• Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    This is harmful misinformation that can literally lead to people dying from tobacco related disease.

    Vaping, while definitely not healthy, is NOWHERE NEAR as unhealthy as smoking tobacco is. Especially when you do it as intended: temporarily for smoking cessation like I added decades to my life by doing.

    I smoked for 18 years, the last 10 of which I tried every other smoking cessation method including prescription medicine and substance abuse therapy. They just didn’t work for me.

    Vaping did, though. In roughly 6 months I went from smoking a pack or two a day (depending on stress levels and alcohol intake) to neither smoking nor vaping at all and I haven’t for over 3 years.

    • kevincox@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      I think the main problem is that the companies selling vapes and related products are not really targeting users who are quitting smoking. Obviously there is less money in temporary users. They are targeting people who will keep smoking, usually because it is “cool” and especially teenagers who are a good target for “cool” and can be customers for a long time.

      So yes, if you are using it temporarily ease off nicotine it is great and we should keep vapes available for these people as medical devices. However we should try to reduce the damage that vapes are doing to other people. How strongly we should do this is obviously controversial. Personally I would focus on education and personal choice, but there is a strong argument to be more forceful.