For my massive sample size of 1, vaping did get me to quit tobacco and afterwards I quit vaping as well. I think as with many changes in habit, you have to start with intent and maintain the goal....
For my massive sample size of 1, vaping did get me to quit tobacco and afterwards I quit vaping as well. I think as with many changes in habit, you have to start with intent and maintain the goal.
For me, smoking (and vaping) has at least 2 parts, the chemical addiction and the ritual (cigarette with coffee, break time with coworkers, at the bar etc).
Trading off cigarettes for the vape was pretty easy; the vape was cigarette shaped, and the juice was allegedly tobacco flavored. There was a slight tearing when I got on a plane and realized I had the vape on me but not the cigarettes, and took the leap not to buy cigarettes anymore. If I felt like I wanted to buy cigarettes I would just vape more (I think the juice had a little less nicotine than the Camel Lights).
I then graduated to mixing my own vape juice. Propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, flavorings, and nicotine. There are calculators online to help figure out how to measure for a specific percentage of nicotine. I did that for about a year, and then started reducing the nicotine percentage. I took probably another year or so cutting it in half several times until I got close enough to zero to leave it out. Iirc each time I cut it, I would have a headache and mild withdrawal symptoms.
I think I was at zero for about 2 months and noticed I was not picking it up as often. I started parking the vape on the other side of my room instead of on my desk and that made it even less frequent. And at some point I went a whole day without vaping. And another month or two later I put all the vape stuff in a cabinet and forgot about it.
So all in all about 2.5 years not trying hard I stopped 30 years of cigarettes.
Well, you saved me a lot of typing because that's my story too, minus the plane, I made the jump to vape only from the beginning. I also cut the nicotine amount in half every time which in...
Well, you saved me a lot of typing because that's my story too, minus the plane, I made the jump to vape only from the beginning.
I also cut the nicotine amount in half every time which in retrospect might have been too much, not only I got the mild withdrawal symptoms but I noticed I vaped more and more often for a few weeks after the drop.
It was still surprisingly easy for me but I reckon is not for everyone, some friends and family tried it too and most failed.
I'm glad it worked for you too. Congratulations! The nice part about vaping more in response to a nicotine drop is that you don't feel nearly as bad as you'd feel if you smoked twice as many...
I'm glad it worked for you too. Congratulations!
The nice part about vaping more in response to a nicotine drop is that you don't feel nearly as bad as you'd feel if you smoked twice as many cigarettes. And there is only so much you can vape as well.
I slowly went from ~1pack/day of cigarettes down to 4-5/day, then switched to vaping, then finally one day I dropped my vape on the ground and broke it and I said right then and there I was done....
I slowly went from ~1pack/day of cigarettes down to 4-5/day, then switched to vaping, then finally one day I dropped my vape on the ground and broke it and I said right then and there I was done. It was the ritual of going out to have a vape right before bed and sitting around bored I would often reach for my vape that was hard. These cravings lasted for a few months and now, a couple years later I rarely get cravings and they are very minor. The best part is other people smoking/vaping do not cause any sort of craving.
I think I was addicted to the habit more than I was the nicotine. I mean, should I have even really been considered a 'smoker' at 4-5/day? I spent years at that rate. I also didn't experience any of the positive symptoms of quitting like people claim, my sense of smell did not change and I actually found vaping weed (my real vice) harder as it felt like my lungs were weaker... obviously this is not actually a bad thing but it still feels that way.
If my partner smoked 4-5 a day, I'd say they were a smoker. If a Tinder date stepped out for a cigarette after coffee or dinner, I'd assume they lied on their bio if they said they weren't a...
should I have even really been considered a 'smoker' at 4-5/day?
If my partner smoked 4-5 a day, I'd say they were a smoker. If a Tinder date stepped out for a cigarette after coffee or dinner, I'd assume they lied on their bio if they said they weren't a smoker.
If your clothes or fingers smell like smoke, if it affects your fingernails teeth or gums, if you keep a pack around just for you that hasn't gone stale: I'd say you're a smoker
If you do anything 4-5 times a day, you're a that thing-er. 4-5 times a day is a lot. IMO smoking twice a week makes you a smoker. I don't know exactly where that threshold is but it's for sure...
If you do anything 4-5 times a day, you're a that thing-er. 4-5 times a day is a lot.
IMO smoking twice a week makes you a smoker. I don't know exactly where that threshold is but it's for sure less often than 4-5 a day.
Daily smoker for the last 25 years, I have no intention of giving it up. I don't drink at all, so a couple bowls is my way of relaxing with some tunes in the evenings.
Daily smoker for the last 25 years, I have no intention of giving it up. I don't drink at all, so a couple bowls is my way of relaxing with some tunes in the evenings.
Nice good on ya, I'm too young for that. Need to be like going to pottery classes and bars to fulfill myself while I can. That's the biggest thing for me is it just makes me so lazy and life so...
Nice good on ya, I'm too young for that. Need to be like going to pottery classes and bars to fulfill myself while I can. That's the biggest thing for me is it just makes me so lazy and life so repetitive.
While we can’t say that vaping carries zero risk, the evidence clearly indicates that it is much less harmful than smoking.
This should not be surprising: tobacco is extremely bad for health. It not only increases the risk of lung cancer — American men who smoke are around 21 times more likely to die from lung cancer — but a range of other diseases too, including strokes, heart disease, and several other cancers. In the UK, smoking is the leading risk factor for early death, ahead of obesity, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and other behavioral and environmental factors. If you’re a smoker who wants to improve your health, quitting is probably the single best thing you can do.
...
