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The Anti-Vaping Bias

Doctor Cringelord

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JUUL Blamed for Collapsed Lung | American Council on Science and Health

The lung resides within a “wrapper” called the pleura that eases the movement of the lung against the chest wall and maintains a negative pressure to help keep the lung expanded. When the air gets inside this wrapper, between the chest wall and the lung, it can cause the lung to collapse – pneumothorax is the medical term. Air can get into the pleura in two ways, through external trauma, e.g. stabbing or a fracture of your rib or through the lung itself when a bleb (a small “bubble” or area of lung tissue that has lost its supporting components) ruptures allowing the free flow of air from the lung into the pleura.

Spontaneous pneumothorax is caused by blebs and is most often experience by --- wait for it, young men, say late teens early twenties. So, the most likely cause of the young man’s collapsed lung was not toxic chemicals but a bleb. But a repentant JUUL smoker with an injury is too tempting to ignore even if the science is a bit off.


Something else worth noting, the bleb rupturing can be caused by any deep inhalation. That means that kid in Florida could have taken a deep breath with or without a mouthful of vape and potentially caused said rupture which lead to his collapsed lung. For The Daily Mail, his doctor, or himself to blame his problem directly on vaping is irresponsible and may not be entirely accurate.

I'm not saying vape devices or those JUUL units are totally healthy or not without their dangers or side effects, but it would be nice if the news stories reporting on his ordeal had been a little more careful in presenting the facts.

Also, people need to be clear on the distinction between Mod units and E-cigs. I've heard a lot of people use E-cig as a catchall term for any type of vaping device. That is incorrect. E-cigs are little "pod" units like Juuls, or those Blu brand units. Mods are the larger batteries with a glass tank attached, usually. Most of the health problems recently reported have been associated E-cigs/pod units.

That's not to say mods are entirely safe. Problems with the mod units tend to involve exploding batteries due to misuse. Many now are designed to shutoff before overheating, or they are designed with a sort of quick release so the unit automatically ejects the battery out of the bottom if it starts overheating.

And for that matter, mod units and e-cigs shouldn't be assumed to be OK for THC-based products. Personally, I wouldn't recommend using any THC juice, but if one must, they should probably buy a unit specifically designed and marketed for THC-based juices. And they should know exactly what ingredients are included, in what percentages, and what effects those ingredients may cause when inhaled in vapor form.
 

Totenkindly

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You sound more passionate about this topic than, well, anyone else on the forum.

I kinda don't care about vaping either way, although with many more people doing it nowadays, we'll end up determining whether there is any true risk or not in short order.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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You sound more passionate about this topic than, well, anyone else on the forum.

What's your point? No one is asking you or anyone else to care or waste their time reading this thread.

Sorry, there's a lot of current hysteria and false information floating around, and it's leading to gut reactions like bans or proposed bans.

People have been vaping for several years now, and there have been very few deaths--most accidents up until recently involved exploding units due to people using them improperly. Most cases of "popcorn lung" are related to Diacetyl, and many companies have since removed that ingredient.

People are suddenly dying now in what are still statistically insignificant numbers, and many people are rushing to blame all vaping, failing to check the facts. Almost all of the recent deaths and illnesses have been a result of THC based liquids, or black market liquids containing unsafe ingredients. People need to know this, but unfortunately the popular narrative seems to be that all vaping is to be blamed, even though the sudden rise and illness in deaths didn't begin until after the rise in use of said black market and THC-based liquids and devices. Regarding teens using it, the answer should be to regulate and restrict their access further, not to punish responsible older users who've been using something for years that is less harmful than smoking, fast food, and driving fast.

I kinda don't care about vaping either way

Fair enough. No one has asked you to care. Thanks for sharing your non-opinion.

Great although with many more people doing it nowadays, we'll end up determining whether there is any true risk or not in short order.

This is true. What is also true is that there's already a wealth of studies and information on vaping, despite the "we still don't know much about it" mantra that people keep repeating.

