Is Vaping a lot more safe than cigarettes?

[Isitanybetter]

I'm ignorant about this, but is vaping definitely much more safe than cigarette smoking? Are there any good recent studies?

I remember the "popcorn lung" side effect was debunked as not to do with vaping a few years ago, and it seemed like it was nowhere near as damaging as cigarettes. Is this still a general consensus?

Mine encourages me to continue vaping as I'm an ex smoker
But then I was smoking 30 a day and started smoking age 12 so anything is better than that

Like PP have said, I fear we don’t understand the long term impact of them. There were some teenagers sitting outside a restaurant I was in recently and I was horrified watching them sucking away on the fucking things constantly, exhaling big clouds of smelly chemicals. At least with a cigarette, people kind of space them out a bit. I just don’t see how inhaling all that shit into your lungs will end well.

Have you tried Allen Carr's method? I was smoking 50 a day and had been smoking for 45 years and I gave up smoking without a bother.

some of these posts- are people trolling when they say they think smoking is BETTER than vaping??? Anyone who has actually encouraged a relative to back to smoking over vaping is mad.

vaping has been around long enough for us to know it’s only fractional amount of damage compared to smoking.

that doesn’t make it 100% safe and it would be better no one vaped or smoked but implying we don’t know what’s in the ones in U.K. is nonsense or that we are totally in dark about effects is nonsense.

quoting foreign studies as well is stupid because contents are regulated here so another countries vapes are not equivalent to U.K.

please use your brains and listen to the epidemiologist and smoking cessation RN who have posted here rather than weird fake anecdotes about people being advised to smoke because vapings unknown.

Just to add, I’ve just googled to see if my knowledge was out of date and there is still no solid evidence to say that vaping causes cancer.

😳
www.sciencealert.com/whats-actually-in-vapes-anyway

www.sciencealert.com/whats-actually-in-vapes-anyway

My 88 year old mother switched to vaping last Christmas after having smoked 40+ cigarettes a day since she was 18.

She switched after a severe episode of pneumonia, brought on by smoking, almost killed her (last Christmas). She is so much better now than she has been in years and although she does have COPD, it is helped greatly by the lack of cigarettes. She also remarks sometimes on how much better food tastes.

All medical professionals she sees very much support her vaping rather than smoking and tell her that she is now classed as a non-smoker.

Would I prefer sitting in a room with her vaping, or with a thick cloud of smoke from her former cigarettes? There's just no comparison and I'll take the vaping any day thank you very much.

I'm fairly sure that if cigarette companies could prove vaping is as bad/ worse than smoking they'd have proven it. It costs. cigarette companies billions in lost revenue. But it'll be in 20 years we'll find out the truth

Long term... we don't know. But then we don't know the long term effects of many things. As PP said above, if there were issues to be easily found, tobacco companies would have done so, it is in their interest to do so!

Short term, significantly better.

As far as I have found, all the dramatic claims that they're full of formaldehyde, give you popcorn lung etc etc, it turns out the study is flawed (burning vape juice at a stupidly high temp no human could actually inhale - ingredients not present in UK licenced and tested vape juices - studies based on people breathing in a food ingredient dust...)

If you are not used to breathing in water vapour, then yes, you'll cough. I don't, I vape a bottle of vape juice a week on the lowest nicotine, and no cough. I guess it is easier to vape too much, there is no clear 'end point' of 'a quick vape' as there is with a cigarette, but I find I vape when browsing the net/working or in the car, but not when I am busy using my hands to do other things (sewing, knitting, drawing, at least one of which I do every day). So it evens out. Certainly, two cardiologists and a rheumatologist (just the ones I happen to have asked as I see them) are not concerned, nor are any of the GPs in my local practice.

My sister mixes vaping and roll ups (despite her heart condition)... coughs worse than when she smoked pre-made cigs. All the anti-vape shit has allowed her to persuade herself that the odd roll up is BETTER for her than fucking vaping.

Vaping stinks, and that nasty smell is much harder to get rid of than smoke. Hopefully vaping with be banned soon, the amount of teens I've seen vaping is insane, surely no one is so addicted to sucking on a piece of plastic that they want it to remain legal, and for even more kids to get addicted to them.

