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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   36247 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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One angle you may not be familiar with for the US context is that smoking is already very rare and the quit smoking campaigns were quite effective on their own. So the cost and benefits are much different than countries where it's still very popular. I literally don't know a single person who smokes cigarettes.

I think it is very unlikely that there is no negative effect to vaping, and many end up vaping nicotine anyways.

I mean, there are potentially serious and life-threatening lung injuries that can be caused by vaping, so it's not without basis, even if it is generally better than smoking for public health reasons.

Like what? The only thing that seems to be 100% clear is that black-market THC vapes are a bad idea.

My understanding is that THC-containing vapes are a solid majority (75-80%) but certainly not all of the vaping-associated lung injuries, last time I read up on it on UpToDate. The pathophysiology of why vaping causes lung injury is also not entirely elucidated at this point.

Vaping also hasn’t been around long enough for us to see if it has long-term deleterious effects (like COPD for smoking). We do know that vaping seems to make COPD worse, however.

In any case, I would suspect more vaping to coincide with more vaping with poor products, which appear to have a higher incidence of lung injury, in which case a norm that increases vaping uptake would likely cause some amount of increase in these serious injuries. Whether that is worth the trade-off is another issue.

A quick google brought this up:

EVALI is a serious medical condition in which a person’s lungs become damaged from substances contained in e-cigarettes and vaping products.

...

Fortunately, there has been a substantial drop in cases since they peaked in August and September of 2020. What’s more, researchers have also identified vitamin E acetate, a chemical added to some THC-containing vaping products, as the main—but possibly not the only—cause of the illness.

Some other identified additives seem to be bad for a variety of reasons. Related conditions include pneumonia, lung collapse, 'popcorn lung'.

Seems to be that vaping by itself seems ok, its just when certain chemicals are used that things turn nasty.

I literally don't know a single person who smokes cigarettes.

Damn. I think I know two people who don't smoke.

I think this might be a class/tribe divide. I've worked a bit in blue collar before where many people smoked, but in university and white collar jobs literally no one smokes.

I first met a significant number of people who smoked when I went to uni...

It’s very regional too.

Yeah, makes sense. My social circles are entirely working class.

Yeah, I know quite a few people who smoke here and there, say when they're drinking. But not daily smokers or anything.

Recreationally or like daily users?

The northeast.

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