Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not. But in this one instance it was a good move for a smoker.
I'd like to see more studies in this area and some more regulations on the "juice" for vapes. The quality, and I assume health effects, vary widely between different juices. For example: I bought him a non-refillable vape by another company and he started coughing and complaining of soreness in his throat.
I also think the arguments against the flavored juices are hysterical/hypocritical given the variety of flavors of liquor one can find.
Disclaimer: I think all drugs should be legal.
People like to go to both extremes wrt. vaping - "but it creates new addicts" vs. "but it's effective tool for breaking addiction", forgetting about the biggest benefit vaping brings: letting smokers who don't want to quit to keep smoking, without risking lung cancer.
I'm definitely against marketing vaping to non-smokers. But I'm fine with converting existing smokers to vaping without any talk about quitting, because smoking e-cigarettes is strictly better than smoking analog ones.
This is precisely how I remember e-cigarettes being marketed when I first heard about them 10 years ago. I was a smoker then, so my ears perked up.
They clearly switched their marketing to target kids who didn't even smoke to begin with. 'Juul' was synonymous with teenagehood during the mid-2010s, at least if my recollection of IG memes from that time are accurate.
A young priest asked his bishop, “May I smoke while praying?”... The answer was an emphatic “No!”
Later, when he sees an older priest puffing on a cigarette while praying, the younger priest scolded him, “You shouldn’t be smoking while praying! I asked the bishop, and he said I couldn’t do it!”
“That’s odd,” the old priest replied. “I asked the bishop if I could pray while I’m smoking, and he told me that it was okay to pray at any time!”
I first heard it from an Alan Watts talk, but couldn't easily find the quote, so I used one from r/jokes, at ”https://amp.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3q2h1a/a_young_pries...
There have always been products to battle nicotine addiction. They should compare this to those.
Note: this came after initial warnings from the FDA years ago that they were going to ban the product unless.
I think there's a real attitude among a small number of non-smokers that quitting without some form of sustained suffering is "doing it wrong" and that addicts of any kind deserve pain to atone for the sin of being an addict. This attitude is extremely unhelpful and should be condemned along with all other types of moral puritanism in my opinion.
I was always confused about that particular part of smoking culture, it's got this mixed message of bad-boy persona and defiance yet it's very much a corporate curated habit. Nobody should have ended up addicted to nicotine, it was entirely unnecessary, and now here we are again even after all those lessons learned.
I am glad it's not nearly as harmful as cigarettes, but people are once again being sucked into an addiction in order to buy product and that stinks.
Juul and their competitors were genius product managers paired with irresponsible to the point of malevolent product marketers.
I would like someone to do a "Years of life saved" calculation that tallies the expected years save by switching smokers to vaping balanced against those who were attracted by vaping who eventually went to smoking. My guess is even with the new entrants the years of life saved would be extraordinary.
My understanding is entire high schools are getting addicted to vaping, where before smoking was a relatively minor phenomenon. I suspect vaping is causing multiple times as much harm as it is providing relief, especially since they target young people for new customers.
I know plenty of people that have never smoked in their lives that vape regularly. I actually don't know a single smoker that switched to vaping, but I think that latter part is rare and unique to me.
So, if I'm correct, I don't think it should be "years of life saved" but "years of life lost," and I'd bet it's astonishingly high since many of those high school kids will be addicted for life. Don't forget Juul got billions (not millions) in funding from the cigarette companies in exchange for 35% ownership, so it's all the same to them - addiction is money.
I was out with some friends and two people I had never met before, and they immediately hit it off on their shared habit. I guess that's kind of like the social aspect of cigarettes. It's an interesting thing to see, and it's less intrusive than cigarette smoke for sure, so to each their own.
Also, as a smoker, I've never "hit it off" with somebody because we smoked. Hitting it off with someone in the smoker's pit outside a bar is just shooting the shit with someone that's in a common area; folks that vape and vegans are very similar in that it's a major point of conversation, as if they've assimilated it as part of their personality.
All that being said, vaping is fine, but the uptick in high schoolers smoking (because it's still smoking under a different name) is a bit alarming; and will be interesting to see how that consumer pipeline changes as regulation of them changes.
> Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not
Yeah, I imagine that its a lot better than smoking cigarettes, but still worse than not smoking at all. So for your father, its a benefit because its something he finds sustainable (I assume quitting would be even better, but maybe rather difficult), but for a non-smoker, they would do themselves damage (even if not as much as smoking cigarettes would). So definitely good for smokers, but maybe not the best for non-smokers (although I'd love to know how it compares to other common unhealthy things we do like alcohol or fast food)
I have heard some negative things about vaping, but I assume its like you say: the quality and health effects vary widely between the "juice".
