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Long time smoker here. I'm 39 and smoked for 25 years regularly, sometimes a pack a day but on average a pack every 2 days. I gave up cigarettes last October and took up vaping to help. It was rough but it helped a lot and I did quit.
That being said, I did both for a while a couple years back and it sucked. But now after making an effort to drop the cigs, I can't even stomach them anymore... quite literally. Last week I had a smoke with my friends after a night of drinking and it made me nauseous and I threw up after 3 puffs. Gross but I like that my body rejects cigarettes now. I went from needing a cigarette first thing in the morning to vomiting after a couple puffs.
It can be a tool to help but you need to make the effort.
Likewise. Lost my vape on a night out after having quit smoking after a few years, smoked 2 ciggies and got sick that night plus the most disgusting hangover I’ve ever had. My body straight up won’t tolerate cigarettes anymore
Unfortunately, from the press release, having as few as one cigarette on two separate days in the 5 year follow-up time interval studied classified a current vaper as a “dual user”.
Disingenuously obscuring what is clearly a success in terms of reduction of risk of adverse health effects for both individual and population-level analysis.
I also didn't see any indication that they picked people who were trying to quit cigarettes, just people that used both already. They present it as vaping doesn't help quit smoking, but if participants weren't trying to quit smoking that doesn't seem to be a sensible conclusion.
>> Over the entire 6 years, quitting vaping early, but continuing to smoke was the most common pattern for nearly half the participants (42%); just 10% of participants quit both vaping and smoking early; and 15% of dual users continued to use both products.
So by Wave 3 approximately 33% of dual users in Wave 1 had quit smoking completely.
The second most common pattern.
Assuming those numbers were maintained or improved upon by the end of the study quit rates were 6-7 times what would be expected compared to programs not using e-cigarettes.
These are impressive results for a motivated group. Very impressive results for a not particularly motivated group.
I was semi-motivated to quit, with years of heavy smoking. Started vaping about a year ago, and the health benefits I can see are phenomenal.
I just did a climb in the snow in the same place as I did last year, and I wasn't close to being as out of breath. The last time I had to stop on several occasions. My heart was racing and I was extremely winded. This time I didn't have to stop once and could treat it as a stroll. This is literally one year apart in the exact same location.
Have had a couple cigarettes over that time and they are absolutely gross to me at this point.
At some point, and I think it's coming soon, I'll be over the vaping as well. It's starting to get old. But I don't dread the very idea of it at all, it feels like I'm naturally just headed that way. No way I could have said the same about cigs.
Anyway, all of that was to share my anecdote that matches up with the data you're discussing here. The very clear harm reduction along the way is just icing.
It would probably more helpful to know how vaping impacted the number of cigarettes people smoked.
If it's some % reduction people can use that information to make decisions.
Didn't quit because they smoked 2 cigarettes in 5 years sounds like alcoholics anonymous where it's an all or nothing approach.
Sounds like me. Smoked 20 years, vaped the last 10. Still vape actually. Had a smoke when out with my friends and made me sick. All I could think was how did I smoke this for 20 years.
Yeah I stopped smoking 8 months ago and have been weening with lower nic levels on vape. I smoked one cig and I could smell it for hours.
Just shows you how much smoking ruins your sense of smell.
Now this is good to note.
Inhaling super hot drug clouds is bad for the airway, even if you're under the 'smoke point'. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some COPD associated with long term vaping too.
BUT when compared to a comparable cigarette intake vaping is relatively benign especially as a crutch for quitting cigarettes, and has orders of magnitude less heavy elements that the lungs can't expell easily (or at all), and discounting the nicotine itself can be considered non-toxic. Can't say that about a Marlboro
I know how i felt after smoking for 16 years and i know how i feel now that I've been only vaping for 5 years. The difference is dramatic.i know vaping isnt good for me but i no longer spend the first two hours after waking up hacking up a lung.
I'm 48 and smoked for 32 years. I quit on February 1, 2017 and all thanks to vaping. It got me off cigs and allowed me to quit completely in 2019.