We do know there is a true risk from using black market products, THC-based liquids, and anything containing diacetyl or vitamin E. This needs to be explained better in any news reports, and any lawmakers advocating bans should instead advocate better regulation and severe punishments for anyone selling products with those specific ingredients, especially to minors.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater
 

Yuurei

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I personally don't care if people insist on some deadly habit. The world is far too overpopulated to protect everyone from themselves the way we do.
Also, free will and all. It's their choice.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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So what is causing the deaths? Its not just bias, people are dead.

As I have already pointed out, the vast majority of deaths have been caused by black market products and/or devices. Often THC based. Because cannabis is a relatively safe drug to smoke, some people therefore assume it's safe in vaping devices, which isn't necessarily the case. In some cases, people think that cannabis wax is OK to melt down and add to vaping juice. That is highly dangerous, as most vaping devices do not produce the level of heat required to make those waxes safe for inhalation. Vitamin E oil has also been linked to many deaths. Vitamin E is beneficial as a supplement taken in pill form, but when used as an oil additive to vaping products, it is highly dangerous.

In the state of New York, of every ill person who submitted their devices and products for testing, each case was linked to high levels vitamin E acetate.

source: Vaping deaths: Here's what you need to know - CNN

Exclusive: Lung doctors tell why and how Oregon vaping victim died - oregonlive.com

"Two Portland doctors say vaping marijuana oils likely led to the death of the Oregon patient they tried to save earlier this summer"

It's no surprise then that these types of deaths began to occur after said THC-based and black market products became easy to access and obtain. Vaping itself is not the issue, it's what people are using in their devices. People need to be clear on this before they start calling for the banning of all vaping.

There wasn't an epidemic before THC based products began to appear. There will be no continuing epidemic if said THC based products are banned and removed from the market.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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I personally don't care if people insist on some deadly habit. The world is far too overpopulated to protect everyone from themselves the way we do.
Also, free will and all. It's their choice.

Thank you. I'm all for people going swimming in the ocean, driving automobiles, vaping, having unprotected oral sex with people they met on tinder, etc. It's their choice. Regarding kids doing those things, that's a different story, and yes, there should be much stronger regulations in place regarding minors and tobacco or nicotine based products. And there should probably be a ban on vaping marijuana. It's giving a bad name to non-marijuana based vaping.
 

JocktheMotie

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We need a new plague and this is it. So I hope this stays unregulated and untouched for quite a while.
 

Lark

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I personally don't care if people insist on some deadly habit. The world is far too overpopulated to protect everyone from themselves the way we do.
Also, free will and all. It's their choice.

I do believe in the sovereignty of the individual, self-government, the categorical imperative of self-determination.

On the other hand I also believe in reducing or resisting avoidable suffering and also possess a reverence for life.

In the final instance I dont believe in Malthus and think that care needs to be exercised with estimations of population and in any sort of proactive population policy as the reality of unexpected, unintentional and sudden consequences are clear, the one child policy in China has jeopardized the replacement rate for that entire ethnicity, Japan has its own version of this challenge with the growth of asexual individualism, stuff like that and at least a few sources are saying that there could be a depopulation on the horizon.

So, its kind of about balancing things out.
 

Lord Lavender

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Hmmmm I think vaping is still at that early stage where we don't know the long term effects but that goes for many other things I imagine the first farmers were concerned aboit the effect of switching from hunting and gathering to agulculture. Still I don't think government should nanny people even though I do think government should make peooe aware of risks like this.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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Trump, the guy who ran on a platform of opposing most regulations and has shied away from gun regulations in the wake of several mass shootings, just announced he's going to seek to ban e-cigs and pen type units. I'm not sure if that includes mod box style devices, but probably yes. So really this topic has become moot at this point. Nothing was mentioned about including cigarettes, cigars, etc in said ban, no big surprise there.
 