People often note that we have less data on the long-term health impacts of vaping. This is certainly true compared to cigarettes. However, vapes’ earliest adopters have been using them for two decades — they were first commercialized in the early 2000s. If there were significant long-term health impacts, we’d expect to see signs of those by now, especially if they were anywhere close to those of tobacco. And while we don’t have very long-term epidemiological data, we do have a good understanding of the ingredients, the levels of exposure, and how these are likely to affect the human body.
...
Research suggests that e-cigarettes are the most effective quitting tool.
Periodically, researchers publish “Cochrane Reviews” on the effectiveness of vapes as a way to stop smoking. Cochrane Reviews are independent assessments that attempt to answer important medical questions by examining the scientific literature as a whole.
Their latest review — published in 2025 — found “high certainty evidence” that people who used vapes were more likely to stop smoking than those using other nicotine replacement therapies, like patches or gums. This confidence level is rare for these Cochrane assessments.
They also judged that there is moderate evidence that vapes that contained nicotine were more effective as a quitting tool than those without.
The changes in the last decade are consistent with this finding. If we look at success rates for stopping tobacco smoking in Britain, we see a gradual increase over the last decade or so, both among adults and young people.
...
More than half of British smokers who quit in the last five years say they used e-cigarettes in their final, successful attempt. That amounts to 2.4 million people. 60% of those ex-smokers still use vapes, but 32% have since quit vaping too. E-cigarettes have not been the only factor in more people quitting, but they have likely played some role.
...
If vapes are an effective and less harmful tool that helps people quit cigarettes, then current smokers need to know this. Survey data suggests that they do not.
...
If vaping were a widespread reason for young people to start smoking tobacco, then we would expect to see more youngsters using cigarettes over time. Vaping rates have increased quite dramatically among young people, and with almost 20% of 15-year-olds regularly using them, have reached a level where we would expect to see an effect in the smoking data.
In England, we don’t see such an effect: smoking rates continue to fall (or hold constant at their lowest levels in decades). [...] Only a few per cent of 15-year-olds smoke regularly, which is a huge drop from the 1980s, when it was over 20%. The share of pupils (aged 11 to 15) who have ever smoked has also fallen dramatically, from 50% to 12% since the 1990s. The same is true for other nations in Great Britain.
Thank you for posting this! In recent months I have had multiple people (including some well-educated acquaintances) insist to me that vaping is "WAY worse for you than cigarettes". I've been...
Thank you for posting this! In recent months I have had multiple people (including some well-educated acquaintances) insist to me that vaping is "WAY worse for you than cigarettes". I've been skeptical given that every meta-analysis in reputable journals seems to say the opposite: vaping is not good for you, but it's better than cigarettes.
This review seems to say much the same.
The fact that the anti-vaping acquaintances I've encountered come from a diverse set of backgrounds (different ages, genders, ethnicities, etc.) has made it feel like there is some sort of ongoing coordinated campaign against vaping. The article mentions tabloids as part of the push against vaping, but I suspect podcasts and influencers are playing a role as well.
I have my suspicions about who may be behind it all...
Learning the etymology of "popcorn lung" was an interesting little aside as well.
There absolutely has been an ongoing coordinated campaign against vaping. Most of it is funded by big tobacco, namely the companies which have been resistant to sell vaping products. Those which...
made it feel like there is some sort of ongoing coordinated campaign against vaping
There absolutely has been an ongoing coordinated campaign against vaping. Most of it is funded by big tobacco, namely the companies which have been resistant to sell vaping products. Those which are selling vaping products are typically targeting a negative ad campaign against those which are not marketed as e-cigarettes (anti e-liquid and anti other kinds of vapes) or otherwise attempt to limit possible competitors via expensive means such as FDA approval.
It's a complicated story, frankly, as it's evolved over the years, but it's also important to note that there was a concentrated and coordinated push against vaping that also came from certain researchers who had a political narrative or moral reasoning behind flawed science. The WHO's stance on vaping, for example, used to be strongly negative in the early 2010s but public health experts and those in addiction medicine have helped to change that stance because the literature has consistently proved much of what the article linked states.
Lastly I think it's important to note the classic "it's harming the kids" argument which is easy to make since they sell vapes in non-offensive odors. There's a lot of folks who have a strong moral stance against drugs of any sort (notably alcohol often being excluded) who look to push this narrative whenever it is convenient (they're putting drugs in the Halloween candy!!!1). While it shouldn't be completely discounted (capitalism is going to always look for more customers), I don't think there's people in a boardroom twirling their mustaches asking how they can get more kids addicted to drugs.
I feel there's an anti-DIY bent. In California about 20 years ago there was a campaign (ultimately successful) to make selling single cigarettes illegal. The claim was that it was easier for kids...
I feel there's an anti-DIY bent. In California about 20 years ago there was a campaign (ultimately successful) to make selling single cigarettes illegal. The claim was that it was easier for kids to buy a single cigarette at .25 than a pack at about $4. I did not think it likely a kid in 2003 would be so cash strapped to be unable to come up with $4, especially if they had friends who also smoked. For me the legislation made it that much harder to try to wean myself off. For vaping I seem to recall at one point a push against selling flavorings and possibly nicotine liquid, though that must have not gotten anywhere since I see these things are presently available.
Both have been legislated - all flavored vapes currently cannot be sold legally in CA (this is a very recent development) and liquid was banned years ago. A lot of corner bodegas will still have...
For vaping I seem to recall at one point a push against selling flavorings and possibly nicotine liquid, though that must have not gotten anywhere since I see these things are presently available.
Both have been legislated - all flavored vapes currently cannot be sold legally in CA (this is a very recent development) and liquid was banned years ago. A lot of corner bodegas will still have them, but it's getting harder and harder to find suppliers who will ship to CA so this will likely start to dry up.
