To buy my 15 year old a vape

[Notagoodtime]

I discovered nearly a year ago that my 15 year old ds was vaping. I told him how disappointed I was and hoped that he would listen.Anyway over the last year we have had lots of discussions about it and I’ve tried to persuade him not to and even as gone as far as punishing him when I’ve found vapes in his bedroom. He has recently told me he wants to stop but is addicted to the nicotine. He has asked me for help. He has suggested that I buy him a lower nicotine vape and let him have it daily for a short time. I know little about e- cigarettes and I’m not sure the right way to go about this. He says he currently vapes the highest strength. Apparently half his year do at school in the toilets. Any advice greatly appreciated.

He's already buying it himself- why the hell do you need to buy it for him?! He is more than capable of buying a lower nicotine one than one he currently gets. I wouldn't be funding it for him.

You knew a 14 year old was vaping and you didn't stop him? WTF?

What is it with vapes? I smoke roll up cigarettes for full disclosure. I recently saw someone I hadn't seen since I was about 16 and he was about 20, he never smoked when mostly all of the rest of our friendship group did. 15 years later, he vapes! I thought it was such a strange habit to pick up in your thirties. I can see why teenagers are attracted. Plus the strange air freshener smell combinations you can get. We had normal or menthol, or the odd cigar to look cool vape manufacturers needed so little advertising and marketing for such a huge payout really when people advertise them themselves through word of mouth etc.

I bloody hate vapes. They were intended as a way of helping people break their nicotine addiction and quit smoking but they have just become a more convenient and less socially unacceptable way of getting the fix.

As others say this makes no sense. If he’s getting himself vapes he can get himself vapes- what difference does you providing a particular one for 15 mins make?
I couldn’t support giving my child a vape. They have health risks and we don’t yet understand how much. They are not a safe alternative.

Stop giving him money if he's spending it on something you're not happy with.
If he's got a nicotine addiction take him to the doctors.

you can buy a starter vape for £7, on ebay
and liquid as well

how does he buy them currently?

15 minutes won't cure the cravings, I vape 4.5mg, 3 nic shots to 100ml of juice, the longest I go without is 8 hours when I'm asleep & maybe 2-3 hours I'm downstairs (I'm chronically ill, disabled & staying with my mum who only let's me vape in my room) The first thing I do when I wake up is grab my vape. Better to reduce the nicotine strength, you buy the juice & add the nic shots, buy unmixed, not premixed & you control the nicotine. If he wants to do it he will whatever you say but you make the rule that you supply the juice & then you control the nicotine, a 100ml bottle should last him around 7-10 days, reduce the nicotine by 1.5mg every couple of weeks, that is one 10ml bottle at a time, you usually can't fit more than 4.5 mg in a 100ml bottle without wasting juice. Buy the juice online it is cheaper, don't buy from market stalls which is where I suspect he will be buying it from or the stuff in pound shops.

They likely won't help as they reccomend vaping.

In a past life I worked in the vaping industry for 10 years.

vaping IS considerably less harmful than smoking. *less harmful doesn’t by any means mean it is safe. But it is the lesser of two evils. It is concerning the amount of children that are using these as a fashion statement these days and from my experience it’s usually the parents that are purchasing them for their children/teens to use. Although there are some irresponsible sellers that wouldn’t bat an eye lid at selling to a teenager.

there is a monumental difference between traditional cigarettes and vapes. However both have the same end goal. Nictotine.
Nicotine on its own is virtually harmless. It is a stimulant that triggers the same part of the brain that caffeine does. There is a reason you get up in the morning and flick the kettle on. Theres Is hundreds to thousands of chemicals added to cigarettes and along side of you having to physically burn it to inhale makes it one of the biggest causes of cancer
Vaping has 3 ingredients you consume on a daily basis anyway. Pg/vg and food flavouring. I know which one I would prefer.

OP. In terms of your child being addicted to nicotine. I think The likelihood of this is fully dependent on how much nictone he is actually having.

3mg for a example is .03mg per ml. Next to fuck all comparatively to an actual cigarette. 2ml of liquid .06mg Is a full tank of Eliquid. Even if he’s getting through that daily it’s still less nicotine than one standard cigarette. The maths is easy to work out if you question it.

would I buy my 15 year old a vape? No.
would I buy my 15 year old a vape if they were smoking 20 cigarettes a day? More than likely.

Rno3gfr · 03/05/2022 22:56
There is no link between vaping and cancer. It doesn’t have the same carcinogens as a cigarette.

Totally not true.

