Do e-cigarettes actually work?
Do e-cigarettes actually work?
I have a friend who has been using an e-cigarette for 10+ years. He doesn't seem any less addicted to smoking as back when he was using old-fashioned cigarettes.
I understand e-cigarettes are supposed to help you quit... but has anyone actually had success with them? Or, is it more like trading one vice for another?
Current e-cig user here.
Honestly, as a smoker, it's a godsend. The smoke goes away so quickly, it has higher nicotine than cigarettes when purchased the RIGHT way, and since I can now smoke inside, I can puff on it all day every day as I work from home!
In all seriousness, it's worse imo. It sets the precedent from the 50s of smoking EVERYWHERE and now without any of the negative outward effects like smell or yellowing of the teeth/walls.
It's honestly made my addiction worse. To each their own for sure, but in my experience it just made my bad habit SLIGHTLY healthier, but much more accessible.
It requires a significant amount of willpower to break the addiction, but for those of us that do not, definitely do not pick this up. It will not help. If you have that willpower, it is useful.
It seems useful for people who were addicted to cigarettes by providing a potentially less harmful alternative.
But, for the generation that didn't have addiction to cigarettes prior to E cigarettes I wonder how many went on to pick up the addiction to nicotine they otherwise wouldn't have, since smoking cigarettes seemed to be going out of style.
I do kind of wonder what the endgame of addictive product development is. I mean, if you assume that technology can both reduce negative side effects and make the product more-potently-addictive, absent some sort of social movement or something opposed to them, I would think that we would get closer to a point where there is stupendously-addictive stuff that has no intrinsic harm other than the addiction itself, but that the addiction could be crippling and extremely hard to kick.
Science fiction has explored the concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_%28science_fiction%29
Wireheading is a term associated with fictional or futuristic applications of brain stimulation reward, the act of directly triggering the brain's reward center by electrical stimulation of an inserted wire, for the purpose of 'short-circuiting' the brain's normal reward process and artificially inducing pleasure. Scientists have successfully performed brain stimulation reward on rats (1950s) and humans (1960s). This stimulation does not appear to lead to tolerance or satiation in the way that sex or drugs do. The term is sometimes associated with science fiction writer Larry Niven, who used the term in his Known Space series. In the philosophy of artificial intelligence, the term is used to refer to AI systems that hack their own reward channel.
Wireheading, like other forms of brain alteration, is often treated as dystopian in science fiction literature.
In Larry Niven's Known Space stories, a "wirehead" is someone who has been fitted with an electronic brain implant known as a "droud" in order to stimulate the pleasure centers of their brain. Wireheading is the most addictive habit known (Louis Wu is the only given example of a recovered addict), and wireheads usually die from neglecting their basic needs in favour of the ceaseless pleasure. Wireheading is so powerful and easy that it becomes an evolutionary pressure, selecting against that portion of humanity without self-control.
Estimates put out after research by Public Health England suggest that vaping is 95% better for you than smoking. So unless you’re vaping 20x more than you were smoking you’re probably benefitting.
Use your willpower in a small burst to buy a low nicotine juice and literally throw away the high nicotine stuff. You need to actually toss it and never use it again. Yes, it costs money, but do you want to quit or not?
Now use the low nicotine juice for a set amount of time (say, a month) and then switch to zero nicotine juice. Try to keep the same flavors you're used to already.
Eventually you will stop smoking because youre only getting the positive feelings from the habit itself and not the nicotine.
Same situation here, vape more than I used to smoke.
Only concern I have is long term affects, since we don’t actually know what they are yet.
Depends - it can be used to quit by controlling and lowering the nicotine content, but it could just be used as a harm reduction method.
While certainly not healthy, it’s significantly much less bad for you than smoking.
Burnt cigarettes have over 9000 different chemicals, several of which are addictive MAOI antidepressants. It's not the nicotine hooking people to the level we see in smokers, it's that, they're having legitimate withdrawal symptoms from a legitimate drug dependency. Nicotine itself at the levels anyone takes it in is maybe a little more addictive than caffeine.
Ecigs, at minimum, have propylene glycol (GRAS) and nicotine which isn't necessarily from tobacco, and even the nicotine is optional. Many have a couple other ingredients like vegetable glycerine (makes "smoke" clouds puffier) and flavorings, but even loaded up it doesn't compare to the count in the first paragraph. Ecigs also don't burn anything unless you're doing it very wrong.
