I quit smoking cigarettes back in 2012 by switching to vaping. I cut back on the amount of nicotine gradually. I enjoyed the act of smoking but not the smell and the health effects. So, I vape.
@PurplePawprints Same here- used it to get away from the cigs in 2011, and it made quitting so painless, it was amazing. Finally stopped vaping about a year ago. It’s funny- when I do have an odd craving once in a while, it’s vaping I miss, not smoking.
@PurplePawprints Vape was the best thing to happen for me as an active smoker. They made the portable cig-style vape/battery/container packs and saved a bit of money. Ended up quitting smoking and sticking with those things for a while. Once the vape boxes came out, prices went up a bit and I switched over to a hookah instead. Still with that, been 5+ years.
I had an incredibly stressful time a year and a half ago, shoot, maybe longer now, it’s August… I looked into antidepressants, and I found that nicotine showed a lot of the same effects, without the suicidal side effects. And a good vape pen was way cheaper than drugs. Worked great, then I kind of tapered off around the beginning of this year, and currently have no idea where most of my vape junk is.
Also, Swype really wants to correct “vape” to “balls”, so think about that next time you’ve got a puffer in your mouth.
I work for a car dealership; I dont vape but a while back we had this younger, not too bright looking guy with longish hair that detailed cars. Our boss did not want him doing his vape thing during his break in any part of the building visible to customers, so he would go out in the parking lot and sit in his car with the windows rolled up.
I got back from lunch one day and my next service customer, a middle aged industrial electrician who usually does not smile much, came into the shop laughing uncontrollably with tears running down his face. Apparently he walked by just as the kid’s car door flung open and he exited surrounded by billowing clouds of “smoke” and then tripped and stumbled in his hurry to get into the building on time. He said he had forgotten about Cheech and Chong movies until then.
I’ve been an ent for fifty years. No shit, my sister got me high when I was 9. I switched to shatters and crumbles about four years ago, but that’s not my point.
My wife, who never could smoke with me had a bad riding accident when she was a teenager, a bad car accident in 2009 and fell and broke three vertebra in 2010, plus she had rheumatoid arthritis. She was on all sorts of opiates and anti-inflammatories, and still had a tough time…
Then she discovered vaping. She’s a CT MM patient. I’m her “Caregiver” so I get a card too and make sure she gets only medicine of good quality. Must be careful, you know.
Her RA is in remission, she is pain-free without opiates, and is, for some reason, almost always in a really good mood.
Over my more than half century on this planet, the two biggest single advances (IMO) are the internet w/smartphones and the advent of vaping.
Oh shit, you meant the big clouds of fruit-flavored stuff?
Tried a few puffs at my daughter’s insistence - meh. I can see the benefits of vaping over smoking but find the obsessive and occasionally haughty behavior of some adherents off-putting, so I stay away from the vape-huddlers even if some are “work friends”. Really did Laugh out Loud when I first heard them called Douche Flutes.
@AdmiralDave i tend to avoid friends who vape even as a smoker because of the sheer amount of smoke. “clouds” whatever. i realize the irony in me saying this but it’s oppressive. some vape like a “normal” person but most seem to think the more smoke they can exhale the cooler it makes them. suddenly you can’t see and you’re choking on fruity pebbles and i’m all set.
@jerk_nugget When I was shilling the vape goods, there was a constant trend towards more and more powerful mods. The thicker the cloud, the better a mod would sell.
My own theory: it’s a “look at me” ploy by the vaper.
@ruouttaurmind oh definitely! 100% agree. it’s become it’s own thing. they have contests at vape stores involving smoke ring tricks, even. i saw a meme the other day about a fidgetvape (fidget spinner & vape in one) and i honestly wouldn’t have a hard time believing the real deal is about to be in a store near you, lol.
i acknowledge that there’s probably just not much market for those like me that want something that looks and mostly tastes like a regular cigarette, but that is a tiny bit healthier and also cheaper.
want something that looks and mostly tastes like a regular cigarette
This is where the market was at when I was selling. Prior to the popularity of mods (when a “mod” was exactly that: a modified or home brewed battery/coil system).
