>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 <10% of high schoolers an "explosion"? Obviously e-cigarettes are more appealing than tobacco products, but regular cigarette use was 15.8% in 2011 [1]. Marijuana use is at close to 6%, so not that big a gap from the apparent "explosion" of kids vaping.
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 vape after a friend that's been smoking for a long time made the switch and raved about the benefits. I don't doubt that the best course of action is to quit altogether, but a 50+ year addiction is pretty difficult to quit. It can be done but you really have to want it. I don't think my dad really wanted to quit. I know that seems silly, but given his circumstances I can understand.
Yeah, I'm highly skeptical it's overall safe. You have all sorts of metals, liquids, plastics, flavoring compounds, wicks, etc. Some people try to select 'healthy' choices (like organic cotton for the wick); maybe that's healthier, maybe it's not. But then you also have tons of cheap devices on the market, made in China, with who knows what as the cheapest metal/fabric, and then literally tons of unregulated flavoring compounds on top of PG/VG. Any one of those components could be harmful.
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, and it doesn't take long for these kids to get hooked. That's something we should be concerned about IMO.
Just to be very clear on your use of language: Vaping has nothing to do with tobacco. Period. Calling "vape" a tobacco product is equivalent to calling coca-cola a "coffee product". They essentially share a single active chemical (nicotine), and even then many vapers elect to vape nicotine-free liquid.
> And it is certainly worse than not consuming any tobacco product.
I don't think we know this. routine use of Nicotine alone is one of the world's most effective and safest appetite suppressants, with robust evidence of sustained weightless. It's quite possible a small decrease in the obesity rate means its net effect is positive.
Also wanted to point out that the NIH is rolling out a standardized e-cigarette for research, so that all the results in future papers can be compared with one another. The settings otherwise are just too variable otherwise.
The unfortunate side effect of getting smokers off of cigarettes, is that non-smokers see it as a safe option to start. It's an unintended consequence, but pretty predictable. With that said, youth will be youth, and I'd rather they experiment with vaping, rather than cigarettes at this point.
There's the risk that ecigs are an on ramp to actual cigarette smoking. That reflects my experience, first using a friends vape now and then to bumming the occasional cigarette to actual smoking. There's a symmetry we don't like to acknowledge between what makes vapes good for quitting - you can slowly ramp your nicotine - and what makes vapes good for starting. See this study: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abst...
beside some deep science the biggest risk is eliquid content, but so far, beside relying on internet boards and users I couldnt find a standard test for safety
A generation ago these kids would've gotten busted for smoking old-fashioned cigarettes ("Smokin' in the boys room"). Two generations ago it was legal to buy (at some states at age 16) and legal to possess and use, except on school grounds. Three generations ago it was legal even in doctor's offices and hospitals.
California and Massachusetts (and oddly enough, Mississippi) are stoking up a new hysteria with public health spending in an effort to keep people of all ages from switching from conventional cigarettes to e-cigs.
I see six-figure earners on the sidewalks of San Francisco smoking old-fashioned cancer sticks and very few vaping. I wonder- did my tax dollars dissuade them from upgrading their habit? Second-hand smoke is substantially safer from vaping, but actual health of nonsmokers must not be these states' priorities.
There are rumblings about regulating nicotine content in real cigarettes. If they were to regulate vape juices (like limit the worst precarcinogenic bases), I think that's a much better (and cheaper!) place to devote public resources.
Only a generation ago smoking was still allowed at many high schools. It was at mine (1980s). There was a designated outdoor smoking area for the kids that smoked.
You must know that smoking rates have tanked all across California and particularly in urban areas. Maybe the advertising is meant to get ahead of the vaping 'problem', to get people to quit cold turkey rather than switching to vaping, or to prevent kids from vaping.
The fact that you see a few people smoking cigarettes outside an office building doesn't mean both of these campaigns didn't work.
I never understood why anyone young would start smoking. Throughout my K-12 education, I was told every single year that smoking is bad and all that jazz (i.e. shown pictures of what a smoker's lungs look like, shown documentaries on the negative effects, etc.).
It definitely isn't for lack of trying of my school district's part, and yet high single digit percentages of my peers in high school were using some form of tobacco/nicotine when I graduated in 2015.