Also since I'm on the soap box anyway, when you hear fear stories about "vaping" they're usually lumping in thc/marijuana which is effectively different even though it doesn't need to be. Because it's regulated if not illegal you'll chance getting things like adulterated cartridges with oils in them, if you breathe in oil particles you're getting pneumonia. So when you're reading or hearing about some scary story it's probably that and the one "reporting" is too lazy or too ignorant to make the distinctions they should.
That was the vitamin E acetate shenanigans from a few years ago that people were cutting with THC concentrate to make it look thicker/more quality than it actually was. Huge disinformation campaign somehow made nicotine vapes the bad guy even though it was entirely unrelated
This is what I did. Started at a "normal" nicotine level, then once I was used to that level and wasn't getting any cravings (took a few months usually) I would lower my nicotine strength a little bit then repeat the process. It made it way easier for me to quit once I did. I barely got any cravings.
I vape now. I used to smoke a lot. I agree it can be effective but the end result may not always be complete withdrawal from nicotine.
While certainly not healthy, it’s significantly much less bad for you than smoking.
It's much better, tbh, aside from the health benefits vs cigarettes. The stench is no longer there - at worse, it's just this annoying sweet smell. No more cig butts that you have to dispose of all the time - I know use "pods" which, if I'm stressed, I replace after 5-6 days. If anyone's a smoker, I'd recommend to switch to vape. But if not, I'd suggest they stay away from vapes/nicotine.
E-cigarettes is designed to replace cigarettes nowadays, not to help you quit smoking.
If you use them that way. You can also dial down the nicotine in them to zero to wean yourself off of it.
I actually just made the experience worse and worse without adjusting the nicotine. Switched to unflavored, then switched to freebase, then my vape broke and I started using my shitty old vape. It became a chore to smoke so it was easy to stop.
Although, I've usually been pretty good at controlling my nicotine when needed, so I would not describe myself as some highly addicted even when I was vaping a lot.
Most of them are actually cigarettes company subsidiary, just look up some f1 sponsor and you will find them.
I successfully quit with vaping.
Switched to vaping not with the intent to quit, but to just get rid of the smell I get after smoking. While trying different flavors, in time I decreased the amount of nicotine every time I time I bought a new bottle. I then slowly started to forget to bring it with me when I leave the house until I vaped exclusively in my home and after a few more months decided to just throw it all away.
Very similar here. Smoking buddy at work was turning 40 and was like "If we don't quit now, we never will!" so headed to a random vape shop. Bought a vape for lke £50, was on 1.2mg nicotine strength. First day was fine. 2nd day was tough. 3rd was also tough. 4th day I realised "oh shit, never going back to smoking...I feel fine. I can work with this." So that caused me to panick but then thought ok, bought the same vape as a redundancy (so as to not have to fall back on ciagarettes).
Then, after 6 months switched to 0.6mg nicotine. 6 months after that, 0.3mg. 3 months after that 0.2mg (put my high school chemistry hat on, figured 10ml 0.3mg + 10ml 0.3mg + 10ml 0.0mg mixed up in a 30ml bottle = 0.2mg per 10ml). 1 month after that 0.1mg, 1 month after that 0.0mg - 1 month later, stopped entirely (you genuinely just start forgetting about it, it's weird).
Went from 30 cigarettes a day to no nicotine and no vape in 18 months.
I also quit with vaping, but in a roundabout way. I used to smoke, but my wife would not have me smoking indoors, and my office was likewise no smoking, so I was on perhaps 10 cigarettes a day. I switched to vaping, and still couldn't vape in the office, but my wife didn't mind me vaping at home if I restricted it to one room.
Then COVID happened, and I ended up working from home. So... Even though the amount of nicotine I was using in the vape was low, I had nothing stopping me from vaping all the time, which is what I did. I actually began feeling just as bad in terms of lung capacity when vaping as I had when I was smoking, largely because I was vaping pretty much constantly whilst awake.
One day I just had a flash of self control, and. chucked my vape, batteries, coils and all the paraphernalia. That was late 2020, and I haven't vaped or smoked since.
Weirdly, even though I ultimately went cold turkey, I do think switching to vaping from smoking helped me to quit. There was a marked improvement in my lung capacity and ability to smell during that time, and that gave me hope.
This is exactly my story. Nicotine free for years.
It sounds like you vaped for a while and then quit (congratulations btw). I smoked for many years and then quit, and that doesn’t mean cigarettes helped me quit, or that I quit with cigarettes. You quit the day you “decided to just throw it all away.”
FDA has said that they find no evidence vaping improves quitting outcomes for smokers.
They work just fine.
They get you off cigarettes. Problem solved.
You'll just be vaping all the time, instead.
They were never for quitting everything. Just cigarettes.
