Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 170 posts

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#81

Post by unlucky »

pvnick wrote: post #32

E-Cigarettes are going to save millions of lives in the coming years. They're harmless, and, if you get a brand that feels like the real thing, easy to transition to. I hope the tobacco industry takes a huge financial hit from the sale of these things because they literally prevent people from dying. That being said, when I switched to e-cigarettes, it was very easy to switch back to regular cigarettes. That "narrow…

"I hope the tobacco industry takes a huge financial hit from the sale of these things because they literally prevent people from dying."

From what I can tell, the tobacco industry is going to eventually own the e-cig market too.

http://money.msn.com/investing/big-tobacco-invests-in-e-ciga... http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57588583/

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#82

Post by Alex3917 »

hristov wrote: post #77
pvnick wrote: post #32

E-Cigarettes are going to save millions of lives in the coming years. They're harmless, and, if you get a brand that feels like the real thing, easy to transition to. I hope the tobacco industry takes a huge financial hit from the sale of these things because they literally prevent people from dying. That being said, when I switched to e-cigarettes, it was very easy to switch back to regular cigarettes. That "narrow…

1. E-cigarettes are not harmless and I wish people would stop perpetuating that lie. It is not clear exactly how harmful they are, but they are not harmless. 2. Ecig marketers are trying to push this story line of e-cigs vs the tobacco industry. It is mostly bs as the major ecig company blu is owned by a major tobacco company and every other major tobacco company has an ecig line now. The ecig industry is the tobacco…

> E-cigarettes are not harmless and I wish people would stop perpetuating that lie.

They might be fairly harmless, we don't know. The three biggest risks of smoking are cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. For a casual smoker, heart disease is by far the biggest risk. This is caused by the carbon monoxide, and eCigs have zero of this. There's also no reason to think that they cause emphysema. In terms of cancer, the majority of the carcinogenic effect of cigarrettes is thought to be caused by radiation rather than by the tobacco itself. So with eCigs you can easily wash off the radiation from the tobacco, or else just use synthetic nicotine or other drugs.

Since the industry is completely unregulated I'm sure these things are filled with all sorts of poison, but even still there are no currently known risks. And even if there are risks, which there likely are, it's not clear that they'll be any bigger than, say, drinking the occasional glass of wine. And it's also likely that once we figure out what these risks are, we'll be able to mitigate them.

I certainly wouldn't use these things today, but in twenty or thirty years they may well be a really good bet.

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#83

Post by pandaman »

hristov wrote: post #77
pvnick wrote: post #32

E-Cigarettes are going to save millions of lives in the coming years. They're harmless, and, if you get a brand that feels like the real thing, easy to transition to. I hope the tobacco industry takes a huge financial hit from the sale of these things because they literally prevent people from dying. That being said, when I switched to e-cigarettes, it was very easy to switch back to regular cigarettes. That "narrow…

1. E-cigarettes are not harmless and I wish people would stop perpetuating that lie. It is not clear exactly how harmful they are, but they are not harmless. 2. Ecig marketers are trying to push this story line of e-cigs vs the tobacco industry. It is mostly bs as the major ecig company blu is owned by a major tobacco company and every other major tobacco company has an ecig line now. The ecig industry is the tobacco…

I'd like to see any citation for #1.

For #2 you need to prove that if there exists s in S and s has property X then every element t in S also has property X.

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#84

Post by [deleted] »

hristov wrote: post #77
pvnick wrote: post #32

E-Cigarettes are going to save millions of lives in the coming years. They're harmless, and, if you get a brand that feels like the real thing, easy to transition to. I hope the tobacco industry takes a huge financial hit from the sale of these things because they literally prevent people from dying. That being said, when I switched to e-cigarettes, it was very easy to switch back to regular cigarettes. That "narrow…

1. E-cigarettes are not harmless and I wish people would stop perpetuating that lie. It is not clear exactly how harmful they are, but they are not harmless. 2. Ecig marketers are trying to push this story line of e-cigs vs the tobacco industry. It is mostly bs as the major ecig company blu is owned by a major tobacco company and every other major tobacco company has an ecig line now. The ecig industry is the tobacco…

[deleted]

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#85

Post by Lambdanaut »

hristov wrote: post #77
pvnick wrote: post #32

E-Cigarettes are going to save millions of lives in the coming years. They're harmless, and, if you get a brand that feels like the real thing, easy to transition to. I hope the tobacco industry takes a huge financial hit from the sale of these things because they literally prevent people from dying. That being said, when I switched to e-cigarettes, it was very easy to switch back to regular cigarettes. That "narrow…

1. E-cigarettes are not harmless and I wish people would stop perpetuating that lie. It is not clear exactly how harmful they are, but they are not harmless. 2. Ecig marketers are trying to push this story line of e-cigs vs the tobacco industry. It is mostly bs as the major ecig company blu is owned by a major tobacco company and every other major tobacco company has an ecig line now. The ecig industry is the tobacco…

I agree that they're not harmless. They're addictive, and being forced into reliance on a substance is never good.

Though, this is the only detriment we know of.

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#86

Post by fein »

jimzvz wrote: post #64
scotth wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an e-cig user, and an ex-smoker. There are five of us now in my group of friends. I love the things. It's become a fun hobby for us. We swap flavours, buy hardware to show off, and talk about our experience whenever we're together. Way more fun than smoking ever was. And, take this with a grain of salt (sample size of one), but I feel way better. No more coughing in the mornings, I take hills on my bike like a p…

> And, take this with a grain of salt (sample size of one), but I feel way better. No more coughing in the mornings, I take hills on my bike like a pro, and I'd swear I look healthier. This is the same for me. A huge thing for me is that the tiredness that I feel when I smoke is nonexistent on ecigs.

