this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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[–] mindbleach@lemmy.world 43 points 2 years ago (42 children)

"It beats smoking" is a low fucking bar.

The science is that putting shit in your lungs is not great. There's no upside for non-smokers. It's a lark. The only truly positive side is that it's objectively better than inhaling smoke, and that only matters if it's a tobacco alternative - and contains nicotine. Which let this low-impact delivery mechanism create new addicts.

Two decades in either direction and the calculus would be trivial. 1990, the way people smoked back then? We'd solve the epidemic overnight. Trade it for vaping in a heartbeat. 2030, the way statistics were headed? Pointless and inexcusable. A brief fad that would linger in countries with hookah culture.

Instead, the worst-case scenario happened immediately. The same murderous liars made money hooking a new generation with a fairly unsafe and hideously addictive chemical. Like they'd previously done by adding filters, and then menthol, and then cloves.

[–] Sausage@kbin.social 31 points 2 years ago (19 children)

Smoking kills 8 million people worldwide every year. I think it's worth pushing the alternatives.

[–] Th4tGuyII@kbin.social 15 points 2 years ago (9 children)

The problem isn't pushing it as an alternative to already active smokers, that's what it was initially touted as...

The problem is it became the new smoking fad. People who never smoked are taking this up, and are now the new generation of hungry addicts to keep the tobacco corps alive and well.

[–] Sausage@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

An adult should be able to do whatever the fuck they want, as long as it doesn't impact other people. Vaping doesn't emit any carcinogens or toxic substances, and 10 times less nicotine than smoking does. At the end of the day, vaping does far less harm than smoking, and it's easier to reduce the amount of nicotine consumed with vaping. Nicotine also has health benefits, such as slowing down the onset of Parkinson's.

If teenagers are vaping then that's an enforcement issue, but at the same time I would be less worried if I found a vape in my kid's bedroom than a packet of cigarettes. Teenagers will experiement with substances. Nicotne vapes are way down the list of ones I would be worried about.

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