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

248 points · 335 comments · alephnerd

  1. mullingitover · · focus · HN ↗
    Did a cigarette write this article?

    Cigarettes are ridiculously more addictive. I know this from experience, but also from a study that found that MAOIs (in cigarettes, but not found in vapes) "dramatically increase the motivation to self-administer nicotine in rats."[1]

    I had a wickedly difficult time quitting cigarettes, many failed attempts over the course of years. Vaping made quitting tobacco comically easy, and quitting vaping was also comically easy compared to cold turkey. To quit my all-day vaping habit I just...got rid of the vapes and stopped doing it. I thought about it a few times a day for the first few days, and that was it.

    People saying to avoid vapes as a cessation tool are committing actual harm, imo. It's like the difference in difficulty between just jumping off a roof versus using a ladder to descend. Yes, ladders are risky, but not as risky as jumping off a roof.

    [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jneurosci.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;25&#x2F;38&#x2F;8593" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jneurosci.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;25&#x2F;38&#x2F;8593

    1. Freak_NL · · focus · HN ↗
      Part of the problem is that vapes easily let you ingest a lot more nicotine than cigarettes. Researchers in the Netherlands found that some teens are vaping so much they effectively have the nicotine intake of a three pack a day tobacco addiction. This is due to a combination of (illegal) vapes being available in all sorts of fruity and hip child-friendly flavours, illegal vapes simply containing more nicotine, and vapes coming in reservoirs good for 9000 or so &#x27;puffs&#x27;.

      If you stuck with plain vapes bought through a legal channel, that risk factor would have been absent.

      1. christophilus · · focus · HN ↗
        Is nicotine a problem, though? I&#x27;m not a cigarette or vaping guy. I do like a nicotine pouch, and I love an evening pipe. My understanding is that nicotine is not much of a problem, but the smoke &#x2F; vape contaminants are where the real hazard lies.
        1. howard941 · · focus · HN ↗
          I don&#x27;t know if most pipe smokers inhale.
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