Shocked at colleague vaping in the office

[dazedandconfused2016]

Just that really. I think it's selfish, irresponsible and rude.

I work in several offices as I'm freelance, thankfully not very often at this particular workplace. I know that vaping is banned in another department of the same company so one would assume the ban applies throughout all departments.

Obviously the rest of the team are turning a blind eye to it. Perhaps because the individual concerned has a level of seniority.

I do not accept that vaping is "safe". Too little is known about it to say that definitively. In fact, some studies have indicated that there are health risks associated with vaping:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/vaping-with-nicotine-is-heart-risk-r5tfssgt7

www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/concerns-explode-over-new-health-risks-vaping

Of course, some might say that if I don't like it I could stop accepting work from that employer but I imagine that I will be confronted by the same problem at other workplaces.

[PencilsInSpace]

Nooka, nobody is saying that vaping is entirely benign. Nothing is entirely benign (as Rebeccaslicker has yet to dicover, despite her science degree.)

The studies you cite here:

The first is not showing what you are saying it does. When controlled for covariants (sex, age, friends and family smoking, percentage receiving free school meals) any 'gateway effect' disappears:

Interpretation: Associations similar to those found in the previous studies are reported in a sample of UK adolescents and are validated against breath CO measures. Data collected over a 12-month period confirmed a sizeable relationship between ever use of e-cigarettes and subsequent initiation of cigarette use and showed that e-cigarette use is modestly associated with subsequent escalation of cigarette use. The former but not the latter relationship remained after controlling for various other risk factors for smoking (eg, intentions to smoke), only some of which had been assessed in previous studies. These findings support the robustness of the relationship between ever use of e-cigarettes and initiation of cigarette use but suggest the relationship between ever use of e-cigarettes and escalation of cigarette use may be explainable by other factors. Ever use of e-cigarettes was a stronger predictor of initiation of cigarette use in those with no friends who smoked at baseline compared with those with a few or most friends who smoked at baseline. *The latter finding would not appear to be consistent with the suggestion that e-cigarette use may simply be a marker for those who would go on to smoke cigarettes even without having tried e-cigarettes.

The results suggest that children who are poor and grow up in families where there are smokers are more likely to smoke and are also more likely to use ecigs, sometimes before they smoke. This is a) completely unsurprising and b) really good news because if they vape they are less likely to continue smoking and thus less likely to die a decade early on average because of smoking (50% chance of this if they continue smoking). They will also cause a lot less harm to those around them (aka their families and You The Non-Smoker.)

You must have googled really fucking hard to find that study past the big headline news of August 2017 that the largest ever UK survey (with several world class names attached to it) has concluded that there is no evidence that vaping leads to smoking among young people.

Why would you do that? There's nothing wrong with the study you linked and its results don't contradict Bauld et. al., it's just a bit of a minor study, not peer reviewed and difficult for the media to interpret accurately unless they know this field well, which they don't, and they are generally not either paid well enough, or personally interested enough, to dig deeper than the press release they are spoon fed.

The second thing you linked to is not a study at all, it's an 'article'. Actually it's just a rant. It contains quality unsubstantiated remarks such as:

E-cigarettes cause combustible smoking; they lead young people to cigarette use and nicotine addiction. And this pathway is a 1-way street. (as instantly refuted by all 1.5 million ex-smoking vapers in the UK alone)

Actually I give up on quoting further because the entire article is so foaming at the mouth. Why are you linking this shit? It's bollocks. Seriously, if you have actually read this article and want to assert any of the claims it makes then assert them based on the evidence, not this stupid frothy rant.

I am so sorry that the laws around vaping are so deeply regressive in Canada. This will be causing many unneccessary deaths.

[PencilsInSpace]

All the people saying 'well they said smoking was healthy in the olden days ...'

Please examine why your instant comparison is with smoking.

Inhaling smoke is bad for you. It doesn't matter much if you you're inhaling smoke from your own fag, someone else's fag, a naice middle class BBQ, a dodgy open fireplace, a dodgy wood burning stove, a joss stick, a house fire, a fireworks display ...