Thanks, wow, I didn't know (2016 was the last time I bought anything vape related). I just looked for websites that sold such and found them, but didn't check further to see if they would or...
Thanks, wow, I didn't know (2016 was the last time I bought anything vape related). I just looked for websites that sold such and found them, but didn't check further to see if they would or wouldn't ship to CA.
As someone who lives in CA who uses vapes to reduce the amount of opioids I use for my chronic pain (nicotine potentiates the effects of opioids) I can tell you that it's getting harder and harder...
As someone who lives in CA who uses vapes to reduce the amount of opioids I use for my chronic pain (nicotine potentiates the effects of opioids) I can tell you that it's getting harder and harder to acquire. The website I used to use no longer ships to CA at all.
As someone in the spirits industry, I see a ton of industry propaganda that's trying to make THC and nicotine vaping a boogieman over alcohol because alcohol is losing market share to other vices.
has made it feel like there is some sort of ongoing coordinated campaign against vaping.
As someone in the spirits industry, I see a ton of industry propaganda that's trying to make THC and nicotine vaping a boogieman over alcohol because alcohol is losing market share to other vices.
I'd like to see more studies on the effects of nicotine addiction on mental health. It seems pretty well established that vaping is far less physically harmful than smoking, but I still find it...
I'd like to see more studies on the effects of nicotine addiction on mental health. It seems pretty well established that vaping is far less physically harmful than smoking, but I still find it concerning how willingly kids are giving themselves a lifelong chemical dependency.
Nicotine, while addictive, has an extremely misleading scientific history. Contrary to popular belief, it is not actually not an extremely addictive substance. For a summary on some of the...
I'd like to see more studies on the effects of nicotine addiction on mental health. It seems pretty well established that vaping is far less physically harmful than smoking, but I still find it concerning how willingly kids are giving themselves a lifelong chemical dependency.
Nicotine, while addictive, has an extremely misleading scientific history. Contrary to popular belief, it is not actually not an extremely addictive substance. For a summary on some of the physical and mental effects of nicotine, I'd recommend at least glancing through the high level bullet points in this review.
Can confirm, it is the routine and tactile habit that makes smoking hard to quit. Vaping let me drop the chemical reenforcement quickly, but it basically took the double-whammy of COVID lockdowns...
Can confirm, it is the routine and tactile habit that makes smoking hard to quit.
Vaping let me drop the chemical reenforcement quickly, but it basically took the double-whammy of COVID lockdowns and new Dad to disrupt routine enough to drop for good.
What the article doesn’t touch one, but I am extremely curious on, is the impact of vaping weed. This article basically throws its hands up in the air because it’s too difficult to measure,...
What the article doesn’t touch one, but I am extremely curious on, is the impact of vaping weed. This article basically throws its hands up in the air because it’s too difficult to measure, despite some obvious negatives like pesticide concentration and vitamin E used in solvents.
It feels like weed vaping is less dangerous than nicotine, but that might just be based on decades of propaganda promoting cigarettes and the subsequent fallout of lung cancer diagnoses. Weed has never been as widely marketed in the mainstream and vaping is a relatively new concept that coincides with legalization (and therefore an increase in general usage).
Time will tell, but I also wish I had a near term indicator to help gauge what’s truly dangerous and what’s effectively as dangerous as alcohol (which I know is also a carcinogen, but also clearly not as damaging as tobacco smoke has proven to be).
The latter, my worry, as a vaper, is that it's pretty wild west in terms of what goes in there, especially flavoring. I'm well aware of the fact I'm playing around with some really bad odds when...
The latter, my worry, as a vaper, is that it's pretty wild west in terms of what goes in there, especially flavoring. I'm well aware of the fact I'm playing around with some really bad odds when it comes to stuff like heavy metal accumulation and weird chemicals I've never heard of that make my body worse (possibly forever).
Righto, I've only used those cartridges once or twice and didn't like the taste. I have been vaping dry flower for about 10 years now and would not switch back.
Righto, I've only used those cartridges once or twice and didn't like the taste.
I have been vaping dry flower for about 10 years now and would not switch back.
Do you have a recommendation in terms of a dry flower vaporizer, or would you be willing to share your experience with the one you use? I have done some reading on a few different brands and...
Do you have a recommendation in terms of a dry flower vaporizer, or would you be willing to share your experience with the one you use? I have done some reading on a few different brands and haven't quite landed on one.
Sure, I've been using a dynavap m series for about 7 years and it's a perfect little one hitter, but you need to use a jet lighter which makes it much more conspicuous. There's a small learning...
Sure, I've been using a dynavap m series for about 7 years and it's a perfect little one hitter, but you need to use a jet lighter which makes it much more conspicuous. There's a small learning curve with air flow and managing the temperature, but the cap clicks when it reaches then falls out of the optimal vaping range. I really love this vape, but I don't use it as much anymore.
Currently I use a Storz and Bickel Mighty Medic+ and have owned this for about 3 years. In my country, medical marijuana is only just getting going and this device is an approved device by the board of health. I love the size of it and how easy it is to use with the dosing capsules. The capsules are little steel caps which you can load up ahead of time and bring along. It has USB-C fast charge and you can use it while it charges. It has a ceramic bowl, it's easy to clean with ISO and it looks nice on the table. The main differences with the Storz and Bickel vapes compared to other cheaper options is how light of a draw you need and the way the device cools the vapor. The cap design is baffled internally and this lets the vapor cool down before it reaches you. This is good for taste and just the enjoyment of using the device. Other vapes I have tried are more of a direct breath from the oven which is harsh on lungs.