I'd say they work if you want to quit and also actively do so. They don't work for quitting if you just replace cigarettes with e-cigatettes. That's like an alcoholic that's drinking wine instead of beer and wonders why he's still an alcoholic
Actually, vapes were created to get you smoking MORE because you can smoke them inside. They indeed get you off of smoking cigarettes, they did for me, I probably vape 1.5-2x more than I ever smoked.
My husband just traded one for the other. We'd like to think it's "healthier", but who knows. Definitely stinks less which I appreciate.
I did the same thing, about eight years ago. By day three, I wasn't coughing up phlegm anymore. By day five, I could climb stairs without getting winded. After about a year, my dentist told me that my gums were way healthier.
Is it beneficial, when compared to not doing it? Most probably not. Is it far less damaging than inhaling tobacco smoke? Absolutely.
Research shows it's around 95% better than cigarettes.
He's not smoking.
Pure nicotine is about as harmful as caffeine. Some people will want to quit it altogether, others find it useful. It's all good.
According to my cardiologist, nicotine is the part of cigarette smoke that has a detrimental effect on the heart and arteries. Way more harmful than caffeine.
Make him give you the evidence. Here's a systematic review of nicotine side effects and heres the RCP report on vaping.
Physicians who spread fear about vaping are killing people. They should go back to medical school and pay more attention in their epidemiology classes.
As someone who smoked a pack a day until last year and switched to an e-cigarette yeah, they can definitely be helpful in quitting. I have a few friends who switched over and slowly lowered the nicotine levels until they had non nicotine and kept it for the oral fixation. Personally I switched just because it’s a lot cheaper, and I don’t have plans to lower nicotine anytime soon, but I’ve even felt better using just the ecig compared to normal smokes.
It can help, yes. But if you don't want to quit, it will just be trading one for the other.
What I can say is that vaping is at the very least, less harmful than cigarettes. You don't get a lot of the combustion by-products you do with cigarettes.
It's not less addictive, and I'm not going to claim it's healthier, just less harmful. Addiction to nicotine in any form is still an addition. Vaping doesn't do anything different than cigarettes when it comes to nicotine. Its still an addictive substance, and the only real benefit you get from vaping (in terms of quitting) is detailed control over the concentration of nicotine in what you're ingesting. This won't matter if instead of vaping for 5 minutes per hour at 6mg, you're vaping 10 minutes per hour at 3mg.
In the end, it's entirely up to you. Vaping is a tool that can give you the control to accomplish the task of quitting, if that's what you're intending to do. If you're just looking for something less harmful, but don't have the drive to actually try to quit, it's just going to substitute one for the other.
Well said. I'd managed to quit from cigarettes using a salt nic vape. It was a bit involved though. I learned how to make my own e-juice and properly dose nicotine (very important!). I titrated my dose down gradually over about 6 months until I was off nicotine. And then kicked the oral fixation by making a conscious effort to vape less. It worked alright for me. I wound up picking up the habit again a couple of years later after going through an extended period of shit just going wrong. Trouble is, I can't do what I did last time because you can no longer order concentrated nicotine through the mail anymore. At least in the US
yep, legislation for the children is basically restricting a lot of high concentration stuff from being ordered at all.
Where I am (canada), we can't get anything over 20mg/ml at all, unless we have a manufacturing license to buy anything higher. There are some shops that make their own e-juice that can mix whatever concentration you need. Here, that would be dashvapes in Toronto (though I'm sure they're not the only one), and will go down to as little as 0.5mg/ml IIRC, since they have a manufacturing license and they have the high concentration liquid to mix it as much, or as little as they want.
I've been more or less stuck at 3mg for a while myself, I refuse to go higher, I just need to restrict how often I pick up the vape to get anywhere, since the oral fixation is very real and keeps me reaching for my vape..... that's the bit I need to get under control.
Hey! Me too! :) Loved making my own ejuice.. That SUCKS about the mailing restriction :(
It worked for me, but the intent was to quit. Your friend isn't trying if it's been more than a decade. I started at a higher nicotine, and slowly got lighter nicotine options. Once I got to 0 nicotine, it was mostly just breaking the physical desire to do something when my hands were free or while driving. I think I only bought one bottle of 0 nicotine and moved on.
Same, I switched from smoking to vaping a pretty high nicotine juice at the height of the vaping craze. Slowly worked my way down to 0 nicotine and finally was able to drop the vaping. I haven't had a vape in over a year and haven't had a cigarette in about 5 years. I still get cravings but they pass and I'm fine. I was a pack per day smoker for 20 years, e-cigs can absolutely help if your intent is to quit.
For me, it was a very effective way of cutting down on my nicotine intake, as others have described, by mixing my own ejuice.