Breathing smoke is bad for you

Vaping is not smoking and vaping does not produce smoke. It produces an aerosol of water and glycerine, two substances which have extremely low toxicity and which you come across and inhale all the time without thinking about it.

It also contains nicotine. For many vapers this is very important, it's what keeps us off the fags, thus not slowly killing ourselves or you, the bystander. Nicotine is really not important for you, the bystander. It's present in such small amounts in exhaled vapour that there really is no risk, either of addiction or to general health. Away from tobacco smoke, nicotine is about like caffeine in terms of harm and addiction potential. Do you make this fuss when someone drinks an esspresso next to you?

The other ingredient is flavourings and they are food flavourings which again, you will be inhaling at least as often as you come across fast foods, ready meals and supermarket sweets. If there are any health risks associated with vaping, this is the most likely place we will find them because all the other ingredients have been tested to fuck. We most definitely don't know all there is to know about food flavourings. Nevertheless, most of us eat them all the time anyway in all sorts of stuff because they are yummy and because we recognise (except Rebeccaslicker) that the world is full of risks and this is minor in the scheme of things.

The good news is that:

a) the amount of these substances you might inhale even stood next to a cloud chaser is so minimal it's not worth worrying about. Do you make this fuss if a colleague hands round a bag of haribo?

b) it's easy to substitute a different, safer flavouring if one proves to have long term risks for vapers. We've done this already with diacetyls.

[nooka]

Pencils actually it came up very quickly. As I said I'm in Canada, so googling here brings up North American sources first. That study was also reported widely here, so I was fairly sure it informed my position and wanted to reference it. I also found some interesting articles on the new Act, with views very similar to yours, bemoaning that Canada doesn't have strong pro-vaping pressure groups unlike (for example) the UK. To be honest I'd not be surprised if Health Canada is more reactionary than Public Health England (I used to work in public health in the UK, so am very supportive of their work). I don't see that restricting sales and promotion of e-cigarettes to adults or making vapers follow similar rules to smokers is really likely to cause people to die though, is getting your fix outside when at work really such a big deal? Most smokers seems to enjoy their breaks.

I have no issue at all with smokers using e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid. Where it works that's fantastic, and obviously smoking is massively more problematic than using an e-cigarette). However I'm also very aware that many young people vape because as well as the surveys I see them frequently and my children (at high school) complain about it. It is a valid concern that they may well pick up a nicotine addiction and could move to other products later. As vaping by youth has grown significantly this could be a big issue down the line.

The study's conclusion was Ever use of e-cigarettes was robustly associated with initiation but more modestly related to escalation of cigarette use. You are right that when co-variants previously associated with higher risks of smoking were included in the analysis the effect of e-cigarettes becomes insignificant. However the analysis also showed that in some groups, specifically those who had fewer risk factors this was not the case. In the section you cut and pasted: Ever use of e-cigarettes was a stronger predictor of initiation of cigarette use in those with no friends who smoked at baseline compared with those with a few or most friends who smoked at baseline. This means that children who would otherwise be at lower risk for smoking seem to be at higher risk if they use e-cigarettes first. As I said it will be interesting to see the results a few years down the line.

I'm not sure why you are claiming the article wasn't peer reviewed. It was published in Tobacco Control, a peer reviewed BMJ publication which publishes articles on both positive and negative effects of e-cigarettes as well as many other tobacco related studies.

The link to the Paediatrics editorial was from the same edition as the study it refers to, it is indeed a bit ranty but the points you object to were all substantiated by the study. The references are given at the foot of the paper and is here (sorry I didn't post this before, I was short on time): pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2017/11/30/peds.2017-1832.full.pdf it concludes that:

^E-cigarette use was associated with future cigarette use across 3 longitudinal waves, yet cigarette use was not associated with future e-cigarette use. Future research should examine mechanisms through which e-cigarette use leads to cigarette use.
E-cigarette regulation and prevention programs may help prevent future use of cigarette among youth^

The youths in this study who took up e-cigarettes did not seem to be doing so to escape cigarette addiction. Over the three years of the study those who tried e-cigarettes increased their use over time, and were much more likely to start to smoke cigarettes. As young people are taking up vaping in increasing numbers (although not all use nicotine) public health specialists are right to be concerned. If the results from the UK and US are different then there may be protective factors in the way that e-cigarettes are marketed, sold and used in the two countries.

