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

131–140 of 170 posts

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#131

Post by pbreit »

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…

"harmless" isn't quite right but calling that a "lie" is likewise a stretch. If they are, say, less harmful than sugar, is it OK to call them harmless?

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#132

Post by pbreit »

chimeracoder wrote: post #100
Alex3917 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> They might be fairly harmless, we don't know. They might be less harmless (though we don't know that yet), but we can be fairly certain that they are least somewhat harmful. This is not like vaporizing cannabis - the desirable compounds in cannabis are not carcinogenic[0] and actually have cancer-fighting properties, and the main drawbacks to smoking cannabis come from the act of smoking, not from the substance. Ni…

If the bar is "somewhat harmful" then almost everything we put in our bodies would comply.

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#133

Post by Zigurd »

Lambdanaut wrote: post #85
hristov wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> They're addictive, and being forced into reliance on a substance is never good.

How bad is it? Unless I'm exercising hard, I'll get caffeine withdrawal symptoms if I stop drinking coffee. I have read of both beneficial and detrimental effects of caffeine. What's the threshold for considering the accompanying physical addiction a problem?

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#134

Post by DanBC »

Zigurd wrote: post #133
Lambdanaut wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> They're addictive, and being forced into reliance on a substance is never good. How bad is it? Unless I'm exercising hard, I'll get caffeine withdrawal symptoms if I stop drinking coffee. I have read of both beneficial and detrimental effects of caffeine. What's the threshold for considering the accompanying physical addiction a problem?

> What's the threshold for considering the accompanying physical addiction a problem?

If something is addictive but not physically harmful the threshold is when it starts to affect your day to day life.

Gambling is fun. Some people have a problem with gambling. When you think that gambling is affecting your day to day life it's stopped being fun and turned into a problem.

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#135

Post by chill1 »

jimzvz wrote: post #69
techsupporter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I do not care what chemicals someone wants to put in his or her body but I care very strongly what chemicals and odors are around mine. The county where I live bans indoor e-cig and vaporizer consumption in the same places where cigarette smoking would be banned, such as inside office buildings, yet my coworkers simply do not care. This goes double for the bus or train stop where I have no choice; if I want…

I wish people would stop sneezing, coughing, stinking, wearing perfume etc in public but we can't have everything our own way when we interact with other people.

So I suppose you wouldn't mind if a new coal plant opened up a couple blocks from your home?

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#136

Post by bashinator »

tomjen3 wrote: post #71
dhughes wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I must admit I have tolerance for that bullshit. The cigs don't contain any of the dangerous chemical in a cigarette - you don't need a study to prove they are safe, you just need a decent understanding of chemistry. But a million anti-smoking advocates don't give a shit.

If nicotine isn't harmful in itself, why does chewing tobacco cause cancers of the mouth?

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#137

Post by Iftheshoefits »

tomjen3 wrote: post #71
dhughes wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I must admit I have tolerance for that bullshit. The cigs don't contain any of the dangerous chemical in a cigarette - you don't need a study to prove they are safe, you just need a decent understanding of chemistry. But a million anti-smoking advocates don't give a shit.

The set of chemicals in cigarettes that are dangerous is a subset of all chemicals known to be dangerous. One can conclude something quite important from that fact without any understanding of anything other than basic reasoning skills.

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#138

Post by kweks »

anextio wrote: post #14
300bps wrote: post #4

I am starting to see people puffing on these stupid e-cigarettes in restaurants that ban cigarette smoking. When you say something to them they invariably try to "educate" you on what an e-cigarette is and how it's different. The problem is that e-cigarettes have not been shown to be safe. From the article: Most public health officials seem to agree that the levels of toxins in e-cigarettes are far lower than those i…

> 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…

I'm a non-smoker, but enjoy the effects of nicotine, and also find its effects on concentration etc useful when working. I've tried wearing patches during coding binges to (non-scientific) success.

The only real concern I'd have about vaping is forming an oral habit / gesture habit. What's your experience with this?

Also, what's a good spot to dive into the community, especially to find quality products? I'm in France - huge consumers of e-cigs, but there are plenty of cheap ones - I'd like to avoid using 'dangerous' flavours - an would probably prefer to mix the juice myself.

Thanks !

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#139

Post by gwern »

chimeracoder wrote: post #109
btilly wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicotine, on the other hand, is harmful in its own right. It is less damaging to consume pure nicotine without the other harmful effects of smoking, but it is certainly a toxic substance, in the medical sense. Citation needed. Before responding, you might want to read http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine .

> Before responding, you might want to read http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine . I can assure that this is a topic on which I have done far more research in my lifetime than that blog post. I'm not trying to be snarky; I'm just emphasizing that I have a lot more knowledge on this topic than I can reasonably compress into a 124-word HN post (like my original comment). > Citation needed. The post that you yourself link is a…

> I can assure that this is a topic on which I have done far more research in my lifetime than that blog post. I'm not trying to be snarky; I'm just emphasizing that I have a lot more knowledge on this topic than I can reasonably compress into a 124-word HN post (like my original comment).

Then I would appreciate your links to the studies of the harmful effects of nicotine alone that I have somehow failed to find.

> I make no claim about the situations under which any alleged benefits outweigh the the toxic effects, simply that said toxic effects exist.

So your confident assertions are merely technically correct, since everything has toxic effects under some situations such as high enough doses. But that's OK, since technically correct is the best kind of correct, as any geek knows!

Re: The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale

#140

Post by pandaman »

konstruktor wrote: post #123
pandaman wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The burden of proof, in this case, should be on the e-cigarette industry. They are selling an addictive recreational product, consisting of a new combination of substances, with a novel delivery method (that involves deep inhalation). It would be naive to let them play the game the cigarette industry has played for decades, that is trying to dodge the burden of proof for safety and spreading uncertainty. And let's no…

All substances in e-cigaretes are harmless in dozes they are normally taken+. IMHO this is sufficient to claim that a mix of harmless substances is also harmless so the burden of proof is on somebody saying that such a mix suddenly became harmful.

+ I know that nicotine has LD50, so does water and even oxygen is dangerous at high pressure.

Post reply on HN