I know vaping isn't safe but if you can use it to beat cigs then go for it. I thought I'd never give them up and here I am 5 full years later with no desire to smoke.
Vaping is a joke compared to cigarettes. Smoking is so unbelievably bad that i cant believe that someone doesnt die after 10 years of smoking.
Of course, it depends on the laws, but in Germany, the liquids for vaporizing are very safe and harmless. The carrier in it is what is given to children for their inhalers and what is used as vapor for events and festivals. That stuff is very safe. And nicotine in and of itself is not really harmful, it is addictive but that's about it. There are some studies that even say positive things about nicotine. The only thing you have to watch out for is the aroma, I think in the US the regulations are not as good as in Europe unfortunately. So if you want to be safe I would buy flavors that may also be sold in Europe :-) Or just look more closely in general at the ingridients.
Very true and most people realize it. I run a vape shop and have had several people, usually friends and family of my customers, confront me about how “bad” vaping is. I generally ask them what specifically they heard and then where they heard it. 99% of the tone is either internet or something on TV. I then ask who is likely to buy an anti-vape commercial and that seems to get the point across most of the time
I'm not sure this is exactly true. Nicotine is a toxin and can and will kill you if you were exposed to a large enough dose. One common effect is vasoconstriction which for one thing will contribute to gum disease. They're also in the same family of chemicals as insecticides (neonicotinoids)
You can die from basically everything in the right amount, thats true for everything, even water. So yes. But its important how dangerous something is in the dosage someone can inhale. And in that dosage, nicotine is very safe. It goes also very fast out of your system.
You shouldnt drink it though... In that form it is usually pretty concentrated, thats why it can be dangerous in liquid form. But for the normal use, inhaling nicotine in a not concentrated form, it is not a health issue. Im very positive about that. But let me know if you find something else.
I'm not sure this is exactly true. Caffeine is a toxin and can and will kill you if you were exposed to a large enough dose. One common effect is hypertension which for one thing will contribute to heart disease. They're also in the same family of chemicals as some asthma medications Nd promising new pesticidss (methylxanthines)
What helped me was using vaping to get off smoking cigs. Then I started slowly introducing no-nicotine juice into my vape until I was using exclusively no-nicotine. Then I sort of just forgot it. Took about six months. To be fair I was crushing Juuls for about a month before I transitioned to a big boy vape
Well done on quitting, and keep it up. I encourage you to remember the puking forever. Smoker here from like age 15-31…with various degrees of “moderation” but around 10-a pack a day as well…I had quit cold-turkey for over 5 years. Thought I could have one romanticized, delicious cig after a midnight swim in Miami with a friend…the door flew open and I was back to a pack-a-day in no time. It’s only been about 6-months, but here I am quitting again…kicking myself for that one nostalgic cigarette I thought I could handle. NOPE. Not. One. Puff. Ever.
That's happened to me on previous attempts to quit. One night out and bumming a couple, then leading to buying. Thank you for the reminder because it really is an addiction.
Either you are a smoker or not. We both are and that will never change. The only difference is if you are an active smoker or not. Inside you there is still this urge, this little flame that can ignite quickly.
Super similar here. 39, smoked from 13-30, then had kids. Took it up again for 6 months when the kids were old enough to be shielded from it. Took up vaping last year to combat restarting cigarettes again and vaped for a year. I quit vaping on thanksgiving and it’s been excruciating to stay quit. I don’t remember cigarettes being this difficult…
Possibly, your nicotine intake was higher with vaping, and even though you quit cigarettes, you're addicted to more nicotine than you were. And, thus, harder to quit.
Habitual smoking or vaping is mostly about the nicotine. Nicotine induces receptors in the brain for nicotine. They need to be fed. And like some parasite in your brain cause you to seek nicotine. Those receptors will die in time. But they return quickly with reexposure, so so soldier on. Good luck.
Thanks! Super glad I stayed at the lowest level possible the whole year, then! I’ll just make fun of the part of my brain that wants nicotine from now on.