[Rebeccaslicker]

wow, two mentions in one post, jimmies rustled much?! Clue - this is a general chat forum. Not a science paper.

It's about degrees of risk. YOU may think your vaping is sufficiently "minor in the scheme of things". (Of course it would have been better to assess risk before taking up smoking in the first place, if you like assessing risk so much.)

But it misses the point for people who don't want to vape at all. Why should we have to take any additional risk just because you are too inconsiderate to take it outside? Just saying you consider it to be minor because you're satisfied with the studies you've read is a really selfi-absorbed reason.

[Slarti]

Just saying you consider it to be minor because you're satisfied with the studies you've read is a really selfi-absorbed reason.

It's no more self absorbed than insisting other people submit to your whims based on hypothetical risks. Imagine drinking a coffee and someone insisting you move because they're worried the fumes could be harming their health, and despite telling them that there's no proof that could happen they insist you move anyway because they don't trust the studies. Would you really consider yourself to be the self absorbed one in that scenario?

[Rebeccaslicker]

For how many years have people been drinking coffee? What's the point of trying to compare apples from the garden of Eden with a new breed of genetically modified pear that's from an unknown source and that's only been around for a few years?!

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

Sorry Rebecca. You can't start talking about degrees of risk now, especially not when followed by a statement that says (and I paraphrase) all the studies available now could be wrong so it isn't fair, not fair I tells ya!

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

And did you just try to wriggle in Monsanto and the Great Genetically Modified Heist?

Kudos

[Rebeccaslicker]

I calculate that it's about 57% fair, actually!

[Penners99]

Vape in my office and you are history

[dazedandconfused2016]

Love it, Penners.

Excellent post, Nooka.

As for the analogy between coffee and vaping, drinking coffee is not antisocial. Everyone in my office does it and nobody is offended by it. Vaping is antisocial - nobody does it in all but one of the offices I work in. And if I am offended by a solitary office vaper, judging by some of the responses on this thread, other colleagues must be too.

I think that, for the most part, this comes down to laziness and lack of consideration on the part of those determined to vape indoors.

But this appears to be a subject on which either party will never agree, a bit like Labour and the Tories on public spending.

[dazedandconfused2016]

Sorry, that should have read: This appears to be a subject on which neither party will ever agree.....

[Viviennemary]

YANBU. In a few years they will worry us to death by saying vaping is more dangerous than smoking tobacco. Just like they did with diesel. Vaping should be banned in all public places including the street IMHO. As should smoking. It's disgusting.

[PencilsInSpace]

nooka, firstly, apologies - you are quite correct, I misread the first study you posted. In fact I was thinking of a quite different study that I can't even find now (there are so many of them!)

There is expert reaction to the study you posted here. Also see CRUK's take on it.

The study only measured 'ever use' not regular use. It could be that children only ever tried either smoking or vaping, or both, once. The study also does not tell us whether the children were using ecigs with nicotine.

Our findings also indicated that the association between ever use of e-cigarettes and initiation of cigarette use was particularly strong among adolescents with no friends who smoked

But this is not really surprising. Those with friends who smoke are far more likely to have smoked a friend's fag first if they wanted to try it. Among those who tried smoking but who did not have friends who smoke, 49% had tried an ecig first, 51% hadn't. As Bauld says, Which came first – and why – might simply be a matter of chance, rather than anything else.