I vaped for 10-12 months with diminishing nicotine, then quit altogether. I 100% would recommend for smoking cessation.
I do wonder about those who demand an end to an nearly-harmless substitute for dirty tobacco - are we really willing to sacrifice 'good' for 'perfect'?are we really willing to sacrifice 'good' for 'perfect'?
It's not about sacrificing good for perfect, but rather sacrificing good for profit.
I switched to vaping because I'd just met my now wife and she hated the smell of smoke and all the associated stuff that goes with it, partly because she'd just come out of a bad relationship with a chain smoker but also because it's just not nice for non smokers anyway.
That was about 10 years ago and I still vape. I'm will aware that I've just swapped one addiction for another but I don't consider myself a smoker - haven't touched a cigarette since, and genuinely never wanted to for a very long time now. My lungs still feel a lot better, I can run and do excercise without feeling like my lungs are imploding.
A lot of the studies done on vaping it should be noted use old fashioned kit and unrealistic use case scenarios (such testing until a coil gives out - a coil would usually last someone at least a week) -but even taking that into account I'll take my chances with vaping. I tried all the other methods of giving up smoking and none of them worked for me so this is the closest.
As I side note, I am against disposable vapes and think the law should crack down on sales to underage people. A solution would be to only sell in established vape shops and require ID with every sale. I'm not naturally hard-line about this sort of thing but the school vaping thing is well out of control and is need of sorting out
I'd been smoking cigarettes for 11 years and just switched to vaping 2 months ago. My lungs feel much, much better. I can walk up multiple flights of stairs/longer distances without getting winded. My mouth also no longer has that eternal burnt paper taste, especially when I wake up in the mornings.
So for the purposes of what I switched to vaping for - to ease back on destroying my lungs - vaping/e-cigs work. I used to smoke 2 packs in about a week and a half. I'd say the amount I vape now is the equivalent of 1 pack every month (I don't constantly hit it throughout the day).
I have no doubt that inhaling vapor with that density is still not good, but it's better than what I was doing previously.
As for helping to quit the habit entirely, I think that's the opposite of their goal. All these fruity flavors they keep coming out with seem like they're designed to be popped like candy.
I quit smoking/vaping last year after 22 years of that. Vaping helped my lungs, to a certain extent, because I started having so many other issues from vaping, I switched back to cigarettes before quitting for good. I quit using Defumoxan, which is a brand name for generic pills with Cytisine as active substance. I've been recommending it to anyone wanting to take back their life from nicotine addiction. At least where I live, you can get it without prescription.
I found this question surprising. “Do they work?” At first I didn’t understand - work at what? Then I realized that you’re thinking of them as quitting smoking devices. They’re not that. It’s an alternative to smoking. You inhale fewer particulates but often more nicotine, and there have been some health questions about the oils that serve as a medium for the nicotine and how healthy they are to inhale. It’s not thoroughly understood yet and there’s a big range of products out there.
The companies that sell them will swear up and down that they are to help you quit. And some users of them will tell you how much healthier it is and how they’re halfway to quitting. This is all, essentially, lies that they are telling themselves and you.
If you want to see a nicotine abatement product, check out nicotine gum or patches. There is nothing enjoyable about them. They allow the user to divide quitting into two stages: first, getting the habit out of their system, and second, phasing out their nicotine addiction. They do not deliver any enjoyment or rush, and are designed to be clinical and dull. The gum is hard and has a medicine flavor and plain grey color.
E-cigs on the other hand, enhance smoking. They allow you to smoke in more places. They add fruity flavors. The gadgets are cool and the different things you fill them with are stylishly presented. You still go through most of the motions of smoking and you’re getting more nicotine than before.
Why would anyone consider that a quitting tool? It absolutely is not.
Because so many of us have quit using them, as you can ween yourself off of the nicotine with lower and lower concentrations.
People HAVE used them to quit successfully though. You can keep lowering the nicotine levels on them slowly in a similar manner as the nicotine gum and patches and it tends to be cheaper.
What I see are anecdotes about people who vaped and then quit. FDA has said they find no evidence that vaping improves outcomes for people trying to quit. There are other proven therapies, too, that don’t have all the health risks.
I also see a lot of anecdotes right here from people who switched to vaping and then did not quit.
The bottom line is that vaping may or may not have played a part in this or that person’s story, but there is no firm basis to hold it up as a quitting aid. So we should stop doing that.
and there have been some health questions about the oils that serve as a medium for the nicotine and how healthy they are to inhale.