The bulk of what I sold was kits which included white batteries, and tobacco flavoured cartridges with various levels of nicotine, and with or without menthol.
<loss>There were some e-vape pipes and cigars for a while, but I wound up taking a bath on those and dumped them on a local retail shop that was just opening in my neighborhood. </loss>
Three people at work do it. Three different vape stores have opened and two closed near work in the last 18 months. But too many people around me smoked when I was growing up, so its all rather a turn-off. No thanks.
Besides I bet in a few years they find out it does bad things to you…
@duodec I recently read an article suggesting the chemicals contained in the vapor may be extremely damaging to tooth enamel and may cause accelerated tooth decay.
According to my confirmation-biased internet reading, the glycerin/glycerine/glycerol (take your pick) can decompose into acrolein if heated to 280°C or above.
Most vape thingies are well below that but cheap vape thingies have hot spots that can reach that.
Acrolein is an aldehyde (as is formaldehyde). The wiki has a section on “uses,” which starts with “biocide” and goes on to mention polymerization (creating plastic); and “health risks,” which mentions that it’s found in small amounts in french fries (which you probably don’t inhale) and also has a “per puff” amount listed for e-cigarettes (“vape thingies”).
My final verdict:
As with anything, there are risks involved. It does seem to be far better than smoking or even secondhand smoking, as far as acrolein goes. What I’m most concerned about was the section on the acrolein wiki that lists the amount and time it took for an animal to die from it. Rats, a hamster, a dog… Who does that??
Three years ago I used disposable ecigs to quit my 35+ year cigarette smoking habit. After about 2 weeks, I realized I didn’t want to be addicted to anything so quit them too.
i don’t, although i’ve occasionally taken a drag off of someone else’s - either because i don’t want to light an entire cigarette, i’m out of cigarettes, or they want me to try a particular flavor or new rig. my partner has a couple but doesn’t use them. he tried, but just doesn’t like them as much. but he smokes cloves so he’s slightly less disgusting than me, heh.
we are both smoke-when-we-drink-ers with the occasional sober smoke thrown in rarely. (for me it’s when i’m driving long distances.) i used to be a pack a day smoker, sometimes more. but i just kind of grew out of it. so now it’s about once a month. i’ve looked into vaping several times as there does come a point when we’re out that i want the act of smoking more than i necessarily want an actual cigarette, unfortunately
a.) i don’t like the huge ridiculous steampunk/cyberpunk rigs or all the smoke you get off them (ironically they always leave me coughing or choking and with a sore throat) and
b.) the ones that look like just a little black cigarette suck in terms of both the drag you can get off them and the flavors that are available. the dangerous thing about growing up smoking newports is that i’ve yet to find anything else that can take their place.
@jerk_nugget Try tobacco extract. I have a friend who tried to move to vaping to help his health (which it did, tremendously so) but he found himself wanting something. So he did some research and found tobacco extract. He vaped for a year or so and was able to quit eventually. He says vaping made quitting easier.
@Fuzzalini so it’s different than the average vape juice with nicotine? (i know, i should just look it up myself haha. i guess i’m mostly posting a comment to remind myself.)
My “office” is right off the factory floor, and has to stay unlocked at night because it’s where we keep the material safety sheets. At least a couple of the overnight crew sneak in there to vape, so a lot of mornings I come in to the smell of burnt bubblegum.
@daveinwarsh Depends on the source. Most US vendors sell “juice” that’s based on USP cert PG or veggie glycerin and food-grade flavourings.
Not so much anymore since it’s become so common here, but in the early days most vapers ordered their juice from China. Obviously all bets are off as far as that source.