While it controlled for some covariates there were some important ones that were not controlled for. In fact the authors themselves acknowledge this: our research could only consider a finite number of covariates and moderators, and it is plausible that important factors were omitted. Previous related studies16–19 have examined various other factors (eg, sensation seeking, impulsivity, other substance use, delinquent behaviour, academic performance and race/ethnicity). (in fact, the discussion section of this study is full of limitations and caveats)

We know that there is a strong relationship between youngsters trying one substance and trying another, whether that is cigarettes, ecigs, alcohol or other drugs, in fact risky behaviours of all sorts tend to cluster together and this is where 'gateway' theories fall down - how do you pick out causation? Young people experiment with things and some experiment more than others.

There is a good discussion of the problems with gateway theories in PHE's report (from p37). I won't C&P it all here, but they conclude We strongly suggest that use of the gateway terminology be abandoned until it is clear how the theory can be tested in this field.

If ecig use among either adults or children led to smoking we would expect smoking prevalence to increase as the rates of ecig use increase. All the evidence points the other way. Wherever you look, smoking prevalence among children continues to fall at least as fast as before ecigs became popular. Above is a graph showing youth prevalence of smoking in Connecticut (PDF link), where your second study was conducted (which frankly I don't have the time to pick through). If, as the authors assert, Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use rates are high among youth (they're not - regular use among never smokers of any age remains extremely low) and if vaping leads to smoking, then where are all the extra smokers?

Of course PH specialists are keeping a very close eye on this issue but the reputable among them will of course focus on overall prevalence rather than small studies based on a flawed 'gateway' theory.

[PencilsInSpace]

WRT the Canadian legislation that is being debated at the moment -

no person shall promote a vaping product, including by means of the packaging, by comparing the health effects arising from the use of the product or from its emissions with those arising from the use of a tobacco product or from its emissions.

Can you really not see the danger in this? PHE's report was largely motivated by the alarming rise in the number of people (including both children and adults who smoke) who mistakenly believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking or more harmful. If smokers believe vaping is as bad as smoking, why would they switch?

There are many other objections which are outlined here (yes it's a trade association analysis but it appears sound nonetheless). Some of the objections are similar to those levelled at the TPD. The vape industry currently comprises mostly SME. If you introduce onerous, non-evidence-based, regulatory burdens it can become too costly for these small businesses to comply. The danger is that the entire industry is handed to the big tobacco companies and we know they have major ambitions in that direction. That might not seem important to you (or you might be appalled simply because they are Big Tobacco.) The important thing from vapers' perspective is that to date, the products made by Big Tobacco have been ineffective and overpriced compared with those made by independent vaping companies. If the goal is to reduce smoking rates (which it should be) this is not the way to go about it.

is getting your fix outside when at work really such a big deal

Yes, it can cause problems, especially in the early days. Nicotine from vaping is absorbed much more slowly than from smoking. This is why vapers tend to use their devices on a little-and-often basis, rather than hoovering it for a solid 5 minutes every hour or so. PHE flag this up in their guidance:

smokers can achieve their desired blood plasma nicotine level with one cigarette every hour or so, and in a short space of time. Vaping provides a generally lower blood nicotine level and takes longer to reach a desired level, requiring frequent interim top-ups This difference should be taken into account, particularly when developing policies for workplaces

There's also the problem that in practice, sending vapers outside will usually mean they end up standing next to smokers:

In particular, vapers should not be required to use the same space as smokers, as this could undermine their ability to quit smoking and stay smokefree, particularly among those most heavily addicted.

As time goes on and the vaper becomes a more confident non-smoker this is not such a problem, in fact there is evidence that longer term vapers are less addicted to nicotine than they were when they smoked and this has certainly been my experience. In the early days though, this stuff matters. Given that the vast majority of all quit attempts end in failure we should do what we can to avoid putting extra obstacles in the way.

Some employers are now introducing separate rooms for vapers to use at work. How do people feel about that idea?

[PencilsInSpace]

Rebeccaslicker - YOU may think your vaping is sufficiently "minor in the scheme of things" ...

If you go back and read the whole sentence you'll see that I was referring to the risks of eating foods which contain flavourings. If you avoid all of these because they have not been proven safe then fair enough, but I am left wondering how many other things you are avoiding because of the impossibility of proving a negative.