I'm not sure they would be. Smoking was just about 'not cool anymore' (unlike when I was a teen when you looked 'hard' if you smoked when vapes then became popular. But there was a bit of a gap in between so it wasn't a straight swap between one and the other.

The worry in children is that they're still developing, and they also can't regulate the same with less impulse control. They can chug away on a vape all day with their friends continuously, rather than the natural 'break' of the end of a cigarette. This can lead to high doses of nicotine which is dangerous, and faster/harder to break addiction.

I have no actual medical or scientific background but I think we're just at the point in vaping that we were when cigarettes first came out and everyone thought they were fine. Give it ten years and we'll probably know a whole lot more - I fail to see how inhaling a cherry flavoured chemical mix from b&m directly into your lungs can be a good things for them though.

It’s worrying how addictive they are. My oldest DD has recently started at 18. I explained how ridiculous it is and as an ex smoker myself how it can’t be good for you. I confiscated one from her and curiosity got the better of me, but before I’d realised it I’d finished the whole thing. I can now absolutely see how these things are so addictive! Far more addictive than normal smoking, because of how “clean” it is in comparison, and you never put them down!

They seem to be heavily aimed at children rather than people who used to smoke. Don’t get me wrong, I think as room to get people off cigarettes they have their place, and I know many people who have done this successfully. But the fact there are high street shops that look like American candy stores selling these things and tempting kids is wrong.

I don’t believe really that inhaling anything other than the air we breathe is really good for you, but they seem to have their place in a positive way to aid smokers to stop using cigarettes, but encouraging kids to smoke vapes can’t ever be good.

Come on now stop lying, vaping doesn't stink and certainly doesn't leave any smell on anything like cigarette smoke does. And it's the nicotine that's addictive not the plastic thing

If you have Netflix watch, "Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul".

It basically depends on what you are vaping.

Cigarettes cause lung damage because of the tobacco and addiction because of the nicotine.

If you are vaping with nicotine you are not reducing the addiction and my be increasing it.

@Sparklfairy

The vast majority of smokers start before they turn 15. If smoking has fallen out of trend, I'm glad as it was save millions of lives.

I do think you are correct re no natural end, it's almost like someone needs to design one with a timer and auto shut off so you can only receive 20 puffs an hour or something like this.

However, I will say in the same breath that because there are no bronchodilators in vapes, the amount of nicotine absorbed is tiny in comparison.

I'm currently stuck using 2% disposable vapes and because there is no lower strength Eg one strength for all, I can't wean myself down; and having adhd makes me more prone to be addicted to smoking/vaping.

Evidence so far is vapes are a lot less harmful- the nhs is able to recommend vaping as a stop smoking aid now. Some effects may take many years to become apparent but at the moment vapes are seen as safer.

This is really interesting. I didn't know about the nicotine absorption at all.

There seemed to be a short period, maybe a couple of years, where teens would go 'ew smoking is gross' and shun it, then vaping sort of exploded with the release of elf bars and others.

I love the idea of an auto shut off, like a button where you could set it for 'one cigarette' and then that's it, it stops. It would help someone like me keep track of how 'many' I smoke a day, because I feel like I vape more than I ever smoked.

You confiscated a vape from an 18 year old?

Come on now stop lying, vaping doesn't stink and certainly doesn't leave any smell on anything like cigarette smoke does

In defence of PP they aren't lying at all. If you don't vape, it absolutely does stink! Huge clouds of cloying disgusting smelling (often sweet) vapour, that you can smell on people when they come into the room after vaping.

I don't think people are claiming that vaping is literally safe, like drinking water.

As far as drinking water, probably best not to google Forever chemicals !

If you don't vape, it absolutely does stink! Huge clouds of cloying disgusting smelling (often sweet) vapour,

Most people who vape aren't in to the performative vaping that a small minority seem to enjoy, where they do produce huge clouds.

You get refillable pod systems that work pretty much like disposables

I use an elf mate 500 and prefilled pods and it’s just like a disposable one to vape, but, you can get refillable pods too that you put your own liquid into the pod. So you’d be able to lower the nicotine content gradually as the liquids do come in different strengths.

I’d maybe not recommend that particular one as the refillable pods are a pain to get hold off, they’re out of stock a lot of the time. But there are quite a few pod systems, smaller and easier to use than the actual refillable vapes.

Yes, in my house. 3 younger impressionable siblings.