I was surprised when I was quitting smoking that my friend (who also smoked) was advocating vaping instead. I asked: Why not just quit completely?
I do think vaping is less dangerous than actually smoking but not doing either one is best for your health. Even getting "hooked" on nicotine gum or similar is better than smoking or vaping. But again, best to just quit nicotine / smoking / vaping completely.
I feel like the generally accepted wisdom on the issue is that quitting smoking is hard. Whichever one works for you is the best one.
For me, “harm reduction” was just a convenient excuse for not really trying… And, I eventually decided, again, this is my experience, not advice, but, like, eventually, every method of quitting will eventually be cold turkey, so I just went for it.
Personally I found the nicotine addiction is overstated. I never had any trouble making it through 8 hours of sleep without a cigarette, so my claim that I needed one every hour or two kinda seemed like bullshit. Also, if I was so hung up on nicotine addiction - nicotine starts declining in your system almost immediately, so, if I was smoking for 5 minutes of every hour, I was spending 55 minutes of every hour in nicotine withdrawal. That’s… dumb. That’s a dumb way to live.
(I was also a heroin addict from when I was a teenager until my late 20s - and - at least heroin lasts a while. Nicotine is a garbage drug.)
In the end, smoking is a habit - and there’s not much in the way of shortcuts to changing your habits - and it’s especially hard when your enjoy it. There are better techniques and worse techniques, but no cure.
For me, when me and my wife added tiny little people to the world, I realized that they would prefer me to be alive, and I didn’t want to make them sad, so I quit.
I think people need to PRACTICE quitting and I wish more people had this mentality. Assuming that you'll succeed at something so difficult the first of many times of trying to do it is unrealistic. It took me several attempts and taking a class about it to quit smoking.
"I couldn't climb the mountain the first time I tried with no practice or help, therefore I'm never trying again" is very defeatist. Quitting is a process and practicing quitting is completely acceptable. Learn what didn't work that time and develop strategies to deal with what didn't work.
I have a bunch of tips from the class I took that I still mostly remember. I wonder how much of that info is online.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all opposed to vaping as a stepping stone to quitting. I tried it myself for a little while one of the times I was trying to quit.
And, again, I do think that vaping is less dangerous than actually smoking. But best to quit all of it completely.
Yeah you’re not wrong. It’s about harm reduction though. If the people who wouldn’t quit if they tried quitting for good switch to vaping they’ll be better off. Vaping only makes sense for current smokers, no one else should be using them. They are more harmful than nothing, but way way less harmful than tobacco.
I’m very conflicted about vaping. On the one hand I’m happy it exists as I think it can definitely help some people quit smoking.
On the other hand I dislike it as it lowers the entry into smoking and also has the adverse effect. ( My opinion ) It’s probably also not great for your lungs to inhale steam on a regular basis.
As a non smoker at least my clothes don’t smell like smoke/tobacco, doesn’t stink up the room and there’s no people holding their cigarette nexto them so it doesn’t blow in their face, while it’s smoking in mine all the time ( e.g.: at a bar outside ). Super annoying( though not deliberate on their end ). Vaping at least solves that issue for non smokers compared to ciggies.
It’s not just “steam” in vapes, there’s also the chemicals used to vaporize the liquid, and of course the flavors themselves. I’m not a scientist but I can’t imagine it’s good for you. Breathing regular air in a big city isn’t great for you - like, bacon causes cancer - we probably don’t want to assume the best for directly inhaling inadequately studied chemicals
That’s not quite true. Nicotine is indeed the addictive part of smoking, and the source of long term behavioural issues.
But that’s not, by far, the most dangerous or impactful aspect of cigarettes or vapes. Cigarettes are little cancer sticks with some of the most absurdly carcinogenic substances known, and it really destroys your lungs ability to expel excess mucus and contaminants.
Vapes don’t have nearly the same amount of quite absurdly random crap a cigarette will have, but they’re still carcinogenic and they slowly burn cilia and cause inflammatory responses.
Being addicted to nicotine gum could give you headaches, issues with mood, and eventually cardiovascular issues. It’s certainly not a good thing - but saying “nicotine is the aspect of it that is proven to be especially bad for you” is simply wrong.
…Because of the nicotine. Nicotine is a known carcinogen on its own. Propylene glycol and Glycerol are not. Of course it is possible to make vape juice with other additives that happen to be carcinogenic but those can be omitted. There have been studies showing it’s possible for vaping to irritate the airways but from what I was reading I didn’t see any hard links between that and serious health outcomes, or that this always necessarily happens.
So as best I can tell, my statement is correct, the main thing about vaping that is bad for you is the nicotine, and I wasn’t able to find evidence that other (necessary) aspects of it are inherently harmful in a serious way. If you could provide evidence of that I’d consider it.
alternate take: personal freedom of movement, whether bidedal, or automated, is a thing of value, as is electricity, clean running water, and a majority of what modern technology provides. it, like most everything else can be done better, and cleaner. not the same argument as smoking, which was always an "entertainment", as apposed to transportation and perambulation which are a necessity. thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Exactly right. We should celebrate the possibilities and freedom that modern technology gives us. EVs are an amazing invention and nitpicking for tiny issues that they don’t solve is a level beyond First World Problems.
