Ban Vaping?

[billvon 2,991]

On 9/12/2019 at 5:45 PM, yobnoc said:

My defense of it is a survival instinct.  I was able to quit smoking cigarettes by utilizing e-cigarettes.  I enjoyed smoking, but I also knew it was bad for me and would likely cause me to die prematurely.  I am also heavily addicted to nicotine and without getting into specifics, I struggle with addiction problems in other facets of life too.  So since I wanted to be around for my kids as long as possible, I kicked cigarettes and switched to vapor.  And there is zero science that bears out that it is bad for my health or the people around me. 

Well, there are the six deaths and 380 cases of lung disease due to vaping so far, per the CDC.  So there's certainly some evidence.  We are at a similar stage with vaping that we were at with smoking in the 1950's - some evidence it's bad for you, but no long term studies and a lot of money riding on saying it was safe.

You can do whatever you like, of course, and if vaping means you smoke less, then great - it may work for you.  But it's like doing cocaine to avoid doing heroin.  It's not safe.  At best, it might be safER in your case.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

6 minutes ago, billvon said:

Well, there are the six deaths and 380 cases of lung disease due to vaping so far, per the CDC.  So there's certainly some evidence.  We are at a similar stage with vaping that we were at with smoking in the 1950's - some evidence it's bad for you, but no long term studies and a lot of money riding on saying it was safe.

You can do whatever you like, of course, and if vaping means you smoke less, then great - it may work for you.  But it's like doing cocaine to avoid doing heroin.  It's not safe.  At best, it might be safER in your case.

Bill, that's an unfair analogy and it denies reality. Quitting smoking is a devilishly hard thing, I know first hand. Now, you might be able to squeeze a Methadone/Heroin analogy into your point but it still wouldn't be fair to do. Right now with what we know I'd say it's a fair guess that vaping is less of a danger to the users and those nearby than smoking by a very long shot. Personally, I don't like it around me but I'm a very long way from judging those who vape to get off cigarettes.

[billvon 2,991]

1 minute ago, JoeWeber said:

Bill, that's an unfair analogy and it denies reality. Quitting smoking is a devilishly hard thing, I know first hand. Now, you might be able to squeeze a Methadone/Heroin analogy into your point but it still wouldn't be fair to do. Right now with what we know I'd say it's a fair guess that vaping is less of a danger to the users  . . .

Well, given the recent deaths and morbidity, that's not as much of a fair guess any more, I'd say.  The mechanism is different, for one - rapid onset of lung disease rather than long term damage resulting in emphysema, COPD and lung cancer.  But we don't even know that vaping avoids that long term damage - because it just hasn't been around that long.

Further studies may reveal that these deaths are due to a specific agent in some vape liquids, and that may be fixable.  Or it may be more integral to vaping.  And we might not see high death rates until as many people vape as used to smoke.  Keep in mind that almost 50% of the people in the US smoked in the 1960's - only about 5% of the US is vaping now.

Quote

I'm a very long way from judging those who vape to get off cigarettes.

So am I.  It's their life and their decision.  It's just a mistake to think it's safe.  Like I said, it may well be _safer_ for an individual than smoking depending on a lot of factors.

[yobnoc 142]

15 minutes ago, billvon said:

Well, given the recent deaths and morbidity, that's not as much of a fair guess any more, I'd say.  The mechanism is different, for one - rapid onset of lung disease rather than long term damage resulting in emphysema, COPD and lung cancer.  But we don't even know that vaping avoids that long term damage - because it just hasn't been around that long.

Further studies may reveal that these deaths are due to a specific agent in some vape liquids, and that may be fixable.  Or it may be more integral to vaping.  And we might not see high death rates until as many people vape as used to smoke.  Keep in mind that almost 50% of the people in the US smoked in the 1960's - only about 5% of the US is vaping now.

So am I.  It's their life and their decision.  It's just a mistake to think it's safe.  Like I said, it may well be _safer_ for an individual than smoking depending on a lot of factors.