Yeah, by fear mongering satanic panic moms and by monied interests
Nicotine vapes are orders of magnitude more safe than cigarettes. All the research shows it, and the medical establishment is full of cowards with "vapes lead to cigarettes" bullshit.
The only harmful vape chemicals (on any scale close to cigarettes) are sketchy fake weed from China. 100% of the popcorn lung cases stem from that.
Actually the popcorn lung was traced back to one dude in LA who used a thickening agent to make his THC liquid seem thiccc.
There's also sketchy fake vape juice from China. A huge amount of disposable vapes (elfbar etc) for sale are counterfeit. Who knows what they're filled with.
Panic moms like… the Mayo Clinic?
a Mayo Clinic study published in The New England Journal of Medicine finds that lung injuries from vaping most likely are caused by direct toxicity or tissue damage from noxious chemical fumes.
…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported more than 800 lung injury cases that are associated with electronic cigarette use, or vaping, over the past few months. Twelve deaths have been confirmed in 10 states
I am currently using e-cigarettes as a former smoker
I would say:
- if you aren't smoking already, there isn't really a good reason to start
- if you are smoking and sort of kind of want to continue, e-cigarettes are most likely healthier than analog
- if you are smoking analog and want to quit, there are better ways to quit for sure - I don't feel like committing to quitting just yet, however when I do feel committed, I will go with the tips outlined towards the end of the Huberman Lab - Nicotine’s Effects on the Brain & Body & How to Quit Smoking or Vaping podcast
From now on I'm going to refer to cigarettes as analogue vapes
- if you aren't smoking already, there isn't really a good reason to start
This is why I was glad to see all the legislation beginning to come out banning disposables. I swear 95% of disposable users I see are kids who've never smoked, and disposables are just the alcopops of the smoking world - cheap, sweet, and used as a gateway in rather than out.
Yes. Pack a day + chain smoking when I drank. I used an ecig to quit. Over the course of about 7 years, (yeah, just like your friend!) 12mg then 9mg then 6, then 3, then 1.5, then 0. I stayed on 0 for awhile and then one day I got out the car at a store and my ecig must of hit the ground. I never saw it again. That was the day I finally quit for good. Been 3 years now.
If nothing else, ecigs are way less of a risk and way less of a diminisher to ones quality of life compared to analog cigarettes. There is no stank left on the user and the users clothes. There is no more hacking up a lung every morning. ecigs seem to not suppress the immune system as harshly as analog cigarettes either. ecigs are incredibly cheaper too.
There is a lot of propaganda out there, misinformation, being disseminated by "big tobacco" - cause they are losing and have lost A LOT of profits due to people switching to ecigs and quitting analog cigarettes. They've even lobbied governements to pass legislation restricting access to ecig materials - citing the same old bullshit line: "Won't somebody think of the children!?! OH THE CHILDREN!!!"
They're not inherently "supposed to help you quit". That's only if you use them with that superficial intention.
They certainly allow you to reduce or remove nicotine intake - because you can change the fluid.
I started vaping seven years ago as a way to quit smoking; I smoked my last cigarette literally outside the vape store before walking in and asking what to I buy to pull this off as nothing worked. The transition was seamless; not only did I never even crave a cigarette again, I very quickly learned to loathe the smell of cigarettes once my full range of smell came back. There's not even a temptation to start up again.
It also helps that I choose vapes that smell amazing.
I am still vaping, yes, but I'm stepping down my nicotine pretty much every two years. I started at 24 and am now at 15 (I was stuck at 18 for a while). Those transitions I can definitely feel, but I can start with adjusting my mod's wattage, air flow, use different coils for a bit, and ease into it so once I step down, there's no chance I step back up, and then reward myself sometimes with a new fancy mod with a touchscreen with more leds or a cooler tank or something. All that and I am spending an order of magnitude less than I ever did on cigarettes and I have the math to prove it.
It's certainly not ideal and yeah, it's slow and basically only progressively reducing harm, but it's a process that for me is guaranteed to work with no backtracking and progress is assured.
This is healther alternative to smoking and way easier to quit.
Quiting is relatively easy if done the right way - add less and less nicotine shot to each bottle until you start forgetting your vape. For example, go from 3mg/ml to 0mg/ml in the period of 6 months.
The correct answer is: It heavily depends on your individual circumstances. There is behaviours that are difficult to change. And there is nicotine, which is quite addictive. Some people can change things quite easily, while it's next to impossible for other people.
Vaping should come with far less health risks than smoking. you don't smell and your lung capacity gets to a normal level if you get from smoking to vaping.
So either your friend is for example addicted to nicotine. Or their intention is something else than quitting this. Maybe they like e-cigarettes and don't see a reason to get rid of it. You'd have to ask them if they're even trying to quit.