I like to watch trends and look for short-term business opportunities. I was into the vaping market for just over a year as it began emerging. I shut the website down just after vape shops started appearing in every corner shopping plaza. This was prior to the popularity of “dry vaping” among the 4:20 crowd.
My partner actually works with that stuff. I’ve never had any interest in cigarettes or vapes.
Second hand cigarettes make me feel sick. Second hand vaping doesn’t bother me unless the flavor is gross. I’ve been in the car with him while learning about the vapes, and he completely hotboxed the car to show me something, and it still didn’t bother me.
He actually created a long pipe similar to Gandalf so he could vape comfortable while reading. He looked very wizardly while doing it until he cut off all his hair.
Absolutely yes as I’m clicking on meh. I love my mod.
The vaping community is where I go for good 18650 battery reviews / testing. Otherwise I maintain a polite distance.
I quit smoking cigarettes back in 2012 by switching to vaping. I cut back on the amount of nicotine gradually. I enjoyed the act of smoking but not the smell and the health effects. So, I vape.
@PurplePawprints Same here- used it to get away from the cigs in 2011, and it made quitting so painless, it was amazing. Finally stopped vaping about a year ago. It’s funny- when I do have an odd craving once in a while, it’s vaping I miss, not smoking.
@PurplePawprints Vape was the best thing to happen for me as an active smoker. They made the portable cig-style vape/battery/container packs and saved a bit of money. Ended up quitting smoking and sticking with those things for a while. Once the vape boxes came out, prices went up a bit and I switched over to a hookah instead. Still with that, been 5+ years.
I had an incredibly stressful time a year and a half ago, shoot, maybe longer now, it’s August… I looked into antidepressants, and I found that nicotine showed a lot of the same effects, without the suicidal side effects. And a good vape pen was way cheaper than drugs. Worked great, then I kind of tapered off around the beginning of this year, and currently have no idea where most of my vape junk is.
Also, Swype really wants to correct “vape” to “balls”, so think about that next time you’ve got a puffer in your mouth.
Why don’t you just put the AA into your mouth directly? That’s what vaping is, right? AA batteries. Produces “water vapor”.
@InnocuousFarmer it’s not water vapor. it’s vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol, and not vaporized, but aerosol
@spacemart I thought it must be something like that. Had no idea AAs had vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol in them.
I work for a car dealership; I dont vape but a while back we had this younger, not too bright looking guy with longish hair that detailed cars. Our boss did not want him doing his vape thing during his break in any part of the building visible to customers, so he would go out in the parking lot and sit in his car with the windows rolled up.
I got back from lunch one day and my next service customer, a middle aged industrial electrician who usually does not smile much, came into the shop laughing uncontrollably with tears running down his face. Apparently he walked by just as the kid’s car door flung open and he exited surrounded by billowing clouds of “smoke” and then tripped and stumbled in his hurry to get into the building on time. He said he had forgotten about Cheech and Chong movies until then.
I’ve been an ent for fifty years. No shit, my sister got me high when I was 9. I switched to shatters and crumbles about four years ago, but that’s not my point.
My wife, who never could smoke with me had a bad riding accident when she was a teenager, a bad car accident in 2009 and fell and broke three vertebra in 2010, plus she had rheumatoid arthritis. She was on all sorts of opiates and anti-inflammatories, and still had a tough time…
Then she discovered vaping. She’s a CT MM patient. I’m her “Caregiver” so I get a card too and make sure she gets only medicine of good quality. Must be careful, you know.
Her RA is in remission, she is pain-free without opiates, and is, for some reason, almost always in a really good mood.
Over my more than half century on this planet, the two biggest single advances (IMO) are the internet w/smartphones and the advent of vaping.
Oh shit, you meant the big clouds of fruit-flavored stuff?
sigh. Never mind.
@droopus At the risk of exposing my ignorance I want to ask you what an “ent” is. Also, what are shatters and crumbles? Thanks!