In any case, regardless of overall "good" or not, it seems to be a benefit for smokers, so that's a good thing!
It saved her thousands of Euros and she is much fitter, and her breath smells delicious, haha. But she doesn't use big brands, she mixes her liquid at home and tries to lower the dose over years.
But every time she can't vape, because her machine broke, or she lost it, or whatever, she get's quiet angry and smokes a few regular cigs.
I would assume a significant difference in impact between putting flavor substances in your lungs and putting flavor substances in your esophagus/stomach.
I haven't ruled out that they were trying to target youth with their products, but having nice juice flavors is the furthest thing from a smoking gun, and yet it was presented as one.
"In recent years, e-cigarettes have become a very popular stop smoking aid in the UK. Also known as vapes or e-cigs, they're far less harmful than cigarettes and can help you quit smoking for good."
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/quit-smoking/using-e-cigarettes...
> I'd like to see more studies in this area and some more regulations on the "juice" for vapes.
Remember the media chaos when the "vaping lung disease" was making the cycle? This was likely due to the juice they were using. It contained vitamin E acetate and was found primarily in THC vape juice. Normal e-cigs have standard VG/PG, nicotine and food grade flavoring. And that's it.
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/s...
Poor behavior by Juul, marketing to youth, makes me wary that I’ll have this stopgap regulated away. I wish they’d stop bringing negative publicity to vaping as a whole. The temp ban on delivery doubled prices when they were only available in retail shops. I’m always concerned it’ll be taken from former smokers who want to quit.
The only issue I've had was with propylene glycol, a main ingredient of most juices, to which I've got a mild allergic reaction (it essentially gives me bronchitis). Your dad may have something similar, it's quite common.
Anyhow, all the FUD in the US about vaping, its cultural association there with irritating types, the rush here in the EU to tax it as if it was cigarette (it isn't), and the growth of corporate trash on top of it has been incredibly discouraging. It's putting a barrier in front of smokers for something that's for all intents and purposes the most effective medication.
That aside, the collective balance is: - how many cigarette smokers will switch (benefit)
- how many people will start vaping instead of smoking (benefit)
- how many people will switch from vaping to smoking (harm)
- how many people will start vaping but wouldn't have started smoking (harm)
Perhaps someone with expertise can explain the current state of research. IIRC I saw a study arguing that the beneficial effects were less frequent and vaping as an entry to smoking was shockingly prevalent.
The articles I saw (years ago) claimed that vaping was a gateway to smoking, but the data showed that vaping just replaced smoking for teens. That is, once e-cigs became available, the same amount of teens were doing one or the other, but more were using e-cigs than cigarettes. So, if the amount of teens doing one or the other remained stable, but e-cig use largely replaced cigarette use, I think you have to consider the teens using the e-cigs. If you removed e-cigs as an option, would they smoke cigarettes or abstain altogether? It seems to me that they'd be more likely (as a group) to smoke cigarettes.
Disclaimer: I switched from smoking to vaping in 2013 and haven't smoked a cigarette since. I use unflavored e-liquid for a few reasons, but, as I understand it, inhaling flavorings meant to be ingested is the primary health risk with vaping. Last I checked, this issue was still under debate.
If you have a product that people enjoy using and has associated dangers, some people will use it anyway. If you have a second product that replaces the first product with less danger[1], more people will use it. That's simple economic reasoning.
The hysteria over vaping is largely a product of a puritanical mindset---the horror at the thought of someone, somewhere, enjoying themselves. People have made their peace with tobacco itself[2], alcohol[3], and marijuana[4].
[1] "Evidence so far indicates that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than smoking as they don’t contain tobacco or involve combustion. There is no smoke, tar or carbon monoxide, and studies looking at key toxicants have generally found much lower levels than in cigarettes. They do contain nicotine, which is addictive, but isn’t responsible for the major health harms from smoking." (https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/awarene...)
"In September, a paper in The Journal of Clinical Investigation described mice exposed to e-cigarettes for 4 months, nearly one-quarter of their life span. Farrah Kheradmand, a pulmonologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, who led the work, says that, at first, "There was absolutely no emphysema, nothing" in the animals that inhaled aerosol from e-cigarettes. That finding jibes with earlier research showing combustion products are the cause of airway inflammation in smokers." (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/how-safe-vaping-new-...)
