gums and patches available, and a very good…

> A silly question, but why not just distribute cocaine or Adderall without prescription if you're concerned about performance? Where do you draw the line ? In certain parts of society that is what happens, including fun places like the European Parliament. If you were to test YC applicants for Adderall (illicit or otherwise) I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were over half of them, and if you would be surprised y…

I understand that it's ongoing and I'm by no means naïve, I'm no stranger to Adderall myself but what is being suggested is to have these substances as freely available as nicotine is today. I'm not suggesting to ban nicotine but I don't think it should be considered some kind of measurable performance improvement.

That said, I really don't know, it just doesn't seem right with me but I'm happy to be proven wrong and I see another interesting comment of someone who does use patches. So it's interesting, and strange to me.

Re: NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

#109
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what’s so bad about nicotine? Is it any worse than caffeine? I’m genuinely curious, because isn’t tar and carbon monoxide the dangerous byproduct of smoking, not the nicotine?

Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known to man. Quitting cigarettes is about as hard as quitting heroin. In contrast, quitting coffee is much, much easier. On a more personal note, when "The King's Speech" was in theaters I kept watching people smoke cigarettes on screen, and went out and bought some Drum. (Loose tobacco that comes with rolling papers.) Within a few days I started getting a voice in my…

It must depend on the person. I used to smoke and drink coffee and it was much easier for me to quit smoking. I just stopped one day (12 years ago) and never looked back.

In contrast quitting caffeine took me several tries and I had to very carefully taper over the course of months to eventually be able to do it.

I also quit alcohol and that was pretty easy too. I used to drink every day and then I stopped without much trouble.

Re: NYU professors who defended vaping didn't disclose ties to Juul

#110
post #78
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately people perform better when they have nicotine. This is the first time I've ever heard someone bring this argument. Ignoring the health risks involved with nicotine, the 'performance boost' is negligible. It's less than caffeine. > but we are way too quick to dismiss the possibility that nicotine itself may have been a civilization booster. There are nicotine gums and patches available, and a very good…

It’s that crazy… I’m a masters degree student who has used nicotine in the form of low-dose patches and oral pouches as a cognitive enhancer for many years. Never felt compelled to use nicotine outside of focused work at the library and I also maintain a high level of cardiovascular fitness.

That's really interesting actually, I've never heard of this. What gave you the idea of using nicotine in the first place ? Do you also use caffeine etc ?
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