I have a rare medical condition that causes me to misread/mishear the letter “v” as the letter “r”.
Because I live in a very liberal area, this has caused me great social friction.
Tried a few puffs at my daughter’s insistence - meh. I can see the benefits of vaping over smoking but find the obsessive and occasionally haughty behavior of some adherents off-putting, so I stay away from the vape-huddlers even if some are “work friends”. Really did Laugh out Loud when I first heard them called Douche Flutes.
@AdmiralDave HA! “Douche Flutes”! I Love it!
I’ve always just called them crack pipes…
@AdmiralDave One could say “off-puffing”
@AdmiralDave i tend to avoid friends who vape even as a smoker because of the sheer amount of smoke. “clouds” whatever. i realize the irony in me saying this but it’s oppressive. some vape like a “normal” person but most seem to think the more smoke they can exhale the cooler it makes them. suddenly you can’t see and you’re choking on fruity pebbles and i’m all set.
@AdmiralDave Mouth Fedora
@jerk_nugget When I was shilling the vape goods, there was a constant trend towards more and more powerful mods. The thicker the cloud, the better a mod would sell.
My own theory: it’s a “look at me” ploy by the vaper.
@ruouttaurmind oh definitely! 100% agree. it’s become it’s own thing. they have contests at vape stores involving smoke ring tricks, even. i saw a meme the other day about a fidgetvape (fidget spinner & vape in one) and i honestly wouldn’t have a hard time believing the real deal is about to be in a store near you, lol.
i acknowledge that there’s probably just not much market for those like me that want something that looks and mostly tastes like a regular cigarette, but that is a tiny bit healthier and also cheaper.
@jerk_nugget
This is where the market was at when I was selling. Prior to the popularity of mods (when a “mod” was exactly that: a modified or home brewed battery/coil system).
The bulk of what I sold was kits which included white batteries, and tobacco flavoured cartridges with various levels of nicotine, and with or without menthol.
<loss>There were some e-vape pipes and cigars for a while, but I wound up taking a bath on those and dumped them on a local retail shop that was just opening in my neighborhood. </loss>
Three people at work do it. Three different vape stores have opened and two closed near work in the last 18 months. But too many people around me smoked when I was growing up, so its all rather a turn-off. No thanks.
Besides I bet in a few years they find out it does bad things to you…
@duodec I recently read an article suggesting the chemicals contained in the vapor may be extremely damaging to tooth enamel and may cause accelerated tooth decay.
/image meth mouth
@ruouttaurmind
/giphy vomit
@ruouttaurmind you mean like…sugar?
(Long-winded sauce: http://www.mendosa.com/diabetes_update_24.htm)
@alphapeaches Not just the glycerin, but the flavoring additives as well.
No, but when my friend is over I’m an involuntary second hand vaper.
According to my confirmation-biased internet reading, the glycerin/glycerine/glycerol (take your pick) can decompose into acrolein if heated to 280°C or above.
Most vape thingies are well below that but cheap vape thingies have hot spots that can reach that.
Acrolein is an aldehyde (as is formaldehyde). The wiki has a section on “uses,” which starts with “biocide” and goes on to mention polymerization (creating plastic); and “health risks,” which mentions that it’s found in small amounts in french fries (which you probably don’t inhale) and also has a “per puff” amount listed for e-cigarettes (“vape thingies”).
My final verdict:
As with anything, there are risks involved. It does seem to be far better than smoking or even secondhand smoking, as far as acrolein goes. What I’m most concerned about was the section on the acrolein wiki that lists the amount and time it took for an animal to die from it. Rats, a hamster, a dog… Who does that??