[2] Ever seen one of the bans on the sale of vaping products associated with a similar ban on cigarettes? I didn't think so.
[3] Here's a toast to those who collect the statistics on the externalized costs of anything.
[4] Smoking marijuana has exactly the same dangers as smoking tobacco. (You do have a filter on that reefer, right?) The same particulates, the same "tar", and the same assortment of combustion by-products, right?
Nicotine salt is much easier to vape and feels less harsh. I.e I can easily vape 50mg/ml nicotine salt, while above 10mg/ml freebase gets uncomfortable for my throat. That might have been the reason for your dad coughing.
But I still agree, besides the salt/freebase aspect there can be different aspects of the ingrefients, each affecting health differently.
Custards, a popular group of vape flavors, was the main source of it.
The catch?
Diacetyl is also a byproduct of cigarette smoking.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10408444.2014.88...
The risk was not considered to be noteworthy among cigarette smokers and food workers who had higher exposure to the chemical diacetyl...
> Further, because smoking has not been shown to be a risk factor for bronchiolitis obliterans, our findings are inconsistent with claims that diacetyl and/or 2,3-pentanedione exposure are risk factors for this disease.
So basically... vaping causes popcorn lung = FUD.
- "E-Cigs are the greatest public health invention of modern times!"
- Oh wait! "Think of the Children™"
- "We need to full on demonize e-cigs à la '90s anti drug style!"
This is pretty much what went down. It was recognized as miracle, but the fear of kids getting addicted was too great. So instead we're going the path of full on propaganda against it, while kids get addicted anyway.
He smoked 4-5 packs of Benson & Henson Menthols/day.
He stopped when he was 64, but it was to late. He didn't die of lung cancer, but they just stopped working one night in his sleep.
He had some undiagnosed psychological problem that I believe added to his constant smoking?
I must have asked him to cut back a 1000x.
I don't like nicotine, but I'm glad these are still legal.
(That said, I had him go a doctor to check his coronary arteries. They were completely clean. I think the only thing that saved him besides good genes, he didn't eat much.)
This is a great story. But it can be legal and restricted -- prescription only, just like Nicorette gum was when it was first introduced.
> He had some undiagnosed psychological problem
There is definitely a correlation between schizophrenia and smoking. I dont know if there are studies on it, but ask any psychologist experienced with schizophrenics if they see that pattern.
At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.
I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as "excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset.
In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government to make decisions based on facts and methods of finding out more facts. Currently, that's only one small part of our governmental decision making process, with the other notable parts being powerful special interests and public opinion.
Could you elaborate a bit on what exactly you meant by this?
Some people believe in science. They don't take the facts and understand them, they just say "Science says this is true. Anyone who disagrees needs to be shouted down." They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus". This is actually the opposite of science.
For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity, they will literally get louder and louder until you stop arguing. They won't provide any evidence, they'll just keep saying the same thing over and over.
And it happens for this that are much less certain, too.
(This is a hypothetical government official. Any resemblance to real-world government officials is coincidental.)
Just because science says something doesn't mean it's true. Truth must be verifiable. It's possible to easily and cheaply verify basic physical concepts like gravity. This inspires trust. Professors routinely reproduce physics in classrooms:
Reproducing some medical experiment is hard, expensive and time consuming. Once a study is published, a huge number of people will simply assume it is true. Very few will actually check the methodology of the study. Virtually none will attempt to reproduce it.
Over reliance on science as guidance has also lead to some of the darkest chapters of human history, like phrenology and its use to justify racial supremacy.
You quoted it yourself: scientism is "excessive", or, more correctly, it treats scientists as authoritative sources of truths that should not be questioned. This form of blind trust goes against the scientific method.
Also scientism can make categorical error in the type of questions that can be answered e.g. journalists asking physicists about "god particles" and such
> I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset.
I think the poster refers to dogmatic mindset. Assuming that all religions are dogmatic is incorrect.
This policy by science simply doesn't seem very effective. It largely provides cover for bureaucrats who can say that they followed science while doing what they wanted to do in the first place.
The scientific method doesn't include the word "belief" at all. If you reduce it to belief, it's not science anymore, it's religion.
> In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government to make decisions based on facts and methods of finding out more facts.
Science is a process, not a collection of hard facts. The only hard facts (or the claim of them more accurately) come from religion.
Science concerns itself with building speculative models that have predictive power, and trying to match observation with prediction of the models. Redundancy (peer review) is used to REDUCE (not ELIMINATE) errors. Social and cultural factors can result in false positives and false negatives in peer review.
