Why? There’s no way nicotine inhalers are as harmful as drinking alcohol. The research on nicotine’s health effects qua nicotine is about as strong as that for caffeine. The long term health effects are small and ambiguous.

The negative health effects from smoking are from inhaling burning plant matter, overwhelmingly. If we go from the current rate of smoking to 100% of adults vaping the health effects on a population level would still look good. Smoking is really bad, vaping is new, stupid and may in the long run have some negative effects on your health but we don’t have any strong evidence it does.

Why do you assume they wouldn't have started smoking in absence of vape?