• mindbleach@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    “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
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      1 year ago

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

      • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        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
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          1 year ago

          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.

            • CoderKat@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              I’m personally all for banning smoking in public places (besides designated areas and specialty clubs). I agree that exposing people to secondhand smoke is rude at best and a health risk for them at worst. But I do think that especially in the comfort of your own home, you can do what you want (with the caveat that if vaping has similar odor issues as smoking, I see it entirely reasonable that renters can be required to smoke outside).

            • Sausage@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Which bit is false?

              From the first link:

              The key finding of this study is that e-cigarettes emit significant amounts of nicotine but do not emit significant amounts of CO and VOCs. We also found that the level of secondhand exposure to nicotine depends on the e-cigarette brand. However, the emissions of nicotine from e-cigarettes were significantly lower than those of tobacco cigarettes.

              • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                In a scientific context “significantly less” essentially means “we were able to prove beyond our error threshold that there was less nicotine”

                As such, it doesn’t mean squat without numbers to back it up. There could be 1% less nicotine and it’d still be significant if their testing method was sensitive enough to reliably capture the difference.

                Whereas this:

                There’s evidence that nonsmokers exposed to secondhand vape aerosol absorb similar levels of nicotine as people exposed to secondhand cigarette smoke.

                Along with nicotine, nonvapers are also exposed to ultrafine particles from secondhand vape aerosol, which may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

                Would mean exactly what the person you’re replying to has said it means, assuming it’s true, aka. It’s patently false to say it’s safer for non-smokers to be around.

                • Sausage@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  There are numbers to back it up, in the study I linked. Is 10 times less not significant?

                  The primary harm from cigarettes doesn’t come from the nicotine, it comes from all the other toxic chemicals released by combustion, which aren’t present in the aerosol exhaled from a vape.

                  Nobody is claiming it to be 100% safe (what is?), but it’s not even in the same ballpark of harm as smoking is.

          • ██████████@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            indeed man.

            waaaaA waaaaaaaA BUT I HATE SMOKERS WAAHHHHHHHH 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

            half the people here 👆 we get it you dont smoke. that means this aint your place to discuss something you are ignorant about

        • PenguinJuice@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Then don’t smoke or vape. No one is forcing you to. Please do not be a pearl clutcher and make decisions for everyone else around you. You’re not God and even GOD gave people the choice to believe in him.

          • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Okay but the only way we can not smoke or vape is for allayall smokers and vapers not to smoke or vape in places where the rest of us breathe. I can’t even go out on my balcony for several of the otherwise most pleasant hours because there’s a guy smoking cigars in the courtyard of the next building and the stench is nauseating. And there’s always a smell of vaping in the hallway of my own building, despite it being open to the outside air at one end. Y’all are so anosmic you have no idea how far your vapor and smoke spreads.

      • Shrek@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Maybe I read it wrong but what I got from it is this:

        Vaping is good as an alternative to non-smokers. The problem is that it’s being pushed to non-smokers. It’s not as bad as smoking, but the best is neither.

      • Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        People should be properly informed about what they put in their bodies.

        Edit: Just realised I posted in an American politics instance. Ignore the foreigner.

        • PenguinJuice@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Sure, I can agree with that. Maybe we should start with the food industry first. Did you know there’s an acceptable amount of sawdust to put in some types of food as filler? It really is horrific. Vaping at least is something people realize is probably not great for you in the long run… but people who falls for the shitty quality of food standards don’t know what they are putting in their body either.

      • ChexMax@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        second and third-hand smoke and vaping aerosols contain harmful, toxic and cancer-causing chemicals that can be breathed in.

          • mindbleach@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You’re why enforced civility is a fucking nightmare to deal with.

            ‘This doesn’t affect you!’ It does. ‘Well make it don’t.’

            • PenguinJuice@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              That doesn’t invalidate my point. Yes, if someone is vaping somewhere inappropriate, that’s not right. But if they are outside, that’s really fucked that you think you get to dictate what other people do outside. It’s their world too.