I understand e-cigarettes are supposed to help you quit...
That's where your wrong, kiddo
If anything, people who switched to vaping are now even more addicted. Some of the people I knew would live an entire day without ever letting go of the vape
I was only able to quit smoking, because I replaced it with Vaping. Quitting vaping was way easier than quitting smoking.
Went from 1 cigarette every hour, to maybe 1 cigarette a year (when I get drunk with my friends during a wedding or something)
And I quit vaping.
So yes, in my case, vaping absolutely helped.
Agreed. I know my technophile brain would take the reins if I made the vaping solution a gadgety one, so I deep-dived on vape rigs and pored over countless forums to find specifically what I was looking for in a cessation tool. At first, I kept it with me at all times, puffing whenever I felt the slightest urge, but soon put a little pressure on myself to hold off each time. Then, a little longer. Over the course of a single winter, I went from a half a pack a day habit to not a single cigarette and absentmindedly forgetting the vape rig at home. Another few months, and I noticed it sitting on my desk next to my monitor when I was tidying up and it actually had the tiniest bit of dust on it. I've since gifted the whole setup to a friend to help her quit, and she's just recently gifted it to a neighbor with the same goal.
Worth every penny. Fuck lung cancer, and everything else that goes with a smoking addiction.
It helped me quit.
Been a smoker for 20+ years, a pack a day. Wife made the ultimatum: kids, or a smoke.
In the end, quiting is about the reason why. Some people do it for themselves, others of others. Whatever works for you.
I used the nicotine stickers and a clean esmoker to disconnect the habit from the addiction. Worked like a charm, the esmoker got lost in the car dashboard after a week. The stickers hurt. You wear them for 24h so I put them on my hips, my ass etc because I need to wear them in my sleep. After a few days I ran out of space since the skin is slightly inflamed from the stickers. Switched to a lower dose, didn't help. After 2 weeks I stopped all together.
Mind you, this would not have worked without the esmoker.
It’s far less harmful for you, but it’s a good aid for quitting too.
I quit by getting progressively weaker liquid. Sometimes I mixed my own and sometimes I’d have a vape shop do it. Every time, I would reduce nicotine content by 10% of whatever my current nicotine level was. Normally if I ran out, I would be in my car going to buy more. But after about a year of lowering nicotine this way, I ran out and said to myself, “I’ll get some the next time I’m out.” And I never did buy more.
The anti vaping laws are atrocious. They often seek to ban the type of e cigarettes that actually let you mix your own liquid or have vape shops mix them. The bills actually require tobacco flavoring and flavoring is the component with the least known health effects. Everything else is pretty well settled and reasonably safe relative to alcohol and caffeine.
I managed to quit smoking by vaping about 6 years ago. For the most part a cigarette is a cigarette, but I was buying juice so I could control the level of nicotine. Started at 12, then to 6, 3 and finally 1.5 strength. Took about a year.
When I was at 1.5 I had a real bad chest cold so I put it down, never picked it back up. Vaping really helped me because I could quit without withdrawal of any kind. I worry about the prefilled convenience store pods because it doesn't seem like you get that level of control to ween yourself off the nicotine.
I quit smoking with them but it was more about harm reduction for me. They're obviously less healthy than not using it at all, but everyone I know who quit smoking using an ecig has their own anecdotes about how they felt better after switching. I used to get bronchitis flare ups every flu season but that hasn't happened since I switched. I don't cough up crud all the time, I can climb stairs without getting winded, and I smell like fruit instead of cigarette butts which I'm sure everyone else appreciates. My nic level is also so low now I'm basically just vaping flavored vegetable glycerin.
They are "supposed" to make quit burning tobacco. That's where the harm is.
Nicotine alone does not cause cancer.They did for me. Smoked 20 years, vaped 3 years at increasingly lower nicotine levels, then quit. That was several years ago
It helps most in the sense that it's not at all as unhealthy. Anything you hear to the contrary is simply scaremongering and terrible advice. Almost half of smokers die from smoking related illness where I live. The negative health effects and oxidative damage from pyrolysis and from vapourizing a liquid are simply not comparable.
I understand e-cigarettes are supposed to help you quit
They're not.
An e-cigarette is just like a normal cigarette, but you're not inhaling burned paper. If you were inhaling addictive substances with normal cigarettes, nothing is stopping you from doing the same with an e-cig.
Do they work? In the sense that they "burn" (in quotes) substances and let you inhale them, then yes. That is their purpose.
An e-cigarette is just like a normal cigarette, but you're not inhaling burned paper.