That's it in a nutshell. The models don't reflect reality, they only reflect an approximation of aspects of reality in given contexts.
Anyway, the problem is that people do have a religious instinct. And when they're incapable of perceiving science with all its subtleties, they simply reduce it to a religion, which requires the belief that it's basically flawless, it provides hard facts, the best solutions, and that it's uniform (and any contradictions are just examples of "interests" corrupting it).
While politics are very corrupted and often result in incompetence rising to the top, even it weren't the case, those competent politicians have no single place to turn to to understand what "science" thinks on any given problem of society. Science isn't a guy, so it has no opinion.
A common fallacy is that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence". For a government this might mean "There is no definite scientific evidence that substance X causes cancer, so we do not ban it.".
There were so many studies for example about cancer along the lines of "eating apples reduces cancer by 5%" and then you see people start eating apples for this reason. Somebody wrote a paper to get a publication with questionable results and people blindly believe in the power of science.
Don't forget that a lot of the papers are also written in unintelligible scientific jargon and that scientists would massage numbers because their writings directly affects their job prospects and salaries.
Religion didn't necessarily start from being a highly politicised power-hungry beast it became in middle ages. Bible says a lot about being a better human being. So is science - the scientific method does allow us to learn new things; but academia is a political entity which is only going to be growing in it's power and thus corruption.
Science is not a state of knowledge.
Science is a process for getting better (or less bad) knowledge. Eventually.
I think we all agree that many studies are flawed and/or wrong. But I also think most people agree that there is a realistic expectation that we will find out over time [1]
[1] Caveat emptor: With sensible scientific methods, see my other comment on this post.
Querying public opinion is a method of determining facts, even special interests provide facts. 'Scientism' consists of what Feyerabend called 'methodological monism', believing in the notion that there is any privileged authority to 'speak facts'.
Someone who properly understands 'science' understands that the processes to produce knowledge are as dynamic as facts themselves. All efforts to produce some sort of privileged methodology produce bureaucracy and standardization that closes science off from avenues that can produce knowledge. Elevating this bureaucratic caste of scientists to political authority is scientism.
We do see some of that in some of today's arguments, I think.
I mean the current slew of flat earthers, anti-vaxxers/maskers, bleach eyeballers andsoforth also cite Science as their source - lending credibility to their arguments, making their thing not just emotional or gut feeling.
And religious people will take (parts of) the bible as a scientific fact as well.
Capitalism, an economic tool (and a useful one), has become state religion and now capitalists control everything.
The only "option" is to ban vaping outright. But then you're also banning the best smoking substitute.
That's not the only option. So much of the deserved vitriol against Juul is because their marketing and everything else about their product (e.g. fruit flavors) were specifically designed to get kids hooked.
Juul's marketing should be the poster child for the banality of evil.
2) Juul, being run by a bunch of amateurs, will continue to operate in an extremely sloppy manner like this and go bust eventually, and Altria & Co. will be there to benefit from the mess in the end.
We spent decades trying to get rid of carcinogens from cigarettes. What's the problem with cigarettes without carcinogens?
Also aren't there a LOT of other problems from smoking and nicotine alone, in terms of lung health and hypertension, heart stuff etc
2. It was (and is) a fairly successful effort:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1717/tobacco-smoking.aspx
https://www.statista.com/chart/20385/cigarette-sales-in-the-...
I would say "it's working" rather than "it worked" but his point is valid.
So I, a total non-smoker, started experimenting with nicotine a few weeks ago. First I tried gum which did nothing but give me an itchy throat. Then I bought a vaping device and some juices. Why? I think I'm low in dopamine (I am not depressed, though) and had read nicotine provides a temporary boost (until you get hooked) and I was intrigued to feel the difference.
I can't really tell what's happening. I like the taste and mouth feel of the smoke but the nicotine itself is a bust. Perhaps a very mild caffeine-esque feeling at a push. It hasn't proven addictive as it's been sat out in my car untouched for the past four days! Perhaps the nicest sensation is that of taking a truly deep breath.. but that feels just as good without the vape!
I remain intrigued what this means and hope to speak to someone medical about it one day. There's nicotine because it stings the throat if you hold it there (versus a zero nicotine juice) but whatever this amazing sensation people get has clearly passed my receptors by.