It's well settled science that using these types of products cannot possibly be good for you. It baffles me why anyone would intentionally create an addiction/habit that, at absolute best, is neutral for your health.
A lot of those kids are probably self medicating with nicotine for stress / anxiety / ADHD. I've never been a user myself but it seems like for many people who get nervous and have trouble focusing, a little nicotine helps steady them out.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not recommending that anyone, especially children, self medicate with psychoactive substances.
(I'm a college student, not a highschool student) among my friends that smoked it wasn't self medication, it was an excuse to socialize. In some environments these can be hard to come by so smoking is an artificial one that lonely people sometimes pick up.
Smoking per se has been a behaviour for thousands of years. As much as there will always be effects on health, vaping has been a god send for me. I have been smoking 1+ pack a day for nearly 20 years, until I switched to vaping 9 months ago. I feel incomparably better. My resting heart rate went down by 20%, I breathe better, am way less tired, and it doesn't stink . Plus, there is a geeky aspect with what we call RDAs ( rebuildable vapes ). Yes, we do not know the long terms effects, but the chances to be worse than cigarettes are close to 0.
Also, this article is full of references to studies that have been flagged as partisan and not seriously conducted.
Not smoking / vaping is better, but for an ex-smoker, this is a godsend.
I think we have a bigger problem with stimulant abuse in general. The perception of caffeine and nicotine (and god forbid the various amphetamines) as "safe" is incredibly deceptive. I have seen the differences in myself in terms of productivity, sleep quality, etc. which cannot be fully-quantified on some medical study or quarterly performance reviews. We have an entire generation of young people entering the workforce who cannot go 30 minutes without taking a vape break outside. Sure, this doesn't directly impact the individual's health or immediate perceptions of work effort, but over time the impact is gradually discovered. The individual cannot sit still in a chair and focus on a complex/deep-dive topic long enough to reach an actionable conclusion. The other extreme is the individual is hyper-focused on one task (usually the amphetamine users) to the extent that they begin to ignore all sense of context and lose focus on the bigger picture. For most employment, this is usually not a concern, but for those who have to dive incredibly deep into complexity on a daily basis (engineers, programmers, architects, etc.), I feel it can be the difference between getting something done in 4 hours and getting it done in 4 weeks. This perception is also something incredibly hard to quantify, but I have witnessed several anecdotal examples (some in myself) which I am confident can be attributed to excessive use of stimulants.
> We have an entire generation of young people entering the workforce who cannot go 30 minutes without taking a vape break outside
This is the most absurd hyperbole I've heard so far this week. Granted it's Monday so you had a lot working against you. An entire generation? Every thirty minutes?
Who does this stuff even benefit? The seemingly arbitrary lines drawn between marijuana, alcohol, tobacco and other "drugs" is so weird. So much moral righteousness.
The people selling it... (often illegally) to kids, who then have trouble getting a basic education and develop habits, which are long term destructive to their ability to operate within society.
There's some evidence that young people who start vaping, who've never smoked before, are converting to cigarettes, and that this is including young people who would not have gone on to smoke otherwise. That's worrying. Smoking is very harmful and young people don't really have the prefrontal cortex needed to be able to make that decision.
There's also evidence that smokers find vaping useful as a cessation tool. So we need a way to balance the harms and benefits.
It doesn't help that vape suppliers in England will sell to children who've never smoked, despite the code of conduct telling them not to. This small number of bad actors will attract stricter regulation.
I'm pretty against the pro-vape movement because I believe there are plenty of kids now who now choose to vape who would have never smoked anything in the first place previously. It seems a lot easier to convince someone to vape because it appears safe and they already know all the risks of cigarettes which eliminated that of being a possibility (good!).
Reading these comments its obvious that Vaping is forcing us to confront an uncomfortable truth.
Vaping might not be that much healthier for the consumer, but its widely popular because its so much nicer for the non smoker.
How much of the campaign to stop smoking was out of concern for the health of future generations? And how much of it was out of the annoyance of second hand smoke?
Even if Vaping proves to be equally dangerous to cigarette smoking, our desire to stop it just isn't in the same ballpark.