There are literally thousands of other burned compounds that you're inhaling besides the paper. Everything in a cigarette combusts, and all of the byproducts are things you shouldn't be inhaling. It's definitely not just the paper.
It worked for me. Although I didn't intend to hang up my nicotine addiction when I switched to a vape. I stuck with it because I didnt smell bad and i could get what felt like a clean buzz. Then I got into making big clouds that tasted good. Then the juul came out along with salt nic which allowed me to get my throat hit and more intense buzz. After awhile I started to really notice my dependency and started to get annoyed and sick of it. Tried quitting cold turkey from 50mg. Didnt work. Went back to vaping 3mg for while and eventually got a 0mg bottle along with my 3mg to dilute and eventually stuck with 0mg and ive been vape free for about 4 months now. I know its not long but it definitely made it easier for me.
I guess the moral my my story is how you use an addictive substance is up to you, just remeber the results that can come from it. The process of quitting is different for everyone. But most importantly its your mentality. The various nicotine options, my mental preparedness, and my plan is what allowed me to finally quit. If your looking to quit I genuinely wish you the best of luck. Thanks for reading.
It depends whether you want to stop or not, it's as simple as that.
E-cigarettes can be a great way to quit smoking, if that's what you want. If you just switch to an E-cigarette and expect to magically stop smoking, you're in for disappointment. Nicotine cessation is entirely psychological.
It's a little bit like that Lap band surgery. You still have to want to lose weight after, otherwise you will blow it open and it will do nothing.
If anyone actually wants to quit smoking I highly suggest the book "Easy way to stop smoking" by Alan Carr.
I actually did quit using them. But it wasn’t a case of switching from cigs to vapes and then just quitting a few weeks later.
I smoked for over 30 years and then moved over to vaping. I then vaped for about 7 years before finally managing to quit. That was 557 days ago now.
I will say coming off the vapes did seem easier than coming off cigarettes which I’d never managed to do previously,
Whether the vapes actually helped me quit I can’t say for sure but when I was on them I didn’t stink of smoke and I’m sure they are probably more healthy than actual cigarettes and they’re much cheaper so I look at the time vaping as a positive comparatively speaking.
Congratulations!! I love it that you know exactly how many days.
The slightly slower onset of nicotine in the vape (compared to smoking) probably did make it a little easier to quit.
Sigh. I got a vape to help me quit then realized all the reasons I wanted to quit were now gone. So there's basically no chance I'm quitting now. Awesome.
You mean are they just as addictive? Yeah. Its just as big of a scam as cigarettes and a monumental waste of money.
They help you stop smoking. In my experience they don't help you quit nicotine, they just manufactured all the joy out of it.
My lungs felt better when I switched to e-cigs but my nicotine intake skyrocketed. For cigarettes I had to go outside and devote a couple minutes. With e-cigs I could do it inside and I could just take a quick hit or two as I was doing things. So even though I felt better I felt waaay more dependent on the nicotine, tons of hits throughout the day. I ended up switching back to cigarettes for a few weeks before I finally quit because I found it easier to stop. Still wasn't easy though. Good luck!
I smoked for a long time, switched completely to vaping several years ago and still do it. I started at nicotine level 24mg - supposedly the equivalent of a Camel or Marlboro - decreased gradually to where I'm now at the lowest nicotine level widely available in pre-made juices, 3mg.
Remember that nicotine at these doses is not harmful, nor is it a carcinogenic. What it is, is addictive, and the documented harm from the cigarette as a nicotine delivery system comes from the combustion.
With that in mind, I admit that I'm still comfortable with vaping after several years, my health has improved dramatically since then.
I can breathe much better, easier. Now I don't catch every single throat infection and flu of the season, and if I do catch one, it's now usually so mild that I don't even need medication to sleep with a clear nose.What keeps me on edge is the pervasive anti-vaping sentiment, caused by the anarchic environment of the fledging vaping industry at the beginning, many nicotine delivery systems packaged EXACTLY like candy. A greedy gold rush attitude poisoned the well at the outset.
As an analogy, think Bitcoin and crypto.Oh yes, they work. Got off cigs OVERNIGHT years ago. Still vape because now I love the fantastical fruity flavors and have a fixation.
They don't do shit for me. I could vape an entire cart and still want a cigarette just as much, if not more, than before I used the e-cig. The nicotine gum did a better job of curbing my cravings for a cigarette. So did Prozac; but that was given to me for depression and also gave me ED, so I mean... You wanna quit smoking or you want a working penis? You can choose 1. 😖
Vaping disposables or salt nic devices did nothing for me. I had to have a mod that actually delivered a punch.