I am of the opinion that if it's something I will use daily and it's something that will be going into my body, I should just save and buy the best I could. I did a lot of research and it just seems like you get what you pay for. Look to get them around 4/20 as they will go on good sales then.
I've also owned/used
flowermate (average build quality, average experience)
a no-name desktop vape (terrible and the whip always fell off)
a magic flight launch box (my first vape 10 years ago, outdated tech by 2020)
a PAX 2/3 (looked nice but was pretty average experience, difficult to pull a hit through their mouth design, and the entire vape would get hot to hold after 1 session)
Arizer Solo (Awesome build quality but sketchy glass stem design, friend was always breaking them)
Arizer tower desktop (average build quality, awesome options for the price, whip/balloon, don't think they've updated these in years though)
If you don't mind another dry herb vaper's opinions, these are the core points I have picked up over the years: on-demand is a must, unless you're looking for that "accidentally waste half a...
If you don't mind another dry herb vaper's opinions, these are the core points I have picked up over the years:
on-demand is a must, unless you're looking for that "accidentally waste half a joint" vibe
as such, convection is preferable, as heating more than a tiny quantity through conduction is impractical on-demand
glass/ceramic or metal airways only (some woods are fine), anything else will ruin the taste of the weed, and possibly poison you
replaceable batteries and/or external heat source is huge for a portable (charging sucks, and heat will degrade lipo cells)
how the vape bowl loads is a matter of personal preference, since whether you hate filling capsules or inhaling tiny fragments of bud when you load a stem via suction, but I don't really mind loading either my pax or my vapcap, though the pax is definitely fiddly
bowl/chamber size, on the other hand, is a huge consideration! Most on-demand/convection vaporizers have small bowls, and that can be disconcerting, but properly used, they're extracting 90+% of the cannabinoids without combusting, and combustion destroys most cannabinoids. So a 0.1 g bowl in a convection vape will hit like you smoked half a gram, minus the effects of carbon monoxide. On the other hand, a .3 g convection bowl will deliver more than 1 FGCSE (full-gram cannabis smoke equivalent), in under a minute (too much, if you ask me)
I've owned a couple dynavap models, a pax, a very out of production boutique vape called the Milaana, which was basically a wooden box with a slot for a glass stem and one for an 18650 wired to a mechanical switch and a giant resistive heater wrapped in glass, a stickybrick, and a stempod.
I would highly endorse anything like the stempod/milaana, where you can push 50+W of power instantaneously and your breath is the only thing that brings the heat to the flower. However, they suck for sharing. A new user will definitely either combust or get nothing. Hypothetically, with a great vape mod, you could set a temperature for the coil and just pass it around, but at that point you don't want a stranger's advice.
The dynavap proposition is the one I always come back to. Some of them have notches that allow for the user to downsize their bowl, bringing it from 0.10-0.12 to 0.7-0.8 or 0.3-0.5 g (ranges based on flower density), and some of the stems fit onto water pipes, so as long as you're happy to heat the bowl for a guest, it can be a nearly identical experience to a normal bong rip. It's also a good size for use on the go, and after about three heating cycles (torch-hit-cool) you've extracted most of the substance, so it can be a true one-hitter replacement as much as a bong stem.
Speaking from experience, vaping flower has always been better than smoking it. You're more or less injesting the same chemicals, minus the ones that don't evaporate or burn at the vape temps....
Speaking from experience, vaping flower has always been better than smoking it. You're more or less injesting the same chemicals, minus the ones that don't evaporate or burn at the vape temps. It's been done in various forms for a long time
The concentrates, especially hemp-derived ones which have much lower concentrations of THC to begin with, are getting much higher ratios of other chems to THC and thus are much riskier.
I know it's ancedata, but I have asthmatic friends who can vape flower, and nobody has died from weed. OTOH, at 42 already have two that died of liver failure due to alcohol.
The life detriments from excessive drug use still exist, regardless of substance. But weed is also much easier to put down than both tobacco or alcohol.
For me the main downside of vaping/concentrates is just the addiction. My body is used to having several hundred mgs of THC on board, and getting it out is always a painful and terrible experience.
For me the main downside of vaping/concentrates is just the addiction. My body is used to having several hundred mgs of THC on board, and getting it out is always a painful and terrible experience.
~48 hours for me, and cutting food to get it out of my fat quicker. It's pretty weird to be very very minorly stoned at work having not had a touch in over a day. I do love getting my dreams back....
~48 hours for me, and cutting food to get it out of my fat quicker. It's pretty weird to be very very minorly stoned at work having not had a touch in over a day.
I do love getting my dreams back. If you don't use melatonin, try it out with quitting THC, the dreams are cray
Forgetting my dreams is actually one of my favourite features of weed! For whatever reason (OK, it was childhood trauma), I pretty much only have horrifying dreams, generally involving me dying in...
Forgetting my dreams is actually one of my favourite features of weed! For whatever reason (OK, it was childhood trauma), I pretty much only have horrifying dreams, generally involving me dying in dramatic ways or intensely fighting with people I used to know. I wake up swearing / yelling fairly frequently, but thanks to weed I don't have to remember all the fucked up details of my dreams. From what my wife tells me they sound bad, though.
Like putting tarp over a fire, I have traumatic dreams sometimes too but at least for me, I find it helpful for knowing what's up under the surface. Hope you banish your demons someday, nobody...
Like putting tarp over a fire, I have traumatic dreams sometimes too but at least for me, I find it helpful for knowing what's up under the surface. Hope you banish your demons someday, nobody deserves that.
I recently took part of a discussion with fellow Brazilians according to which vaping is much worse than cigarettes. One of them was a doctor. I don't know what is going on since everything I read...