One problem I think the industry has right now is the "gas station disposable" ecigs, like Blu, Vuse, Juul pods, etc. These things have massive amounts of nicotine, sometimes as high as 30mg/ml which puts the hit right up there with cigarettes. Combine it with the fact that they taste like candy and can be vaped indoors with no ill effects, and its a recipe for addiction.
More traditional e-juice can range in nic content from 0mg/ml to as high as 40-50mg/ml, but the most common variants you see are 3mg/ml and 6mg/ml. Relatively low compared to the gas station stuff.
Its also worth saying that the two aren't directly comparable due to the action of vaporization. Gas station ecigs are pretty bad at generating vapor, which means you get less vapor on each inhale, which means less actual nicotine. Reusable, higher tier vapes that you use with usually lower nic juice produce significantly more vapor. So its hard to compare.
Which comes down to the biggest problem in the world: regulation and standardization. Its a complete wild west. You have no idea what standards the e-juice manufacturers hold themselves to. The "brands" on many juices are hidden behind flashy flavor names like "Quadruple Laser Berry". There's an advertised nic content, but who knows if that's actually what's in there. Often you can purchase nic strengths that are absurd, like 40-60mg/ml, that would make any reasonable person instantly puke. Physical stores will often card, especially if you look young, but there are many online retailers where you can buy whatever you want with no verification. There are states where you can't legally buy this stuff online, but most online retailers don't care.
Seeing as nicotine is a known risk, but the carrier fluids and flavorings are a mostly unknown risk, isn't higher nicotine concentration better? You can get the same dose with less exposure to the unknown risks.
> In his four years at Cape Elizabeth, Mr. Carpenter says he can’t recall seeing a single student smoke a cigarette.
Golden age syndrome. It happened, you just forget about the negative parts.
Anecdote: when I was in highschool quite recently (2004-2008), many students were regular smokers or dippers (chew tobacco). At this point, the health effects of smoking (and to a lesser extent, chew tobacco) were obviously well understood. Nevertheless, students picked up smoking etc.
Picking up vaping nicotine probably isn't great, but it beats cigarettes (and probably chew tobacco).
The important thing to remember is that overall drug and alcohol use among American teens is down, and trending down. "According to a major longitudinal study of teenagers called Monitoring the Future, high schoolers’ use of alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs (other than marijuana and vaping) have dropped to the lowest levels since the survey began in 1976."[0]
Notably, from the above December 2016 article:
> E-Cigarettes (Vaporizers): The rate for e-cigarettes among high school seniors dropped to 12.4 percent from last year’s 16.2 percent. Of note: only 24.9 percent of 12th graders report that their e-cigarettes contained nicotine (the addictive ingredient in tobacco) the last time they used, with 62.8 percent claiming they contain "just flavoring." (emphasis added)
> Attitudes and Availability: This year, more 10th graders disapprove of regular use of e-cigarettes than last year. For example, 65 percent of 10th graders say they disapprove, up from last year’s 59.9 percent. In addition, more 10th graders think it is harder to get regular cigarettes than last year; 62.9 percent said they are easy to get, compared to 66.6 percent last year. This represents a dramatic shift from survey findings two decades ago, when 91.3 percent of 10th graders thought it was easy to get cigarettes.
Schools are for educating, not for prohibiting or judging. If you believe vaping is bad for kids or whoever - educate them about why do you think so and let them decide for themselves.
When I was a schoolboy everybody believed kids that smoke don't grow as they get older, nobody wanted to become a gnome :-)
If there is a real health threat we are to be able to explain it to the children, if there isn't - we probably should just let the do what they want.
Why not just set the minimum birthdate to buy nicotine products at 2000, so only 18 year olds can buy it this year, and future generations cannot? Seems like that would sidestep the whole "removing people's rights" argument and gradually just phase it out completely? Has any jurisdiction done that?
I wonder how accurate these surveys are. In high school, kids I knew who actually did drugs wouldn't admit to it (even on an anonymous survey), and some other kids would answer that they do meth every day because it sounded funny to write that.
Looking past the safety concerns, I personally have zero interest in vaping nicotine as an ex smoker.
A lot who have smoked and quit probably understand the pschological aspect; the constant need, the schedule, the loss of enjoyment from taking a deep breath of fresh air.. I don't want to be addicted to inhaling nicotine in any form.