I've many people have trouble transitioning from cigarettes to vape only and they usually just give up. They never really make that mental push where you say to yourself "I'm not going to buy another pack of cigarettes and rely on the vape".
The next step if you accomplish the first is to gradually reduce nicotine over time. I started at 12 and was at 6 within a few months. Then I vaped pretty heavily at 3 or 1 mg for a lot of years. Finally, after about 8 years of vaping(and not smoking one cigarette) I decided to just vape fluid without nicotine. That led me to forgetting about vaping almost all of the time.
Of course people can do it much quicker than I did but I didn't really care much about the vaping as long as I was off of cigarettes.
In my experience, back when I smoked I tried to use e-cigs to help me quit. basically just ended up vaping inside and smoking outside. Then started feeling real weird because the amounts of nicotine delivered (at least with the e-cigs of the time) was always wildly all over the place.
Didnt end up quitting until a few years later, when I had switched back to regular cigarettes—what helped me actually quit was being the only person in my friend group still smoking, and a boatload of tea tree oil infused toothpicks to nibble on.
It took me 6 years,and a lot of lowering nicotine strength. I haven't touched my vape in a year now and still have a box full of vape liquid.
Vaping made it easier to stop when nothing else would help. The laws that limited flavors and sales would have hampered my efforts, buy I was lucky enough to have fully quit when they finally came into effect.
Why do people care so much if I have a vice? Why is everyone up my ass on this? I like nicotine, I'm sure your friend does too. They do not need more of a reason.
Vapes are a good replacement for smoking for a lot of people, and it does do a lot less harm to your lungs. It didn’t work for me at all though, vaping really messes with my lungs, every time I pick it up I get chronic bronchitis. I know a lot of people who quit smoking by vaping, but not any people who quit vaping afterwards.
Who told you e-cigs help you quit? All the people I know who used them, it was so they could use them inside, no intention of quitting.
Helped me quit cigarettes at least.
I smoked for over 20 years, and spent probably 15 of those years trying to quit. When I switched over to a vape pen in 2014 I had to be very cautious about which cartridges I bought because of the obscene nicotine levels in some of them. I can't remember the name of the brand, but there was one that helped me quit because they had a lineup that had a really low level of nicotine in them. After a year I quit without a problem. Just over 8 years now since my last cigarette and almost 8 years since I threw out the vape pen!
It can help, but you have to be very careful which vape juice you use.
Not OP, but... Every vaper I've ever talked to on Reddit claimed they used them to quit. Every vaper I know IRL just likes the taste and "blowing big clouds" like they have the mind of a toddler.
Speaks more to your social circle and probably your age. I used vapes to quit. And then my state effectively banned them, so I went back to cigarettes.
I am addicted to nicotine, and that was fine when there was a legal way for me to get nicotine without carcinogens.
It depends by user really, but I've seen people getting addicted to all of the different fruity tastes even more than nicotine. E-cigs with taste have been outlawed in my country recently for that reason - people, especially young, often really vape/e-smoke for the flavours, untill they actually become addicted to nicotine in them. And, of course, the pandemic of single-use e-cigs which promote polution and are made with slave labour.
Why can't we just enforce laws against selling to minors, rather than ban a product that I, an adult, enjoy consuming and is much better for my health?
Because it's not possible to enforce. And I'm not talking about minors, but they suffer in result too. In my country these things were hot selling things so often sellers wouldn't check ID, and even then, it's not like asking an older brother to buy you something doesn't exist. It's just much worse than with alcohol or regular cigarettes because young people and minors often don't like those.
I have a friend who has been using an e-cigarette for 10+ years. He doesn’t seem any less addicted to smoking as back when he was using old-fashioned cigarettes.
Why would he become less addicted if he keeps getting nicotine? E-cigarettes are not supposed to help you quit. That's just how they arvertise them.
Well, they're supposed to help you quit smoking cigarettes so you're not inhaling all the tar and other stuff that usually lead to lung cancer. They're not primarily designed to get rid of your nicotine addiction. So it depends on your definition.
It's undoubtedly healthier to do neither
I quite vaping 6 months ago after 9 years. Vaping is....not good. Can it be used to stop smoking? Absolutely! Your lungs will thank you but man, everyone should be striving to quite nicotine entirely. It's does nothing for anyone. The anxiety it cures is its own creation
i cannot spell quit
e cigs r the new colorful solution for the lil kiddies to start smoking nic early
theyre never meant to get people to stop just make it more accessible under the guise of making a different
My gf quit cigarettes for me. switched from cigs to vapes overnight.
she still vapes and refuses to reduce the nicotine levels but it's almost certainly much better for both of us than cigs