I recently took part of a discussion with fellow Brazilians according to which vaping is much worse than cigarettes. One of them was a doctor. I don't know what is going on since everything I read points to the contrary. I was effectively silenced. Apparently even the Jornal Nacional said vapes are much worse.
It feels like the entirety of medicine has been blinded by the existence of studies that show you can get a disgustingly abused vaporizer to emit heavy metals and a bunch of drug dealers...
It feels like the entirety of medicine has been blinded by the existence of studies that show you can get a disgustingly abused vaporizer to emit heavy metals and a bunch of drug dealers unintentionally poisoning people. The cynical parts of me want to call it pure paternalism, where the medical establishment cannot control something and so tars it as evil. They spent decades fighting cigarettes, now all these people are doing something that medicine knows is unhealthy, and hate that health is not everyone's #1 priority, despite that making their job hard.
Exactly. The hobbyist vape scene has tons of guidelines and warnings taken from scientific research and is (at least used to be) proactive in boycotting bad products and informing less-interested...
Exactly. The hobbyist vape scene has tons of guidelines and warnings taken from scientific research and is (at least used to be) proactive in boycotting bad products and informing less-interested ecig users. When diacetyl was found in ejuice, they went lengths to communicate how unacceptable that was. When polyethylene glycol was being used as a substitute for propylene glycol, same thing. When dry-burning coils was found to produce dangerous metal vapors, the recommendations shifted away from that.
But no. None of this was done within the establishment of medicine, none of this proactively prevented people from potential harms, so it's all bunk, not worth crediting or even considering. Instead, in north america at least, the response has been to team up with the tobacco companies to all-but ban trustworthy manufacturers and distributors from the marketplace. Now half the college kids I see are using some trash disposable that's probably shooting cobalt and antimony down their throats hourly.
A number of my physician colleagues are still reeling from the VAPI/EVALI crisis years ago when vitamin E acetate contaminated vapes were killing young people. I think it's pretty clear that vapes...
A number of my physician colleagues are still reeling from the VAPI/EVALI crisis years ago when vitamin E acetate contaminated vapes were killing young people. I think it's pretty clear that vapes are preferable to cigarettes now, though of course not using either is preferable.
The vitamin E thing is completely unrelated to nicotine vapes,[^1] the relationship was completely made up by the media on the basis of sick teenagers swearing they've never touched a THC vape. It...
The vitamin E thing is completely unrelated to nicotine vapes,[^1] the relationship was completely made up by the media on the basis of sick teenagers swearing they've never touched a THC vape.
It makes no economical sense to cut nicotine vape liquid, since the raw materials there are already much cheaper than Vitamin E acetate.
[^1]: From the linked article, "Vitamin E acetate was illegally used as a diluent in multiple counterfeit, low-cost tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) containing cartridges. Its use as a diluent in THC-based cartridges became common in 2019, coinciding with the EVALI outbreak"
My university had giant buildings for chemistry, physics, and engineering all connected together. I remember a chemistry professor holding up a lark flask with about a half inch of nicotine in it....
My university had giant buildings for chemistry, physics, and engineering all connected together. I remember a chemistry professor holding up a lark flask with about a half inch of nicotine in it. He said if he released it into the ventilation system he could kill everyone in all three buildings.
To be fair, this statement by itself doesn't say much about nicotine. There are a lot of substances present in things we consume every day that could kill a whole building of people in that amount.
To be fair, this statement by itself doesn't say much about nicotine. There are a lot of substances present in things we consume every day that could kill a whole building of people in that amount.
Capsaicin (found in hot peppers), Myristicin (found in nutmeg), and Coumarin (found in cinnamon) are a few more. And there are also loads of cyanogenic compounds found in various tubers, legumes,...
Capsaicin (found in hot peppers), Myristicin (found in nutmeg), and Coumarin (found in cinnamon) are a few more. And there are also loads of cyanogenic compounds found in various tubers, legumes, nuts, seeds, and stone fruit pits as well.
Wow :| Good to remember that the reason plants evolved nicotine etc is because they're trying not to be consumed, and trying to kill other organisms. It sounds like a good way to step down from...
Wow :| Good to remember that the reason plants evolved nicotine etc is because they're trying not to be consumed, and trying to kill other organisms.
almost 20% of 15-year-olds regularly using [vapes]
It sounds like a good way to step down from tobacco / cigarettes, but better yet if folks don't vape either
For my massive sample size of 1, vaping did get me to quit tobacco and afterwards I quit vaping as well. I think as with many changes in habit, you have to start with intent and maintain the goal.
For me, smoking (and vaping) has at least 2 parts, the chemical addiction and the ritual (cigarette with coffee, break time with coworkers, at the bar etc).
Trading off cigarettes for the vape was pretty easy; the vape was cigarette shaped, and the juice was allegedly tobacco flavored. There was a slight tearing when I got on a plane and realized I had the vape on me but not the cigarettes, and took the leap not to buy cigarettes anymore. If I felt like I wanted to buy cigarettes I would just vape more (I think the juice had a little less nicotine than the Camel Lights).
I then graduated to mixing my own vape juice. Propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, flavorings, and nicotine. There are calculators online to help figure out how to measure for a specific percentage of nicotine. I did that for about a year, and then started reducing the nicotine percentage. I took probably another year or so cutting it in half several times until I got close enough to zero to leave it out. Iirc each time I cut it, I would have a headache and mild withdrawal symptoms.
I think I was at zero for about 2 months and noticed I was not picking it up as often. I started parking the vape on the other side of my room instead of on my desk and that made it even less frequent. And at some point I went a whole day without vaping. And another month or two later I put all the vape stuff in a cabinet and forgot about it.
So all in all about 2.5 years not trying hard I stopped 30 years of cigarettes.