"ABC is a gateway drug/activity/event. It leads to XYZ, which is way worse!"
Sure, so educate them on real consequences and safety and not the external imposed consequences. Also, don't lie about ABC since they'll assume you lied about XYZ as well.
Seriously, who still doesn't see the same 5-10 year pattern at this point?
[+] [-] TheBeardKing|8 years ago|reply
I'm sorry, but is <10% of high schoolers an "explosion"? Obviously e-cigarettes are more appealing than tobacco products, but regular cigarette use was 15.8% in 2011 [1]. Marijuana use is at close to 6%, so not that big a gap from the apparent "explosion" of kids vaping.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/yout...
[+] [-] neaden|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lemonberry|8 years ago|reply
Edit: I bought him the vape after a friend that's been smoking for a long time made the switch and raved about the benefits. I don't doubt that the best course of action is to quit altogether, but a 50+ year addiction is pretty difficult to quit. It can be done but you really have to want it. I don't think my dad really wanted to quit. I know that seems silly, but given his circumstances I can understand.
[+] [-] berberous|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bspn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 013a|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessriedel|8 years ago|reply
I don't think we know this. routine use of Nicotine alone is one of the world's most effective and safest appetite suppressants, with robust evidence of sustained weightless. It's quite possible a small decrease in the obesity rate means its net effect is positive.
[+] [-] epmaybe|8 years ago|reply
https://www.drugabuse.gov/funding/supplemental-information-n...
[+] [-] overcast|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frgtpsswrdlame|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jordan801|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] draw_down|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mchannon|8 years ago|reply
California and Massachusetts (and oddly enough, Mississippi) are stoking up a new hysteria with public health spending in an effort to keep people of all ages from switching from conventional cigarettes to e-cigs.
I see six-figure earners on the sidewalks of San Francisco smoking old-fashioned cancer sticks and very few vaping. I wonder- did my tax dollars dissuade them from upgrading their habit? Second-hand smoke is substantially safer from vaping, but actual health of nonsmokers must not be these states' priorities.
There are rumblings about regulating nicotine content in real cigarettes. If they were to regulate vape juices (like limit the worst precarcinogenic bases), I think that's a much better (and cheaper!) place to devote public resources.
[+] [-] ams6110|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rconti|8 years ago|reply
The fact that you see a few people smoking cigarettes outside an office building doesn't mean both of these campaigns didn't work.
[+] [-] kevindong|8 years ago|reply
It definitely isn't for lack of trying of my school district's part, and yet high single digit percentages of my peers in high school were using some form of tobacco/nicotine when I graduated in 2015.
It's well settled science that using these types of products cannot possibly be good for you. It baffles me why anyone would intentionally create an addiction/habit that, at absolute best, is neutral for your health.
[+] [-] nradov|8 years ago|reply
Edit: To be clear, I'm not recommending that anyone, especially children, self medicate with psychoactive substances.
[+] [-] swiley|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WalterSear|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bungie4|8 years ago|reply
Do you take Meth to 'even out'?
Me, I just quit smoking entirely 3 years ago.
[+] [-] julienmarie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bob1029|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] troncjb|8 years ago|reply
This is the most absurd hyperbole I've heard so far this week. Granted it's Monday so you had a lot working against you. An entire generation? Every thirty minutes?
[+] [-] _m8fo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kurthr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|8 years ago|reply
There's also evidence that smokers find vaping useful as a cessation tool. So we need a way to balance the harms and benefits.
It doesn't help that vape suppliers in England will sell to children who've never smoked, despite the code of conduct telling them not to. This small number of bad actors will attract stricter regulation.
[+] [-] matt_wulfeck|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yters|8 years ago|reply
The bigger problem is behavior. Focusing on particular substances is mostly a scapegoat for our lack of self control.
[+] [-] gowld|8 years ago|reply
are all unhealthy for kids.
[+] [-] ebbv|8 years ago|reply
But there's certainly NO reason to vape other than "monkey see, monkey do."
[+] [-] SnowingXIV|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghostbrainalpha|8 years ago|reply
Vaping might not be that much healthier for the consumer, but its widely popular because its so much nicer for the non smoker.