As someone who stupidly started smoking later in life, that's pretty much how it goes. Nicotine addiction isn't like on TV where you smoke a cigarette or puff a vape and suddenly you're hooked. It's a slow process you find yourself doing more and more often until you realize one day, it's every day all the time.
What's hard to quit are the motor memories/habits. Get in the car, reach for your ... wait no we quit that. You start realizing how many little habits you have that way.
I did end up moving to dip (Skoal) however and that worked. It was never more than a minor buzz but at least it did something. For me it was incredibly relaxing. I quit dip years ago as well but I still find myself with urges to put one in while driving, and especially after meals. Highly addictive stuff and you don't even see it coming.
If you're thinking of trying it though, it is really easy to overdo it and end up dizzy or sick. This is especially true on your first dip. If you're going to try it, take a small pinch first! If you overdo it, lie down and take a nap and sleep it off.
The only thing I've ever taken that's given me a true buzz plus relaxation is doxylamine which is a common OTC sleep aid in the US. The only problem is shortly thereafter it also knocks me out well into the next day so isn't exactly something to take with any regularity(!)
Apart from yourself others have noted the meditative aspects of cigarette smoking. Beside the chemical addition aspect when giving up smoking you're losing a ritualistic break where you can spend a few minutes away from what you're currently doing, usually alone, to do a deep breathing exercise. This ritual is often a contributor to the difficulties in giving up.
For some time, perhaps, you smoke or vape merely socially, experimentally, after a whisky at a party. Then, suddenly, perhaps after one too many the night before, ferocious withdrawal threatens. It is not a slow process, but a sudden toggle.
Not feeling anything is good…
While since some decades cigarette smokers go outside, many ecigarette users spread funny smells without any empathy.
That and the cigarette companies just bought into the industry. Altria (AKA Philip Morris) owns 35% of Juul.
To me this is by far worst than any potential cancer risk.
(I smoked for 15 years and stopped 3 years ago, if that precision can add any value)
EDT: Juste to add that realizing this gives you motivation when you quit. And the freedom gained is also rewarding.
I quit for seven years. It was one of the hardest things I’ve done. Starting again was the worst decision of my life, but I was in crisis at the time. Quitting a second time, with full knowledge of the first, is even more daunting. I’m happy to have something in between while I try to reduce dependence.
Saying that vaping is not a legitimate path toward reducing the harm of cigarettes is like saying there’s no use for the patch or nicotine gum. They’re better than smoking, even if a crutch.
Tobacco is more than nicotine delivery. It contains harmaline alkaloids, which among other effects, is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. Quitting a cocktail of nicotine and MAOIs, while those stimulants are "treating" underlying conditions, is a way harder task.
For these folks, vaping is absolutely a step up, and allows them to wean off the tobacco MAOIs, especially in conjunction with treatment such as bupropion.
Were I to switch to vaping alone, it would be far easier to quit, mainly because the nature of conditioning relating to a vaping habit (hitting my juul at my desk) is very distinct from cigarettes (going on the roof and having a smoke triggered by certain events). The latter is far more "attached" to specific event triggers and lasts a specific amount of time, while the former is a more "ambient" act with much less habituality attached.
I’m going to come down on the opposite side and say that a garbage journal that nobody reads publishing garbage research for money isn’t news. Though it is certainly a good example of why you shouldn’t believe something just because it is published.
It’s a test to see what they could get away with. If this wasn’t a story then juul would move up to a non-garbage journal and try again.
Edit: but I also don’t want to argue this point too much because impact factor is not a good measure of the quality of a journal
Nature Scientific Reports has 5-year impact factor ~4.5 and it's very low quality megajournal with tendency to publish junk science. The peer-review is designed to be very low quality (scientific importance is not criteria for example).
Well maybe it's because Juul bought the journal or maybe the researchers found no correlation between Juul's profits and public health.
This is the 21st century equivalent of attempting to disprove the links between smoking and cancer.
The undercutting of understanding the risks of cigarettes was happening when the risks would have been blatantly obvious to researchers, unlike with current vaping products. So while the PR technique is similarly appalling, the context is different.
Vaping for fun can be done without nicotine, though. They could place some more visible stickers that say "Smoke only nicotine free - same fun, no stupid addiction!" or something.
And locking e-cigarettes behind a prescription would just make people continue smoking the freely available tobacco products. Nicotine patches failed to gain wide adoption in part because of that.
The amount of juul pod junk under my feet in my city seems to be growing exponentially year over year.
At least cigarette butts are biodegradable!
They should be forced to make these things out of cellulose or a similarly biodegradable product as their consumers are going to treat them as butts and just chuck them on the ground when they're done.