Well, you saved me a lot of typing because that's my story too, minus the plane, I made the jump to vape only from the beginning.
I also cut the nicotine amount in half every time which in retrospect might have been too much, not only I got the mild withdrawal symptoms but I noticed I vaped more and more often for a few weeks after the drop.
It was still surprisingly easy for me but I reckon is not for everyone, some friends and family tried it too and most failed.
I'm glad it worked for you too. Congratulations!
The nice part about vaping more in response to a nicotine drop is that you don't feel nearly as bad as you'd feel if you smoked twice as many cigarettes. And there is only so much you can vape as well.
I slowly went from ~1pack/day of cigarettes down to 4-5/day, then switched to vaping, then finally one day I dropped my vape on the ground and broke it and I said right then and there I was done. It was the ritual of going out to have a vape right before bed and sitting around bored I would often reach for my vape that was hard. These cravings lasted for a few months and now, a couple years later I rarely get cravings and they are very minor. The best part is other people smoking/vaping do not cause any sort of craving.
I think I was addicted to the habit more than I was the nicotine. I mean, should I have even really been considered a 'smoker' at 4-5/day? I spent years at that rate. I also didn't experience any of the positive symptoms of quitting like people claim, my sense of smell did not change and I actually found vaping weed (my real vice) harder as it felt like my lungs were weaker... obviously this is not actually a bad thing but it still feels that way.
If my partner smoked 4-5 a day, I'd say they were a smoker. If a Tinder date stepped out for a cigarette after coffee or dinner, I'd assume they lied on their bio if they said they weren't a smoker.
If your clothes or fingers smell like smoke, if it affects your fingernails teeth or gums, if you keep a pack around just for you that hasn't gone stale: I'd say you're a smoker
If you do anything 4-5 times a day, you're a that thing-er. 4-5 times a day is a lot.
IMO smoking twice a week makes you a smoker. I don't know exactly where that threshold is but it's for sure less often than 4-5 a day.
I considered myself a smoker at the time for sure. I couldn't even imagine smoking actual cigarettes now.
I'm on a similar sobriety journey but in the weeds ATM. How you doing with the THC?
Daily smoker for the last 25 years, I have no intention of giving it up. I don't drink at all, so a couple bowls is my way of relaxing with some tunes in the evenings.
Nice good on ya, I'm too young for that. Need to be like going to pottery classes and bars to fulfill myself while I can. That's the biggest thing for me is it just makes me so lazy and life so repetitive.
I'm in my 40's, life is basically nothing but repetition now. (I'm personally OK with this at this point in my life)
Oh yeah for sure I'll get there, gotta kiss girls heh
From the article:
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Thank you for posting this! In recent months I have had multiple people (including some well-educated acquaintances) insist to me that vaping is "WAY worse for you than cigarettes". I've been skeptical given that every meta-analysis in reputable journals seems to say the opposite: vaping is not good for you, but it's better than cigarettes.
This review seems to say much the same.
The fact that the anti-vaping acquaintances I've encountered come from a diverse set of backgrounds (different ages, genders, ethnicities, etc.) has made it feel like there is some sort of ongoing coordinated campaign against vaping. The article mentions tabloids as part of the push against vaping, but I suspect podcasts and influencers are playing a role as well.
I have my suspicions about who may be behind it all...
Learning the etymology of "popcorn lung" was an interesting little aside as well.
There absolutely has been an ongoing coordinated campaign against vaping. Most of it is funded by big tobacco, namely the companies which have been resistant to sell vaping products. Those which are selling vaping products are typically targeting a negative ad campaign against those which are not marketed as e-cigarettes (anti e-liquid and anti other kinds of vapes) or otherwise attempt to limit possible competitors via expensive means such as FDA approval.
It's a complicated story, frankly, as it's evolved over the years, but it's also important to note that there was a concentrated and coordinated push against vaping that also came from certain researchers who had a political narrative or moral reasoning behind flawed science. The WHO's stance on vaping, for example, used to be strongly negative in the early 2010s but public health experts and those in addiction medicine have helped to change that stance because the literature has consistently proved much of what the article linked states.
Lastly I think it's important to note the classic "it's harming the kids" argument which is easy to make since they sell vapes in non-offensive odors. There's a lot of folks who have a strong moral stance against drugs of any sort (notably alcohol often being excluded) who look to push this narrative whenever it is convenient (they're putting drugs in the Halloween candy!!!1). While it shouldn't be completely discounted (capitalism is going to always look for more customers), I don't think there's people in a boardroom twirling their mustaches asking how they can get more kids addicted to drugs.
The history of the tobacco industry demonstrates otherwise.
And some more recent examples
And gets worse when considering junk food and gambling
okay yea fair enough, capitalism is the enemy
Time and time again, when companies are faced with the choice to phase out harmful things voluntarily or to bury the evidence, they start digging.
I feel there's an anti-DIY bent. In California about 20 years ago there was a campaign (ultimately successful) to make selling single cigarettes illegal. The claim was that it was easier for kids to buy a single cigarette at .25 than a pack at about $4. I did not think it likely a kid in 2003 would be so cash strapped to be unable to come up with $4, especially if they had friends who also smoked. For me the legislation made it that much harder to try to wean myself off. For vaping I seem to recall at one point a push against selling flavorings and possibly nicotine liquid, though that must have not gotten anywhere since I see these things are presently available.
Both have been legislated - all flavored vapes currently cannot be sold legally in CA (this is a very recent development) and liquid was banned years ago. A lot of corner bodegas will still have them, but it's getting harder and harder to find suppliers who will ship to CA so this will likely start to dry up.