Bill, there is a concerted push to keep certain information out of these articles, and the CDC would rather not make a concrete statement at this point because there is still information to be gathered.  Of course the CDC is going to say vaping is dangerous; can you imagine the lawsuit if they put out an official statement prior to gathering all the evidence and they missed something?  Vaping in and of itself isn't what's causing the illnesses and the handful of deaths.  What's in the specific liquid that people are falling ill due to is to blame: namely lipids and Vitamin E acetate (they are used as emulsifiers to allow THC oil to be evenly distributed in the e-liquid, otherwise it would separate out).  This is not an issue with over-the-counter free-base or salt nicotine derivations.  Everything in traditional nicotine vapor is water-soluble.  THC oil is not.  So a cheap, quick, and dirty way to synthesize THC into vaporizers is to use those lipids, which the lungs cannot absorb like they can with particulate water.  Instead they cool and return back to their molecular state and coat the inside of the lungs, restricting oxygen absorption.  It's a safer bet to sound the alarm and get into specifics later than it is to parse out and positively confirm the problematic source and then issue a warning for one specific product. 

Science is so much farther along than it was in the early days of combustible tobacco, it's a bad strawman argument to say "See, science took a long time to figure this thing out 60-70 years ago!"

We've been to the moon since then, man.  Everyone has a high-powered computer in their pocket and is connected to the entire world through their fingertips.  Scientific analysis has become exponentially faster and more accurate in 70 years.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

46 minutes ago, billvon said:

Well, given the recent deaths and morbidity, that's not as much of a fair guess any more, I'd say.

Now if Brent narrowed his sample down to recent examples I'm pretty sure you'd rub his nose in it.

[yobnoc 142]

52 minutes ago, billvon said:

Well, given the recent deaths and morbidity, that's not as much of a fair guess any more, I'd say.  The mechanism is different, for one - rapid onset of lung disease rather than long term damage resulting in emphysema, COPD and lung cancer.  But we don't even know that vaping avoids that long term damage - because it just hasn't been around that long.

Further studies may reveal that these deaths are due to a specific agent in some vape liquids, and that may be fixable.  Or it may be more integral to vaping.  And we might not see high death rates until as many people vape as used to smoke.  Keep in mind that almost 50% of the people in the US smoked in the 1960's - only about 5% of the US is vaping now.

So am I.  It's their life and their decision.  It's just a mistake to think it's safe.  Like I said, it may well be _safer_ for an individual than smoking depending on a lot of factors.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/09/13/vaping_scare_unhealthy_actions_from_health_officials_141254.html

A better-written article than I'm capable of producing, and more eloquent.

[billvon 2,991]

17 hours ago, yobnoc said:

Science is so much farther along than it was in the early days of combustible tobacco, it's a bad strawman argument to say "See, science took a long time to figure this thing out 60-70 years ago!"

We've been to the moon since then, man.  Everyone has a high-powered computer in their pocket and is connected to the entire world through their fingertips.  Scientific analysis has become exponentially faster and more accurate in 70 years.

I agree.  However, that does not translate to "therefore we understand the risks of vaping far better than we understand the risks of smoking" as the recent deaths have demonstrated.  I am sure we will get a better handle on it as time goes on.

[Coreece 190]

36 minutes ago, billvon said:

I agree.  However, that does not translate to "therefore we understand the risks of vaping far better than we understand the risks of smoking" as the recent deaths have demonstrated.  I am sure we will get a better handle on it as time goes on.

Yes, don't use vitamin E acetate to dilute your THC.  However, that has nothing to do with what we're actually talking about. Does it?

[billvon 2,991]

2 hours ago, Coreece said:

Yes, don't use vitamin E acetate to dilute your THC.

That is one thing we've learned, yes.  Even though we sent a man to the moon, we weren't smart enough to figure that out until people died.  There will likely be other lessons we have to learn the same way, even though we all have pocket computers.

Quote

However, that has nothing to do with what we're actually talking about. Does it?

Yes, that has a lot to do with the risks of vaping, since it is a risk of vaping.

[brenthutch 444]

https://southpark.cc.com/clips/vgvak0/not-on-my-farm

[yobnoc 142]

42 minutes ago, billvon said:

That is one thing we've learned, yes.  Even though we sent a man to the moon, we weren't smart enough to figure that out until people died.  There will likely be other lessons we have to learn the same way, even though we all have pocket computers.

Yes, that has a lot to do with the risks of vaping, since it is a risk of vaping.

Vaping has been around since the early 2000's.  It just wasn't huge back then.  One thing they figured out very quickly when it was just people experimenting around was that oils caused harmful health outcomes.  So it quickly became an industry standard to only use neutral, non-oil-non-lipid ingredients in vaporizers.  The back-alley THC cartridge market wants to make the most bang for their buck, so it was an extremely attractive financial prospect to use those fillers.  Had there been consultation with the existent industry when they started hocking their product, maybe this could have been avoided.  Instead, because they chose to go their own route and disregard user safety, the entire vaping industry is suffering as a result. 

