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I'm old and don't know anything about vaping. Is there anyone who can help cut through the noise here - is vaping actually equivalent to/less than/worse than smoking cigarettes? Have any large pieces of epidemiological research been done?
Totally anecdotal, but I'm a former-smoker and I'm pretty sure everyone I know who has switched from combustion to vaporization would tell you that the acute effects are significantly lower. Less coughing, less shortness of breath, shorter recovery when battling a cold, lower blood pressure, fewer instances of bronchitis. I can't imagine that vaping is even in the same ballpark of potential harm as cigarettes.

Am I addicted to nicotine? Obviously. Has JUUL made quitting all nicotine any easier? No. But I feel a lot better than I did when I smoked.

As a former smoker myself, I would agree with all of this. I used to get bronchitis about 3 times per year, but haven't had it one time since I switched. Exercise is significantly easier too. It's not a good or acceptable thing for kids to get hooked on vaporizers at a young age, but I never would have quit cigarettes if it weren't for vaporizers.
I think compared to smoking, vaping is definitely healthier (or rather, less unhealthy). However the concern is that there are people vaping who wouldn't be smoking cigarettes. Anecdotally this seems to be the case, especially with people in their teens and 20s.
There is a recent research paper estimating vaping to be about 95% better for you than smoking. Even if people who wouldn’t have smoked at all vape, it appears to be an overall net positive.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180111141600.h...

"Studies show that if most current American smokers switched to vaping e-cigarettes over the next 10 years, there could be as many as 6.6 million fewer premature deaths and 86.7 million fewer life years would be lost," said David Abrams, PhD, professor of social and behavioral sciences at NYU College of Global Public Health and the article's lead author.

If you’re going to say things like this, alluding to vaping being as unhealthy as smoking (or roughly so), I think there is a burden of proof to show that that is the case.

Of course, nobody ever comes out and just says this, because they can’t show that it’s true. It’s very disingenuous, in my opinion.

I have never understood the attraction of something like nicotine which is for all practical purposes only useful for getting addicted to. If you are a teen and get hooked hard you have just voluntarily made yourself the bitch of whoever can provide you with nicotine. You will be paying them for the rest of your life.

Why not pledge to contribute to a charity for the rest of your life instead? Do heroin and have a pleasant/uncomplicated/short life. What is so special about nicotine that people happily give themselves to it as opposed to all the other things one could get pointlessly addicted to?

Nicotine helps witu stress and feel calmer. Why do you compare it to heroin? I mean seriously,is JUUL more harmful than fastfood?
Ok,pleae explain to me why smoking marijuana and legalizing it so awesome but Vaping is terrible. Or am I missing something? Marijuna legalization is celebrated but I see vaping ads equating it to Cigarettes.
I'm not 100% pro-legalization, but the main argument there is that the laws on the books are draconian and variably enforced. We probably don't want that for consuming anything relatively harmless, like vaping or weed.

I think the jury is out on how addictive any of these substances can be, and since the legal age for smoking is 18 there's a significant worry that vaping is affecting the health of our kids (almost definitely true). The same is possibly true for marijuana, it's just less well studied (and these health studies are new).

Maybe there should be a third line added to the graph showing alcohol consumption or some other "vices". Perhaps something else more damning to children has declined. I'm not one to applaud getting "hooked" on anything but kids will be kids and if their not using nicotine it will probably be something else. It is up to the parents to educate them not blame a corporation for making money.