There are several lines of evidence that show nicotine itself can cause DNA damage and contribute to the development of cancer, independent of other tobacco constituents.

Get him off the vapes now and do not enable him.

@GitOotMahSwamp

Did you really just post “nicotine on its own is virtually harmless” - you worked in the vaping industry for 10 years.

Well then, must be true! Just like when all the tobacco companies claimed cigarettes were harmless as well.

@Allthe4s I would really love to know where these articles are?
9/10 they are very vaguely worded and open to interpretation but open to have a read and see what correlations have apparently been found between nicotine and DNA damage. walking past a candle can contribute to the development of cancer so if we started listing everything im sure we would be here for a while.
cherry picking at its finest.

@Allthe4s I’m not here for an argument love, I am interested to look at these articles if you could post the links.

Heads up they are not “articles”, they are scientific papers peer reviewed in top tier journals. Fact you don’t know the difference is alarming in it’s own right and highlights you have no scientific credentials.

with all due respect I’m not entirely sure I gave you what scientific credentials I have but the question still remains, I would love to read the scientific articles you have referenced.

@MissusMaisel MissusMaisel · 03/05/2022 22:58
You knew a 14 year old was vaping and you didn't stop him? WTF?

You obviously don’t know how sneaky teenagers can be. I have spoken to all his friends parents, telling them I’m struggling with my sons vaping. They all believe their sons don’t vape but I know they do but it’s not my place to tell them. They vape at school, they vape when they supposed to be catching the bus home from school, he vapes when I leave the house for 10 minutes. I constantly search his bedroom for vapes, check his pockets. I find your comment a bit harsh as I’m not sure how you stop them. Any advice greatly appreciated.

there are tons of similar papers.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/

No, not a good idea. He is manipulating you. If he wants to quit and needs help, contact NHS.

It's a bit too early to declare that. Many - possibly most - lung cancer sufferers whose illness is linked to smoking had been smoking for years and years without issue before succumbing to lung tumours.
We don't know that the same won't happen with vapes as people haven't been smoking them long enough to find out the true effects yet.
I'm going to hazard a guess that inhaling synthetic fragrances / flavours / other nasty chemicals into your lungs isn't going to keep them in the best of health though.

Thanks for that @Allthe4s just a quick skim through and I see the use of the word “MAY” crop up quite a bit hardly conclusive.

I guess you can find anything on the internet that fits your agenda which can swing both ways. I could probably find a scientific paper that finds completely different findings which is the whole point of research. If it’s totally and utterly dependant on the conditions of which the study was conducted and if it can be applied to real life scenarios.

Sorry, no. Take the one he has now off him and be a proper parent. He's a child. You should have done it ages ago.

I smoked cigarettes from a young age. Bitterly regret it now. If vaping has the same hook as cigarettes, I can empathise with your son that quitting will be hard. I think the situational addiction might be the hardest-the first one of the day/after meals are the hardest to give up. Its part of your routine.

My advice would not be to buy him a vape, he already has one. I understand where you are coming from, but cutting down as a form of quitting almost never works for smoking (I am sure there will be a pile on now, but thats what the evidence says).

If he is serious about quitting, I would try and get him to modify his behaviour first to break the cycle. Ask him to think about when he is using his vape and abstain from using it in one of those situations. You could also see if you could get a non nicotine liquid (I remember when I was trying to quit about 10 years ago and an acquaintance had a shisha type vape, no nicotine in it and it was flavoured. I would have happily swapped to that, it gave that "hit" at the back of the throat).

You could go to NHS stop smoking services, the problem you have is the only products that can be offered (if any, I am not sure if they will prescribe to a 15 yr old) are NRT, which is what vaping is.

You could drive yourself crazy trying to find vapes OP. If he is going to do it, he will find a way. He has to want to stop himself.

He's having you on OP. Unless he is using disposables he does not need a new vape to cut down!! 😂 he just needs lower strength liquids. Drop a strength every 2-4 weeks until he is in the zero nicotine.

*GitOotMahSwamp · 04/05/2022 07:18
Thanks for that @Allthe4s just a quick skim through and I see the use of the word “MAY” crop up quite a bit hardly conclusive.

I guess you can find anything on the internet that fits your agenda which can swing both ways. I could probably find a scientific paper that finds completely different findings which is the whole point of research. If it’s totally and utterly dependant on the conditions of which the study was conducted and if it can be applied to real life scenarios.*

Such a predictable response. Its almost funny. Will leave you to your research of independent papers that show nicotine is totally harmless. Good luck with that.