There is no evidence whatsoever that vaping freebase or salt nicotine products is harmful to the user.  The whole "save the children" thing rings hollow.  Teen smoking rates have been cut in half in the past 8 years.  I'd say harm reduction has been a huge success.  Watch those rates skyrocket again if/when this ban actually goes into effect. 

[billvon 2,991]

3 hours ago, yobnoc said:

Vaping has been around since the early 2000's.  It just wasn't huge back then.  One thing they figured out very quickly when it was just people experimenting around was that oils caused harmful health outcomes.  So it quickly became an industry standard to only use neutral, non-oil-non-lipid ingredients in vaporizers.  The back-alley THC cartridge market wants to make the most bang for their buck, so it was an extremely attractive financial prospect to use those fillers.  Had there been consultation with the existent industry when they started hocking their product, maybe this could have been avoided. 

Probably.  And the "back-alley" people will probably make a dozen more mistakes, because there's almost no regulation, indeed not many studies at all on the topic.  A few of those mistakes may also be fatal - and we will learn from them as well.

Quote

The whole "save the children" thing rings hollow.  Teen smoking rates have been cut in half in the past 8 years. 

No "save the children" thing.  Kids should not be sold cigarettes OR vapes.  Period.  If you have an issue with that, that's a different discussion.

BTW teen smoking rates have actually been dropping precipitously since 1997, when it peaked.   (36% in 1997, down to 9% in 2015.) So the first half of that decrease definitely didn't come from vaping.  Given that, vaping is probably not the reason for the decrease.

[Coreece 190]

13 hours ago, billvon said:

Yes, that has a lot to do with the risks of vaping, since it is a risk of vaping. 

We're talking about nicotine vaping vs THC vaping which are two completely different things.

If kids started getting sick from some laced gangsta weed, it'd be silly to subsequently threaten a ban on cigarettes.

If people started dying from a bad batch of backwoods moonshine, it'd be ridiculous to start a scare and try to ban beer and wine.

If families were getting sick from roasting marshmallows by burning pressure treated wood, it'd be dumb to ban campfires.

[normiss 800]

1 hour ago, Coreece said:

We're talking about nicotine vaping vs THC vaping which are two completely different things.

If kids started getting sick from some laced gangsta weed, it'd be silly to subsequently threaten a ban on cigarettes.

If people started dying from a bad batch of backwoods moonshine, it'd be ridiculous to start a scare and try to ban beer and wine.

If families were getting sick from roasting marshmallows by burning pressure treated wood, it'd be dumb to ban campfires.

Except that the bans are targeting flavored nicotine vape juice. 

[Coreece 190]

5 minutes ago, normiss said:

Except that the bans are targeting flavored nicotine vape juice.

Yep, Vitamin E diluent is causing problems for those that vape THC so lets ban nicotine flavors!

That's even dumber.

[yobnoc 142]

16 hours ago, billvon said:

Probably.  And the "back-alley" people will probably make a dozen more mistakes, because there's almost no regulation, indeed not many studies at all on the topic.  A few of those mistakes may also be fatal - and we will learn from them as well.

No "save the children" thing.  Kids should not be sold cigarettes OR vapes.  Period.  If you have an issue with that, that's a different discussion.

BTW teen smoking rates have actually been dropping precipitously since 1997, when it peaked.   (36% in 1997, down to 9% in 2015.) So the first half of that decrease definitely didn't come from vaping.  Given that, vaping is probably not the reason for the decrease.

I'm with you there, and there are already laws in effect that prohibit the sale of tobacco or vaping products to minors.  We all know that guy who had a full beard at 17 who would buy beer for his friends because he didn't get carded though.  If the problem is with enforcing the law, then work on enforcement. 

I'm all for more regulation in the vaping industry.  Indeed: I'd like to see an ingredient list on every bottle (or the box it comes in) or at least have it available in some sort of MSDS type book that you can look at in the store when you're buying it.  But the "save the children" chant is the rallying cry for people who are trying to get rid of flavored e-liquid.  And it's bullshit.

[yoink 321]

On 9/12/2019 at 3:15 PM, gowlerk said:

 But the main difference is that there is a good reason for jumping. There is no good reason for vaping.

I see no difference? 

The only good reason for either is that we enjoy doing it and it makes us feel good.

