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People hooked on vapes try a new way to quit: cigarettes

248 points · 335 comments · alephnerd

  1. prohobo · · focus · HN ↗
    People don't understand that cigarettes are self-limiting because they literally hurt your throat and lungs. Most people simply can't chain smoke and they need about an hour break in between smokes.

    With vaping that limit is completely gone. A vaping addiction can keep escalating until you want a puff every 30 seconds, especially once you start breaking down mental barriers like "no vaping indoors" or "no vaping while on the computer", etc.

    So in terms of pure addiction I would 100% argue that cigarettes are better than vaping.

    1. m-chrzan · · focus · HN ↗
      Are you speaking at all from experience?

      >Most people [...] need about an hour break in between smokes.

      I've never seen anything like that. When there's a group of social smokers standing around, it's very common for something like "Oh, I just finished mine and you're only half-way through yours, I'll light up another one to keep you company" to happen. I've seen plenty of people who aren't chain smokers (yet), but can easily go through 2-4 cigarettes in a row if they're suddenly in a stressful situation and smoking "to relax".

      >So in terms of pure addiction I would 100% argue that cigarettes are better than vaping.

      But that's not a metric that's in any way helpful for a health decision. Nicotine in and of itself is not particularly physically harmful - it's toxic at high doses and elevates heart rate for a bit, but that's about it. The delivery method is what causes most of the harm, and smoking is 100% known to cause a lot of harm in a lot of different ways. And "With vaping that limit is completely gone" is also not accurate. Unlike the Navier-Stokes equations, dopamine receptors don't experience infinite blowup in finite time. So choosing a delivery method based on the amount of nicotine taken daily is not going to change much in terms of addiction (if you're already heavily addicted, you'll remain heavily addicted), but can have a huge impact on physical health.

      1. andoando · · focus · HN ↗
        Speaking from personal experience, vaping is far more addicting. For one the amount of nicotine, especially in the US where 5% is the standard, is easily 5-10x the amount from a pack of cigarettes a day.

        Second, its much easier to take a puff than it is to find a suitable place to light up a cigarette and smoke for 5-10 minutes. You can very easily end up becoming psychologically conditioned to taking a puff litteraly once every 20 seconds, all day long from waking up to going to bed.

        I too have considered picking up smoking to quit vaping. I remember of the times I did, I could smoke 3-4 a day and be fine. I don't know the long term effects of vaping physically, but just mentally the amount of nicotine is absolutely draining and at this point I rather do some damage to my lungs than keep this going.

        1. Semaphor · · focus · HN ↗
          > where 5% is the standard

          What? 50mg/ml is the standard? Or am I miscalculating something here? When I switched from cigs to vaping (back in 2012, not really comparable to now, but still), I went with very high nicotine levels of 36mg/ml which was pretty harsh on the throat, and within a year I was at 3mg/ml. Nowadays I’m at zero.

          1. andoando · · focus · HN ↗
            For the disposable vapes, yes it is. 5% salt nic, in the US youd be hard pressed to find lower. Most countries Ive been to limit to 2%, which the US absolutely should do. Its criminal 5% is sold with no alternative.

            Im not going to link you 500 products but heres a pretty standard vape sold. You can check the rest of the products, theyre almost all 5% with no other option <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vapordna.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;flum-melo-20000-puffs-disposable-15ml" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vapordna.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;flum-melo-20000-puffs-disposab...

            15ml at 50mg&#x2F;ml is 750mg of nicotine. That thing would last me a week. A pack if cigs is ~25mg. Per week ~170mg versus 750. Insane

            I used to vape the box mods 3mg. It was great, but now I cant go back to it after trying these damn things because the 3mg is almost a joke. Even cigarettes feel like nothing to me compared to these things

            1. trollbridge · · focus · HN ↗
              Yes, but a market with only 5% is more likely to generate addicts, err, I mean, higher ARR.
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