Of course it would have been better to assess risk before taking up smoking in the first place, if you like assessing risk so much.

Yes it would, wouldn't it? I was 12. The majority of smokers started as children. Teens' and pre-teens' risk assessment skills are notoriously rubbish. That's the whole point of restricting children's access to tobacco, surely?

[cathyclown]

If vaping becomes illegal or something (well cigs will have to at the same time), there will be a riot.

I rarely see people smoking cigarettes now. Vaping occasionally and it doesn't bother me at all.

Vaping is the new nicorette patch. But is seems to work far better than all the smoking cessation gums, patches etc.

But fine, cut vaping out. It will be a disaster if so. Telling you now.

[dazedandconfused2016]

Cathyclown - you obviously have not RTFT. No one is saying that vaping should be banned altogether. Just that vapers should not subject non-vapers to their fumes in enclosed spaces.

[nooka]

Vaping came under the same regulations as smoking tobacco over a year ago where I live (and six months before that in many of our major cities). No riots. I can't find anything up to date on smoking rates to see if there has been any significant change over the last year. I don't know any vapers who have used vaping to give up smoking, but then where I live nicotine probably isn't the most popular liquid to be vaping anyway, most people seem to use fruity stuff for the fun of blowing vapour everywhere or vape to get high.

[MistressDeeCee]

Meh...another post so folks can get apoplectic about vaping as they can't stand cigarette smokers having an alternative. Stopped in mid-crow😁

Vapers stink? Half of you probably drink too much or live with someone who does, and they stink too. If you don't like vaping OP then approach management to get it stopped, and if it's not at your place of work then if it's allowed/other workers don't mind, it'd be easier for you to mind your own business really.

There's a lot of reaching going on with all these studies listed. Even if they're all gospel truth, you're never going to prevent cigarette smoking or vaping. Economics trump outrage every time. Money talks.

It's just as worrying breathing in diesel every day and especially if you live in London, you're choking anyway even if sat in a park. I feel sorry for babies in buggies here.

I don't like cigarette smoke. Vaping doesn't bother me. If it did I'd remove myself from vicinity of said vaper, or explain I'd prefer them to stop

Has anyone said vaping sets off their numerous allergies yet? Only you could deal with it in the way you deal with your other life restricting allergies

[PencilsInSpace]

No riots

Well no, I wouldn't expect riots, just fewer smokers switching to vaping which ultimately translates as poorer health and more premature death.

It can be hard to assess the impact but comparing smoking data from different countries that have varying approaches to vaping and other low risk nicotine products can provide some insight. For example Australia has long been considered to be the gold standard when it comes to tobacco control policy and has historically had lower, and faster falling, smoking prevalence than other comparable countries. They also have a de facto ban on vaping. Looks like they might have missed a trick.

By the way, if you want an insight into the fierce political wranglings around this topic you could do worse than read the submissions and other stuff connected to the Australian inquiry. It's not just vapers who get heated about this!

[Lichtie]

Why are people so self entitled. If it's your house or your premises then great, it's your choice to ask people not to vape. If the owner or occupier allows it then that's their option at the moment, you have a choice to stay or leave.

[Mooncuplanding]

My office just banned vaping

Couple of people just started smoking again instead.

It baffles me how people think they are the same thing.

I hate the smell of tuna, perfume, onions, BO, people who cycle to work and don't shower, I don't even like the smell of coffee, and no I don't drink it. I hate the way there are always piles of cakes and biscuits at work because it requires constant willpower.

You know what? I just have to suck it up
Vaping diesnt do anyone else any harm.

It does do us all harm if people are smoking

I'd rather all the hysterical anti-vapers were campaigning for the government to ban smoking completely than being disgusted by a cloud of water vapour

[Viviennemary]

I don't like smoking. And vaping is no better. I don't want clouds of chemicals in droplets in the air. No thanks. In a few years they'll find out vaping is toxic.