Yuurei

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Hmmmm I think vaping is still at that early stage where we don't know the long term effects but that goes for many other things I imagine the first farmers were concerned aboit the effect of switching from hunting and gathering to agulculture. Still I don't think government should nanny people even though I do think government should make peooe aware of risks like this.

It's a slippery slope. The government is very bag at regulating things like this, or maybe it less the government and more the hysterical and judgemental nature of humans which makes them incapable of understating anything other than "is" and "isn't" for example, I ( and many, many others) live with severe chronic pain on a daily basis but thanks to mass hysteria over the poor choices and lack of self-control of some, I haven't seen a pain killer since 2017.

I know some people vape for similar health reasons-so they say, and who am I to argue?

I really don't believe in denying the many because of the poor choices of a few.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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It's a slippery slope. The government is very bag at regulating things like this, or maybe it less the government and more the hysterical and judgemental nature of humans which makes them incapable of understating anything other than "is" and "isn't" for example, I ( and many, many others) live with severe chronic pain on a daily basis but thanks to mass hysteria over the poor choices and lack of self-control of some, I haven't seen a pain killer since 2017.

I know some people vape for similar health reasons-so they say, and who am I to argue?

I really don't believe in denying the many because of the poor choices of a few.

It's a shame, isn't it? Because some kids were able to easily get a hold of units, and then because several hundred idiot adults added weird shit to their devices that probably shouldn't have been vaped, now everyone else who has experienced no major issues and may have seen vaping, if not as a cure to smoking, at least as a healthier alternative, will not have the choice.


I just think it's funny, given that hundreds of people have died in shootings, but Trump is slow to react, but 6 people die and he's gung ho about banning these devices, not even bothering to just ban the specific products that have actually been tied to illness and deaths. It seems pretty fishy to me. If the vaping industry had the same power as the tobacco lobby or the gun lobby, he'd be bending over backwards for them.


Oh well.
 

Lord Lavender

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It's a slippery slope. The government is very bag at regulating things like this, or maybe it less the government and more the hysterical and judgemental nature of humans which makes them incapable of understating anything other than "is" and "isn't" for example, I ( and many, many others) live with severe chronic pain on a daily basis but thanks to mass hysteria over the poor choices and lack of self-control of some, I haven't seen a pain killer since 2017.

I know some people vape for similar health reasons-so they say, and who am I to argue?

I really don't believe in denying the many because of the poor choices of a few.

That's the thing humans by nature like things in black and white. Another question is should wep stop someone doing something if it harms others like smoking as they can be harmful to those around you but with your painkiller example that shouldn't be banned as one it doesn't harm others directly if misused and people should be trusted to use them wisely.
 

Yuurei

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That's the thing humans by nature like things in black and white. Another question is should wep stop someone doing something if it harms others like smoking as they can be harmful to those around you but with your painkiller example that shouldn't be banned as one it doesn't harm others directly if misused and people should be trusted to use them wisely.

IMO, that is a definite yes. Cigarette and Marijuana smoke makes me ill as hell and because my neighbors are allowed to do it I wake up in my own bedroom at 3am with a migraine and vomiting.
Now that you mention it, the dbl standard ( I can't use painkillers which hurt no one but others can smoke) is very frustrating.
I live in Seattle which is VERY pot-friendly. The response to chronic pain is always "try marijuana." So I wonder, in this area at least, is it REALLY about safety? Or is just one commercial industry v another?

I find that unfortunately. how matter how convincing an industrie's marketing, it is NEVER truly about public safety. I wish I weren't so cynical but experience has lead me here.
 

The Cat

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Doctor Cringelord

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Not the end of the world with this ban. I'll live, but I am concerned about some older lifelong smokers I know who were in fact able to give up smoking by replacing it with vaping. Some of these people had tried everything from quitting cold turkey, to chewing Nicorette gum, to wearing nicotine patches. I fear they will return to smoking combustible cigarettes if they're unable to go cold turkey after Trump's imminent ban. Vaping may not be a healthy pastime, but it's still less deadly than cigarettes.
 
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