Here's another anecdote for the train!

Quit smoking in about 1 month from vaping, and that was 2-3 years ago. It's an awesome hobby, I have great stamina, and I can taste food. For the last year or so I've been riding a bike to work every day, averaging about 6-8 miles.

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#87

Post by mikestew »

gwern wrote: post #31
deskglass wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I tried e-cigs as a replacement for coffee...it is probably healthier." I'll grant that vaporization ameliorates the problems merely caused by smoke inhalation, but doesn't inhaling nicotine cause many health problems on its own? I'll also not aware of there being health issues that result from drinking a normal amount of tea or coffee.

> but doesn't inhaling nicotine cause many health problems on its own? Nicotine on its own causes very little harm. (A word of advice, though, if you decide to read up on this topic: it is extremely common in the research literature to lazily conflate tobacco with nicotine. You will routinely find abstracts which say something like 'we sampled smokers...' and then in the conclusion write '...we conclude that nicotine…

> it is extremely common in the research literature to lazily conflate tobacco with nicotine.

It is also assumed that the tobacco is burned. Sure, snuff can cause oral cancer (unlikely though it may be in comparison to cigarettes), but if you dodge the oral cancer bullet what are the other potential problems? I have no idea because everything I find conflates tobacco use with burning it and inhaling it. Smoking is bad, we get it. Smoking automotive tires is probably bad, too. How about the effects of tobacco itself, separate from the bad effects of burning something and inhaling it?

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#88

Post by mistercow »

fbellag wrote: post #73
dhughes wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safer according to what study? People just assume they are safer.

Yes, I know I do assume they are safer. If the ecig industry were regulated, then we could make sure the liquid has no or minimal side effects. In my country it is worse because ecigs are forbidden (given that uncertainity), so we have a black market for ecigs, making the quality of the liquids even more quetionable. I know tobacco is really bad, and I have doubts about ecig. So, I give the benefit of the doubt, as i…

Honestly, I have doubts that there's much bad going to come of unregulated liquid. They're very simple solutions with few ingredients, and there isn't that much room to screw it up. If you bought ingredients from China, you might end up with VG and PG that weren't actually VG or PG, so there's one avenue. But the same thing happened with toothpaste years back, and toothpaste is regulated.

I'd actually be more concerned about the hardware than the liquid. It would be easy to cut costs by using unsafe materials for heating elements, solder, or the wicks. But even with all of that risk, you're going to have a hell of a time beating the harm of cigarettes.

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#89

Post by mistercow »

hristov wrote: post #77
pvnick wrote: post #32

E-Cigarettes are going to save millions of lives in the coming years. They're harmless, and, if you get a brand that feels like the real thing, easy to transition to. I hope the tobacco industry takes a huge financial hit from the sale of these things because they literally prevent people from dying. That being said, when I switched to e-cigarettes, it was very easy to switch back to regular cigarettes. That "narrow…

1. E-cigarettes are not harmless and I wish people would stop perpetuating that lie. It is not clear exactly how harmful they are, but they are not harmless. 2. Ecig marketers are trying to push this story line of e-cigs vs the tobacco industry. It is mostly bs as the major ecig company blu is owned by a major tobacco company and every other major tobacco company has an ecig line now. The ecig industry is the tobacco…

>The ecig industry is the tobacco industry.

A large part of the ecig industry is small businesses making liquid and selling it out of little shops and small websites. We have two of these shops in my little Podunk town now. It's kind of amazing to see, and I wonder how long it will manage to last.

I doubt that the future of ecigs is going to be these shitty disposable toys and prepackaged cartridges. Everyone I've known who started on ecigs pretty quickly moved on to higher quality refillable deals.

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#90

Post by cdcarter »

300bps wrote: post #28
anextio wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am starting to see people puffing on these stupid e-cigarettes in restaurants that ban cigarette smoking. Most reasonable people in the vaping community discourage that kind of behavior. At the end of the day, there will always be assholes. > The FDA is collecting reports of adverse effects and there are plenty There are four ingredients in e-cigarette juice: propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, nicotine, and fl…

Because humans aren't rational machines and there are many things that cause people to take up habits that aren't healthy I get this, but usually there is some substantial benefit to the habit. To start smoking cigarettes today, you are well aware of the fact that it will: 1. Make you less healthy while you are alive 2. Will prematurely end your life 3. Will make you reviled by a large portion of the population 4. Wi…

Well first of all, and as much as your deep-set hatred for smoking may not let you see it, you get a MUCH different feeling from a long drag on an American Spirit than you do from smacking yourself in the head with a hammer. One can be described as quite pleasant, the other quite...blunt.

I'm not a regular smoker, but I'll take a drag from a friend's every few months, and I enjoy it. But I also lost a family member to lung cancer, so I am particularly careful.

From my own anecdotal evidence, people start smoking in three ways: 1) Started as a kid under 16. Usually through parental influence (if they're smoking around the house a lot, you become very likely to). Otherwise through peer pressure (cool kids behind the bleachers). 2) Started while drunk. See the sister-comment for details. 3) Dated a smoker. This one will get ya, and definitely was the closest I ever got to smoking regularly. Once you get used to the smell of it, the taste of it, the release of a post-coital cig... I'm sure you can imagine how it can be to be deeply in love with someone and have incredible sense-memory connections with their brand of cigarettes.

Hopefully this might give you a little more compassion for people who have become smokers through any avenue, and instead of mocking them for their choices, help them seek cessation therapy.

Post reply on HN