How much of the campaign to stop smoking was out of concern for the health of future generations? And how much of it was out of the annoyance of second hand smoke?
Even if Vaping proves to be equally dangerous to cigarette smoking, our desire to stop it just isn't in the same ballpark.
[+] [-] 013a|8 years ago|reply
More traditional e-juice can range in nic content from 0mg/ml to as high as 40-50mg/ml, but the most common variants you see are 3mg/ml and 6mg/ml. Relatively low compared to the gas station stuff.
Its also worth saying that the two aren't directly comparable due to the action of vaporization. Gas station ecigs are pretty bad at generating vapor, which means you get less vapor on each inhale, which means less actual nicotine. Reusable, higher tier vapes that you use with usually lower nic juice produce significantly more vapor. So its hard to compare.
Which comes down to the biggest problem in the world: regulation and standardization. Its a complete wild west. You have no idea what standards the e-juice manufacturers hold themselves to. The "brands" on many juices are hidden behind flashy flavor names like "Quadruple Laser Berry". There's an advertised nic content, but who knows if that's actually what's in there. Often you can purchase nic strengths that are absurd, like 40-60mg/ml, that would make any reasonable person instantly puke. Physical stores will often card, especially if you look young, but there are many online retailers where you can buy whatever you want with no verification. There are states where you can't legally buy this stuff online, but most online retailers don't care.
[+] [-] mrob|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loeg|8 years ago|reply
Golden age syndrome. It happened, you just forget about the negative parts.
Anecdote: when I was in highschool quite recently (2004-2008), many students were regular smokers or dippers (chew tobacco). At this point, the health effects of smoking (and to a lesser extent, chew tobacco) were obviously well understood. Nevertheless, students picked up smoking etc.
Picking up vaping nicotine probably isn't great, but it beats cigarettes (and probably chew tobacco).
The important thing to remember is that overall drug and alcohol use among American teens is down, and trending down. "According to a major longitudinal study of teenagers called Monitoring the Future, high schoolers’ use of alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs (other than marijuana and vaping) have dropped to the lowest levels since the survey began in 1976."[0]
Notably, from the above December 2016 article:
> E-Cigarettes (Vaporizers): The rate for e-cigarettes among high school seniors dropped to 12.4 percent from last year’s 16.2 percent. Of note: only 24.9 percent of 12th graders report that their e-cigarettes contained nicotine (the addictive ingredient in tobacco) the last time they used, with 62.8 percent claiming they contain "just flavoring." (emphasis added)
> Attitudes and Availability: This year, more 10th graders disapprove of regular use of e-cigarettes than last year. For example, 65 percent of 10th graders say they disapprove, up from last year’s 59.9 percent. In addition, more 10th graders think it is harder to get regular cigarettes than last year; 62.9 percent said they are easy to get, compared to 66.6 percent last year. This represents a dramatic shift from survey findings two decades ago, when 91.3 percent of 10th graders thought it was easy to get cigarettes.
[0]: https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2016/12/...
[+] [-] qwerty456127|8 years ago|reply
When I was a schoolboy everybody believed kids that smoke don't grow as they get older, nobody wanted to become a gnome :-)
If there is a real health threat we are to be able to explain it to the children, if there isn't - we probably should just let the do what they want.
[+] [-] foreigner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedirt0115|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rapzid|8 years ago|reply
A lot who have smoked and quit probably understand the pschological aspect; the constant need, the schedule, the loss of enjoyment from taking a deep breath of fresh air.. I don't want to be addicted to inhaling nicotine in any form.
[+] [-] philip1209|8 years ago|reply
I find this title confusing - I thought it meant that vapes were physically exploding.
[+] [-] corobo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aje403|8 years ago|reply
Maybe they should just sit in the chair and do what they're told instead
[+] [-] FrozenTuna|8 years ago|reply
"ABC is a gateway drug/activity/event. It leads to XYZ, which is way worse!"
Sure, so educate them on real consequences and safety and not the external imposed consequences. Also, don't lie about ABC since they'll assume you lied about XYZ as well.
Seriously, who still doesn't see the same 5-10 year pattern at this point?
[+] [-] xena|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rco8786|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] besonmark|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Proven|8 years ago|reply
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