Disposable vapes are gaining in popularity, and some of those disposable vapes even come with a USB charger (even though they're not designed to be refilled without fluid).
This means every time someone is done with the vape, they throw away much larger piece of plastic (compared to Juul pod).
When comparing the price-point of a refillable vape (or Juul), disposables are around the same price or cheaper, without the hassle of getting fluid on your hands.
Disposable vape buyers tend to ignore the price of refills is cheaper than buying a whole new vape, so most of the clientele are kids.
Disposables are also very popular for products such as Delta 8 - since Delta 8 has higher price point compared to Nicotine - the disposable plastic is just a marginal part of the cost.
That's only true of the device. JUUL pods contain 2ml and a 4 pack is ~$20, about the same price as a 30ml bottle of juice for refillables.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-24/hiltzik-ju...
Edit to add this article, too:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2018/11/16/t...
I think my mum would disagree
Surely as hell I support investigating marketing to teenagers but in this case it would seem to me more adequate if they would rather investigate the cases of the sickness and find out what exactly was causing it. I even doubt the sick were using Juul.
I agree if you have no intention to quit, juuling is much safer than continuing to inhale smoke.
But you might want to be careful using it as a smoking cessation tool. I smoked about 7 cigarettes a day but after I picked up juuling the sheer convenience of not having to go outside, being able to use it in bed, etc. got me up to 1-2 pods (equivalent to 1-2 packs of cigarettes) per day in nicotine consumption.
My lungs caught a break by vaping but my nicotine addiction was uncontrollable. I eventually used nicotine gum to quit and it was absolute hell. I suspect it would have been much easier if I wasn't so used to a constant stream of nicotine 24/7.
Ended up just quitting cigarettes instead which ended up being easier after getting over the mental block that makes you think it's so much harder than it really is. Everyone's mileage varies though of course.
But yes, the hysteria over flavors is uncalled for. Flavors are useful. If you don't prefer the taste of your vape to the cigarettes, you're not going to switch.
If this special issue was peer-reviewed, people donated their time for free to publish 11 studies with potentially severe conflicts of interest.
If the issue was not peer-reviewed, then the editors handed out free publication for money, which is what predatory journals do.
There is no way to spin this as remotely related to good scientific practice, which would mean:
- Funding is independent of results
- Double-blind peer review
- Pre-registration wherever possible
> Smoking Trajectories of Adult Never Smokers 12 Months after First Purchase of a JUUL Starter Kit
https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/png/ajhb/2021/0000...
The survey conveniently only asked about cigarette or "Juul" use, take note how it doesn't ask if users switched to a different vaping product.
Though the study was described as
> “JUUL customer online survey about JUUL vapor products, vaping and smoking.”
Makes me wonder if they conveniently left out some questions to get their p-value right.
The flavor ban completely destroyed Juul as a company, and I would argue Juul is already dead, and more sinister products are taking its place.
Vaping (and Delta 8) markets are now ran by a bunch of Chinese companies now, and their safety standards are much lower than American companies.
With Delta 8 exploding in popularity, I would much rather prefer large and established American companies (such as Juul) making the product with American safety standards.
But after most of the Juul flavors have been banned, Juul is now an empty shell of a company compared to what it once used to be, while Chinese are still cracking out those flavorful vapes, but now they're also disposable (which is even more appealing to kids) so you throw out a battery and plastic shell when the cartridge runs out of vaping juice.
I miss the days of DYI vaping where you would have to build your own coil and cotton - maybe even mix your own fluid - and the whole thing was more akin to a hobby.
Why did they agree to this? Why aren't they afraid of damaging their reputation? I'm not an health researcher or medical professional, but I would think if I were one, I wouldn't want to publish in this journal afterward, take seriously articles written in it, or be associated with it. They lost three editorial board members at least. Maybe AJHB will be an example that $51,000 isn't worth trashing a reputation that took decades to build.
I really wonder why industry didn't do that. No industry wants their own products to be banned or legislated about by regulators - and paying a few more scientists to find replacements for ingredients that cause lung cancer would seem like a no-brainer.
> „This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is addictive“
made me wonder…
Maybe social media needs the same?
> „This Facebook product contains dark patterns and is engineered by a team of psychologists to maximize time spent scrolling the news feed. It is highly addictive.“
Big difference between inhaling a heated liquid vs combusted solid. And yes the nicotine is mostly harmless. I rather enjoy my nic addiction with good black coffee.