The only things EV’s solve is emissions. They reduce emissions in cities which is great, and thanks to clean power plants (renewable and nuclear) help reduce overall emissions. But they are still cars, still take up space, they are heavier so cause more wear on the road surfaces and emit tire particles. I wouldn’t say these are tiny issues.
If we have to use cars then yes, electric are better, but it’s not the solution. The solution should aim at reducing use of the inefficient forms of transport in favor of mass transit or micro mobility.
Better urban planning, as well. We can’t do anything about cars as long as we build entire communities to accommodate cars. We’ve gone from people owning cars to cars owning society.
Mass transit is inefficient compared to having your own car. Pretending mass transit can completely get rid of cars is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard.
Are you high? Mass transit is a thousand times more efficient than cars.
How many cars on a highway, on streets contain only 1 person? How long are people sitting on the road, idling because of traffic lights or no movement because of there being too many cars?
How much land is taken up by highways, freeways, exit ramps, and interchanges that could be better used for homes and parks and shops?
The point of public mass transit is not to eliminate car traffic, because there will always be a use for it, but we should try to minimize it as much as possible. Only car-brained Americans think mass transit is inefficient and “freedumb-restricting” because our mass transit systems have been massively underfunded and downright eliminated for a century.
Oddly enough I think he meant that having your own car is more efficient than mass transit for the individual. And really, we’re talking about time spent traveling more so than overall energy spent.
It takes me less time to get in my car and drive downtown than it does to wait on a bus to arrive and eventually get me to where I’m going… Which is why cars are never going away.
You guys are both talking about different types of efficiencies.
That said, yours is the type of efficiency that MOST people are talking about when this discussion is had.
I don’t even think it’s efficient in that way either though.
I mean, sure, you can get in your car and start driving faster. But then you likely have to sit and wait at traffic lights, sit in traffic if you’re anywhere in a city, and find parking.
That just seems less efficient than getting to the nearest bus stop or train station and not having to deal with any of the trouble of driving. Of course, as long as the city is designed well, which you can’t find in the US.
Vaping is actually very helpful and it's probably helped a lot of people stop smoking.
The only problem was the fact that they got away with doing shit like advertising it to kids and making it cool. Fix that problem and vaping is almost literally only an advantage compared to cigarettes.
And even with more people taking it up, it's still unhealthy but it's like mildly unhealthy instead of cigarettes where it's like oh yeah you're going to double your chance of dying at 50.
Vaping is an advantage compared to cigarettes sure, but it is still signifcantly worse than just breathing air and it still promotes consuming one of the most addictive substances, nicotine. It drains the health and wealth of its consumers and offers little more than a head rush and a habit in return.
Smokers’ needs are way, way the fuck down the priorities list compared to non-smokers’ needs. If something might save 100 smokers but risk harming a single non-smoker, it’s still not worth doing.
And if smokers don’t like it, well, it’s their own damn fault for making that choice. Quit fucking cold-turkey and deal with it.
Edit: vapes do harm by tempting non-smokers to start vaping. If you want help quitting smoking, at least use a goddamn nicotine patch or whatever like a responsible person instead of being a useful idiot enabling Philip Morris etc. to push new shit on the public. Everybody defending vaping because it’s myopically good only for people who already smoke (ignoring the significant harm that new, non-smokers get addicted to it) is a terrible fucking person and should be ashamed of himself.
Addiction is a powerful thing and this kind of thinking is such a counter-intuitive way of dealing with it.
Addiction often stems from issues people are dealing with in their lives and telling them to stop like this as if it’s a moral failure on their part just feeds into it all. Most people know they need to stop for themselves and others but shoving them down like this genuinely makes it harder
The point is that smokers do not deserve that help AT THE COST OF NEW NON-SMOKERS GETTING ADDICTED TO VAPING!
Cause that’s the trade-off you’re making when you talk about how great vapes are. NOT helping smokers at no cost to anybody else, but instead helping smokers at very high cost to the rest of society.
If you want to quit smoking, use a goddamn PATCH or something that — UNLIKE MOTHERFUCKING VAPES – actually doesn’t tempt stupid teenagers to start the same habit you’re trying to break!
Do you know what “creating new addicts by pushing vaping on them” is?!
Why the fuck do you think existing addicts are somehow entitled to expose others to risk and temptation just because they’re too fucking weak to make good decisions for themselves?!
Marginally is a massive understatement. Maybe in 50 years we're going to discover that it causes some crazy side effects, but in comparison to smoking it's like having a hamburger once a week compared to three a day.
For every smoker vaping helps, it also tempts probably at least one person to start using who didn’t before. Therefore, it is 1000% indisputably negative and everybody trying to make excuses for it is a goddamn enabler.