[billvon 2,991]

On 9/15/2019 at 6:32 AM, Coreece said:

We're talking about nicotine vaping vs THC vaping which are two completely different things.

If kids started getting sick from some laced gangsta weed, it'd be silly to subsequently threaten a ban on cigarettes.

If people started dying from a bad batch of backwoods moonshine, it'd be ridiculous to start a scare and try to ban beer and wine.

If families were getting sick from roasting marshmallows by burning pressure treated wood, it'd be dumb to ban campfires.

No one disputes that.

If people started getting sick from laced pot, it would be silly to ban cigarettes.  It would also be silly to say "those are two COMPLETELY different things, so when I smoke I am being safe."

[JoeWeber 2,720]

36 minutes ago, billvon said:

No one disputes that.

If people started getting sick from laced pot, it would be silly to ban cigarettes.  It would also be silly to say "those are two COMPLETELY different things, so when I smoke I am being safe."

Goddamnit Bill, you need to back off. Did they not teach disconnected realities at MIT? Maybe we should go get your money refunded.

[Coreece 190]

2 hours ago, billvon said:

It would also be silly to say "those are two COMPLETELY different things, so when I smoke I am being safe."

. . .and yet you said it anyway.

[BIGUN 1,314]

5 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

disconnected realities at MIT? Maybe we should go get your money refunded.

"One of the study’s findings: the wilder a person’s guess as to what the other party is thinking, the more likely they are to also personally disparage members of the opposite party as mean, selfish or bad. Not only do the two parties diverge on a great many issues, they also disagree on what they disagree on.

This much we might guess. But what’s startling is the further finding that higher education does not improve a person’s perceptions – and sometimes even hurts it. In their survey answers, highly educated Republicans were no more accurate in their ideas about Democratic opinion than poorly educated Republicans. For Democrats, the education effect was even worse: the more educated a Democrat is, according to the study, the less he or she understands the Republican worldview.

“This effect,” the report says, “is so strong that Democrats without a high school diploma are three times more accurate than those with a postgraduate degree.” And the more politically engaged a person is, the greater the distortion."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/21/democrats-republicans-political-beliefs-national-survey-poll

[JoeWeber 2,720]

6 hours ago, BIGUN said:

"One of the study’s findings: the wilder a person’s guess as to what the other party is thinking, the more likely they are to also personally disparage members of the opposite party as mean, selfish or bad. Not only do the two parties diverge on a great many issues, they also disagree on what they disagree on.

This much we might guess. But what’s startling is the further finding that higher education does not improve a person’s perceptions – and sometimes even hurts it. In their survey answers, highly educated Republicans were no more accurate in their ideas about Democratic opinion than poorly educated Republicans. For Democrats, the education effect was even worse: the more educated a Democrat is, according to the study, the less he or she understands the Republican worldview.

“This effect,” the report says, “is so strong that Democrats without a high school diploma are three times more accurate than those with a postgraduate degree.” And the more politically engaged a person is, the greater the distortion."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/21/democrats-republicans-political-beliefs-national-survey-poll

Seriously, I wasn't being serious. If anything Bill should send them a few more bucks. Great study, though. Now we know that we all consider everyone one not like us to be uninformed dipsy doodles. I couldn't have worked that out on my own, that's for sure. So did this More in Common think tank that did the study fire all of their college educated researchers before or after they published the findings?

[BIGUN 1,314]

5 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

So did this More in Common think tank that did the study fire all of their college educated researchers before or after they published the findings?

I know, right. I didn't give it much credence, but thought it would give some a chuckle and perhaps irritate the Professor more so than usual.  

[yobnoc 142]

18 hours ago, billvon said:

No one disputes that.

If people started getting sick from laced pot, it would be silly to ban cigarettes.  It would also be silly to say "those are two COMPLETELY different things, so when I smoke I am being safe."

You're right in the specific analogy you gave.  The problem is that it isn't analogous to e-cigs.  There is zero (really - zero) evidence that there is any adverse pulmonary or general health effects from e-cigarettes. In fact, the UK is allowing vape shops to operate in their hospitals because of how effective it has been shown to get people off of smoking cigarettes.

Nicotine addiction is no more harmful than a caffeine addiction.  Plain and simple.  And there is no other harm that is linked to vaping.  I can confidently say that when I am vaping, I am being safe. 

[JoeWeber 2,720]

16 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

I know, right. I didn't give it much credence, but thought it would give some a chuckle and perhaps irritate the Professor more so than usual.  

Well you tickled me and I thank you.