Thanks, wow, I didn't know (2016 was the last time I bought anything vape related). I just looked for websites that sold such and found them, but didn't check further to see if they would or wouldn't ship to CA.
As someone who lives in CA who uses vapes to reduce the amount of opioids I use for my chronic pain (nicotine potentiates the effects of opioids) I can tell you that it's getting harder and harder to acquire. The website I used to use no longer ships to CA at all.
Allow me to introduce you to Phillip Morris.
As someone in the spirits industry, I see a ton of industry propaganda that's trying to make THC and nicotine vaping a boogieman over alcohol because alcohol is losing market share to other vices.
I'd like to see more studies on the effects of nicotine addiction on mental health. It seems pretty well established that vaping is far less physically harmful than smoking, but I still find it concerning how willingly kids are giving themselves a lifelong chemical dependency.
Nicotine, while addictive, has an extremely misleading scientific history. Contrary to popular belief, it is not actually not an extremely addictive substance. For a summary on some of the physical and mental effects of nicotine, I'd recommend at least glancing through the high level bullet points in this review.
Can confirm, it is the routine and tactile habit that makes smoking hard to quit.
Vaping let me drop the chemical reenforcement quickly, but it basically took the double-whammy of COVID lockdowns and new Dad to disrupt routine enough to drop for good.
What the article doesn’t touch one, but I am extremely curious on, is the impact of vaping weed. This article basically throws its hands up in the air because it’s too difficult to measure, despite some obvious negatives like pesticide concentration and vitamin E used in solvents.
It feels like weed vaping is less dangerous than nicotine, but that might just be based on decades of propaganda promoting cigarettes and the subsequent fallout of lung cancer diagnoses. Weed has never been as widely marketed in the mainstream and vaping is a relatively new concept that coincides with legalization (and therefore an increase in general usage).
Time will tell, but I also wish I had a near term indicator to help gauge what’s truly dangerous and what’s effectively as dangerous as alcohol (which I know is also a carcinogen, but also clearly not as damaging as tobacco smoke has proven to be).
Do you mean vaping dry flower or vaping a more mass produced cannabis cartridge?
The latter, my worry, as a vaper, is that it's pretty wild west in terms of what goes in there, especially flavoring. I'm well aware of the fact I'm playing around with some really bad odds when it comes to stuff like heavy metal accumulation and weird chemicals I've never heard of that make my body worse (possibly forever).
Righto, I've only used those cartridges once or twice and didn't like the taste.
I have been vaping dry flower for about 10 years now and would not switch back.
Do you have a recommendation in terms of a dry flower vaporizer, or would you be willing to share your experience with the one you use? I have done some reading on a few different brands and haven't quite landed on one.
Sure, I've been using a dynavap m series for about 7 years and it's a perfect little one hitter, but you need to use a jet lighter which makes it much more conspicuous. There's a small learning curve with air flow and managing the temperature, but the cap clicks when it reaches then falls out of the optimal vaping range. I really love this vape, but I don't use it as much anymore.
Currently I use a Storz and Bickel Mighty Medic+ and have owned this for about 3 years. In my country, medical marijuana is only just getting going and this device is an approved device by the board of health. I love the size of it and how easy it is to use with the dosing capsules. The capsules are little steel caps which you can load up ahead of time and bring along. It has USB-C fast charge and you can use it while it charges. It has a ceramic bowl, it's easy to clean with ISO and it looks nice on the table. The main differences with the Storz and Bickel vapes compared to other cheaper options is how light of a draw you need and the way the device cools the vapor. The cap design is baffled internally and this lets the vapor cool down before it reaches you. This is good for taste and just the enjoyment of using the device. Other vapes I have tried are more of a direct breath from the oven which is harsh on lungs.
I am of the opinion that if it's something I will use daily and it's something that will be going into my body, I should just save and buy the best I could. I did a lot of research and it just seems like you get what you pay for. Look to get them around 4/20 as they will go on good sales then.
I've also owned/used
Let me know if you have any questions :)
If you don't mind another dry herb vaper's opinions, these are the core points I have picked up over the years:
on-demand is a must, unless you're looking for that "accidentally waste half a joint" vibe
as such, convection is preferable, as heating more than a tiny quantity through conduction is impractical on-demand
glass/ceramic or metal airways only (some woods are fine), anything else will ruin the taste of the weed, and possibly poison you
replaceable batteries and/or external heat source is huge for a portable (charging sucks, and heat will degrade lipo cells)
how the vape bowl loads is a matter of personal preference, since whether you hate filling capsules or inhaling tiny fragments of bud when you load a stem via suction, but I don't really mind loading either my pax or my vapcap, though the pax is definitely fiddly
bowl/chamber size, on the other hand, is a huge consideration! Most on-demand/convection vaporizers have small bowls, and that can be disconcerting, but properly used, they're extracting 90+% of the cannabinoids without combusting, and combustion destroys most cannabinoids. So a 0.1 g bowl in a convection vape will hit like you smoked half a gram, minus the effects of carbon monoxide. On the other hand, a .3 g convection bowl will deliver more than 1 FGCSE (full-gram cannabis smoke equivalent), in under a minute (too much, if you ask me)
I've owned a couple dynavap models, a pax, a very out of production boutique vape called the Milaana, which was basically a wooden box with a slot for a glass stem and one for an 18650 wired to a mechanical switch and a giant resistive heater wrapped in glass, a stickybrick, and a stempod.
I would highly endorse anything like the stempod/milaana, where you can push 50+W of power instantaneously and your breath is the only thing that brings the heat to the flower. However, they suck for sharing. A new user will definitely either combust or get nothing. Hypothetically, with a great vape mod, you could set a temperature for the coil and just pass it around, but at that point you don't want a stranger's advice.