Because Lemmy has a relatively small user base bad takes can take up a lot of a thread. Normally those silly voices would be hidden away. By replying to them lots we let them take up more of the thread space. I’m guilty of it too, but after scrolling down I think we should just ignore that person.
First the cigarette itself was marketed as better than rolling your own. Next came filters, so called "light" and "ultralight" versions of existing products, electric cigs, then finally vapes.
Regardless of how you power it, bringing thousands of pounds of steel with you to get to work or buy grocceries is inefficient. Cities really need to rethink the way they build and zone to promote higher densities and encourage walkability.
I’ve been wanting all corner stores and gas stations to not be allowed to sell junk chips and other trash and only produce, deli, breads and healthy foods. Logistics would suck for companies but I really don’t give a damn about their problems
Oh no…not the overpriced stores with nothing but chips pop and heavily salted junk…whatever will people do.
You seem to be universally detested around here. Totally not surprised by your idiotic reply. Keep spewing your garbage, adding you to the block list with the other twats
I agree but I do think that for the majority of people it would be easier to go from a fuel car to an electric car then it would be to having no car at all. Even if they don’t use it daily it still offers them a feeling of freedom and flexibility. I know that you can also achieve that feeling using public transport / walking and cycling everywhere (Dutchie here) but it’s quite the transition for people if you didn’t grow up in an environment like that.
Having a car used to make my life more complicated, not simpler. I had to find a place where to put the damn thing daily, it cost a fortune. Granted, it came in handy once every four or five months. Still, I’m glad to have been car free for the last twenty years or so.
When I need one, I just rent it at one of the shops that are less than a km away. The rest of the time, I use my bike (I can hook a trailer to it if needed), the bus or the metro.
I really enjoy walking to my grocer instead of driving. I walk through a quiet neighbourhood with some large trees. Theres a hill with a nice view midway.
Since I can walk there a few times a week, I tend to buy less grocceries at a time. The weight limit helps me budget for the week by preventing me from buying more than I need.
What sounds like a bigger pain in the ass to me is catastrophic global climate collapse. But any slight inconvenience is impossible to overcome for the most horribly lazy I guess.
That sounds like a solution, and I’m glad you found it and it works for you, but walking and purchasing multiple times a week instead of once every two weeks is a much larger time commitment. This also really only works if you are buying for yourself and no one else.
You need to rethink how cities are designed for walking to grocery stores to work. It won’t in the US, because everything is designed for cars. But if a city is designed right, you won’t need to go miles before finding a grocery store. You can take a cargo bike to haul more things at a time. You can stop by shops on your way home from work to pick up a couple things and stick them in a backpack.
Cities designed correctly reduce the burden on those walking or biking between points of interest that are no more than 1 or 2 miles away.
You need to rethink how cities are designed for walking to grocery stores to work. It won’t in the US, because everything is designed for cars. But if a city is designed right, you won’t need to go miles before finding a grocery store. You can take a cargo bike to haul more things at a time. You can stop by shops on your way home from work to pick up a couple things and stick them in a backpack.
Cities designed correctly reduce the burden on those walking or biking between points of interest that are no more than 1 or 2 miles away.
That’s nice and all, but the vast majority of people would still overwhelmingly choose the ease and comfort of a car when getting groceries over a bike.
Nah, I’ve lived in two places now where walking or cycling to get your groceries (or, gasp, just having them delivered) is way nicer. Because it sucks to drive and the store is just around the corner.
You do know that much of the US was built on the rail network and plenty of cities had transit systems that were the envy of the world until they decided against those in favor of the car and bulldozed city centers for parking? You’re making it seem like this is impossible when it used to be the standard.
Oh come the fuck on. Here’s how easy it is to walk to a store and get groceries in a proper neighborhood: You just do. You get on your goddamn feet and you do it. Fucking idiot.
Even better you just use a bike. Boom. All the cargo space you need.
Most importantly: you go a few more times than once a goddamn month like you seem to imply, and you get less shit. Boom. 50 pounds of groceries my ass.
Hope the next time you slam your head into something, as you clearly have done many times, it makes you smarter rather than even more unbearably dumb.
How fucking stupid do you have to be to think everyone lives within a reasonable walking distance of a grocery store. It’s amazing people can be this oblivious to the world around them.
Why do you think everybody lives so far away from their nearest grocery store (in the USA)? Well, people did live close to their nearest store until the car happened, which enabled suburban development, and then enabled big box supermarkets which killed the little shops on the corner.
No one is expecting you to walk to the shops given how fucked your country is. Either the country repairs itself or the rest of us just forget about it, because the USA does look like a lost cause
It’s not even the energy that’s really the issue; it’s the space. Cars ruin cities by physically forcing origins and destinations to be far apart with wastelands of pavement in between. It destroys the viability of transit, makes it both laborious and downright unpleasant to walk, and even screws cities over financially because worthless pavement doesn’t generate tax revenue, but costs a lot to maintain.
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