Temperature reference: http://www.leafscience.com/2016/05/18/vaporizing-marijuana-temperature-best/
Acrolein wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrolein
(PDF: Product Safety Assessment) https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.dow.com/webapps/include/GetDoc.aspx%3Ffilepath%3Dproductsafety/pdfs/noreg/233-00490.pdf%26pdf%3Dtrue&ved=0ahUKEwi1wu6gx8TVAhXIDMAKHUv4DxEQFgh8MAo&usg=AFQjCNHN5IL75zGyWkuTf4OU3XZTIozMlA
@alphapeaches
I mean, I can inhale some French fries, but not in a literal sense…
Three years ago I used disposable ecigs to quit my 35+ year cigarette smoking habit. After about 2 weeks, I realized I didn’t want to be addicted to anything so quit them too.
i don’t, although i’ve occasionally taken a drag off of someone else’s - either because i don’t want to light an entire cigarette, i’m out of cigarettes, or they want me to try a particular flavor or new rig. my partner has a couple but doesn’t use them. he tried, but just doesn’t like them as much. but he smokes cloves so he’s slightly less disgusting than me, heh.
we are both smoke-when-we-drink-ers with the occasional sober smoke thrown in rarely. (for me it’s when i’m driving long distances.) i used to be a pack a day smoker, sometimes more. but i just kind of grew out of it. so now it’s about once a month. i’ve looked into vaping several times as there does come a point when we’re out that i want the act of smoking more than i necessarily want an actual cigarette, unfortunately
a.) i don’t like the huge ridiculous steampunk/cyberpunk rigs or all the smoke you get off them (ironically they always leave me coughing or choking and with a sore throat) and
b.) the ones that look like just a little black cigarette suck in terms of both the drag you can get off them and the flavors that are available. the dangerous thing about growing up smoking newports is that i’ve yet to find anything else that can take their place.
@jerk_nugget Try tobacco extract. I have a friend who tried to move to vaping to help his health (which it did, tremendously so) but he found himself wanting something. So he did some research and found tobacco extract. He vaped for a year or so and was able to quit eventually. He says vaping made quitting easier.
@Fuzzalini so it’s different than the average vape juice with nicotine? (i know, i should just look it up myself haha. i guess i’m mostly posting a comment to remind myself.)
@jerk_nugget Yes, supposedly it has a lot of the other things a smoker is looking for that you don’t find when you vape just nicotine.
My “office” is right off the factory floor, and has to stay unlocked at night because it’s where we keep the material safety sheets. At least a couple of the overnight crew sneak in there to vape, so a lot of mornings I come in to the smell of burnt bubblegum.
@dannybeans I have a friend who gave up cigarettes for vaping. She mail-orders unflavored vaping juice from California and I appreciate that.
No. Just no.
I’m glad they put the ‘18 & over’ law in place.
Is the crap in vape-juice even regulated or checked?
@daveinwarsh Depends on the source. Most US vendors sell “juice” that’s based on USP cert PG or veggie glycerin and food-grade flavourings.
Not so much anymore since it’s become so common here, but in the early days most vapers ordered their juice from China. Obviously all bets are off as far as that source.
I like to watch trends and look for short-term business opportunities. I was into the vaping market for just over a year as it began emerging. I shut the website down just after vape shops started appearing in every corner shopping plaza. This was prior to the popularity of “dry vaping” among the 4:20 crowd.
My partner actually works with that stuff. I’ve never had any interest in cigarettes or vapes.
Second hand cigarettes make me feel sick. Second hand vaping doesn’t bother me unless the flavor is gross. I’ve been in the car with him while learning about the vapes, and he completely hotboxed the car to show me something, and it still didn’t bother me.
He actually created a long pipe similar to Gandalf so he could vape comfortable while reading. He looked very wizardly while doing it until he cut off all his hair.
@RiotDemon i’m a smoker and second hand smoke bothers me too. i’m an asshole, i know.
@RiotDemon I’m imagining a long straw shrink-wrapped to the mouthpiece
@alphapeaches hah. That’d be hilarious.
/image Gandalf smoking a pipe
Pretty much like that, yep. Except he had super dark hair and he’s not old. His beard wasn’t as extreme either.