The dynavap proposition is the one I always come back to. Some of them have notches that allow for the user to downsize their bowl, bringing it from 0.10-0.12 to 0.7-0.8 or 0.3-0.5 g (ranges based on flower density), and some of the stems fit onto water pipes, so as long as you're happy to heat the bowl for a guest, it can be a nearly identical experience to a normal bong rip. It's also a good size for use on the go, and after about three heating cycles (torch-hit-cool) you've extracted most of the substance, so it can be a true one-hitter replacement as much as a bong stem.
Speaking from experience, vaping flower has always been better than smoking it. You're more or less injesting the same chemicals, minus the ones that don't evaporate or burn at the vape temps. It's been done in various forms for a long time
The concentrates, especially hemp-derived ones which have much lower concentrations of THC to begin with, are getting much higher ratios of other chems to THC and thus are much riskier.
I know it's ancedata, but I have asthmatic friends who can vape flower, and nobody has died from weed. OTOH, at 42 already have two that died of liver failure due to alcohol.
The life detriments from excessive drug use still exist, regardless of substance. But weed is also much easier to put down than both tobacco or alcohol.
For handy reference
For me the main downside of vaping/concentrates is just the addiction. My body is used to having several hundred mgs of THC on board, and getting it out is always a painful and terrible experience.
~48 hours for me, and cutting food to get it out of my fat quicker. It's pretty weird to be very very minorly stoned at work having not had a touch in over a day.
I do love getting my dreams back. If you don't use melatonin, try it out with quitting THC, the dreams are cray
Forgetting my dreams is actually one of my favourite features of weed! For whatever reason (OK, it was childhood trauma), I pretty much only have horrifying dreams, generally involving me dying in dramatic ways or intensely fighting with people I used to know. I wake up swearing / yelling fairly frequently, but thanks to weed I don't have to remember all the fucked up details of my dreams. From what my wife tells me they sound bad, though.
Like putting tarp over a fire, I have traumatic dreams sometimes too but at least for me, I find it helpful for knowing what's up under the surface. Hope you banish your demons someday, nobody deserves that.
I recently took part of a discussion with fellow Brazilians according to which vaping is much worse than cigarettes. One of them was a doctor. I don't know what is going on since everything I read points to the contrary. I was effectively silenced. Apparently even the Jornal Nacional said vapes are much worse.
It feels like the entirety of medicine has been blinded by the existence of studies that show you can get a disgustingly abused vaporizer to emit heavy metals and a bunch of drug dealers unintentionally poisoning people. The cynical parts of me want to call it pure paternalism, where the medical establishment cannot control something and so tars it as evil. They spent decades fighting cigarettes, now all these people are doing something that medicine knows is unhealthy, and hate that health is not everyone's #1 priority, despite that making their job hard.
I don't have an issue with the idea that vapes can be harmful. I'm sure they can be. Stating that they're worse than cigarettes sounds insane though.
Exactly. The hobbyist vape scene has tons of guidelines and warnings taken from scientific research and is (at least used to be) proactive in boycotting bad products and informing less-interested ecig users. When diacetyl was found in ejuice, they went lengths to communicate how unacceptable that was. When polyethylene glycol was being used as a substitute for propylene glycol, same thing. When dry-burning coils was found to produce dangerous metal vapors, the recommendations shifted away from that.
But no. None of this was done within the establishment of medicine, none of this proactively prevented people from potential harms, so it's all bunk, not worth crediting or even considering. Instead, in north america at least, the response has been to team up with the tobacco companies to all-but ban trustworthy manufacturers and distributors from the marketplace. Now half the college kids I see are using some trash disposable that's probably shooting cobalt and antimony down their throats hourly.
A number of my physician colleagues are still reeling from the VAPI/EVALI crisis years ago when vitamin E acetate contaminated vapes were killing young people. I think it's pretty clear that vapes are preferable to cigarettes now, though of course not using either is preferable.
The vitamin E thing is completely unrelated to nicotine vapes,[^1] the relationship was completely made up by the media on the basis of sick teenagers swearing they've never touched a THC vape.
It makes no economical sense to cut nicotine vape liquid, since the raw materials there are already much cheaper than Vitamin E acetate.
[^1]: From the linked article, "Vitamin E acetate was illegally used as a diluent in multiple counterfeit, low-cost tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) containing cartridges. Its use as a diluent in THC-based cartridges became common in 2019, coinciding with the EVALI outbreak"
Yes, sorry for not responding earlier, these were off market vapes too. So there's even less reason to be afraid of vapes from a medical perspective.
My university had giant buildings for chemistry, physics, and engineering all connected together. I remember a chemistry professor holding up a lark flask with about a half inch of nicotine in it. He said if he released it into the ventilation system he could kill everyone in all three buildings.
To be fair, this statement by itself doesn't say much about nicotine. There are a lot of substances present in things we consume every day that could kill a whole building of people in that amount.
Not to be pedantic, I'm just curious. Could you name a few?
Caffeine is likely one, it's seriously deadly when concentrated. Like nicotine it evolved in plants as an insecticide.
Capsaicin (found in hot peppers), Myristicin (found in nutmeg), and Coumarin (found in cinnamon) are a few more. And there are also loads of cyanogenic compounds found in various tubers, legumes, nuts, seeds, and stone fruit pits as well.
And really the big thing about poison is the dosage. Enough of pretty much anything can kill you, no matter how safe it is in smaller quantities.
Wow :| Good to remember that the reason plants evolved nicotine etc is because they're trying not to be consumed, and trying to kill other organisms.
It sounds like a good way to step down from tobacco / cigarettes, but better yet if folks don't vape either