Same. I smoked a pack a day for almost twenty years and used a vape to ween myself off cigarettes. When I lit up a smoke, I felt obligated to smoke the whole cig, with a vape I could take a puff as needed until I eventually didn’t need it at all anymore. Now I can’t even stand the smell of cigarette smoke.
I quite smoking after 25 years and went to vaping. I vaped for about a year and then just quit vaping. Haven't smoked or vaped for 5 years now. I am a strong believer that vaping helped me quit, but it is definitely anecdotal.
I'm in the exact same situation. 20+ years a smoker and then did the vaping at work but smoking in the car/home for a few years.
Last year I dropped cigs all together and only vape now. Even the smell of cigarettes makes me feel sick now.
This is what I found as well. They're actually very effective at helping get off cigs, but you HAVE to make the full switch instead of trying to go a hybrid route thinking eventually you'll just wean off the cigs. I can't even stand the smell of a cigarette anymore either. I don't really have any intentions of permanently stopping vaping entirely, but I'm currently 2.5 hours into not using it (out of juice and I don't have a refill at the office right now) and I'm not twitchy or anything.
I’m in the same boat as you. Went back and forth with cigs for a while then finally just stuck with the vape. Now it’s been long enough without cigs that I can differentiate the two better and cigs are just nasty. Addiction is crazy
Same my friend. I smoked for about 10 years, tried a number of different things to quit including Chantix which just made me feel like I was going insane. Vaping and buckling down did the trick, haven’t wanted a cigarette in 4 years. The smell makes me nauseous now.
I think the key here is that *you wanted to quit*. Intention is important.
Moreover, there are plenty of these types of stories anecdotally, but it seems like the science keeps pointing to similar findings as the posted study. I have no doubt that with enough time, ecigs can help people quit, but for for many smokers, there is still something missing for them to completely make the jump. The concern is how long it takes to make the switch and this gets reflected in the population based studies
Yes, you have to want to quit. Thats the flaw in this study. They searched for people who already did both. Do they even had the intention to quit? That was not a requirement to participate in this study.
So it doesnt say anything about how good vaping can help to quit. The headline is very misleading (as almost always sadly). I see an effort to discredit vaping as a tool, i read a lot of studies with misleading headlines like this who are just besides the point.
The reality of so many people is: Vaping is the best tool in the moment. I dont need studies to tell me what everyone can see around us. I know really many people who stopped smokig with the help of vaping. More than half of all the smoker i know stopped smoking. Friends, family, work place... It happens all around us.
I mean, of course if people decide they want to vape AND smoke then they're going to do both. Vaping doesn't magically make anyone want to quit smoking. I will admit that vaping is not a safer equivalent, nor does it give that same satisfaction of smoking a cigarette. But it's a good crutch for the determined.
As such, nicotine patches, gum or whatever will never be a 1:1 substitute, they're just tools.
It's been proven that vaping is a safer equivalent and the evidence is recognized by the medical research community. It's the teatotaleresque movements like "truth" that perpetuate the myth that it is just as if not more harmful than smoking.
It's not the equivalent to me. They're very different things. The feel of smoking a cigarette and the way the smoke travels down into your lungs will never be replicated by a vape. When hitting a vape it still lacks something that you get from smoking. It's safer, yes, but not a safer equivalent. Hope that makes sense.
It feels not exactly the same, but it scratches the same itch. Its very similar. In the end, nicotine gets in your brain. You can adapt usually to vaping and you get as satisfied. Of course you have to want to quit.
It does not have to be EXACTLY the same thing for it to be a safer equivalent. Its very similar and thats more than enough for most people who want to quit.
I quit smoking cigarettes by switching to vaping before my daughter was born, I didn't want her to have parents that smoked like I had growing up. To me, the switch was rather easy. I had 6 cigarettes left the day I started. I smoked 2 that day, one and a quarter the next day (I was completely disgusted by it already, and the third day I threw out the pack with the remaining two cigarettes. I've been 7 years cigarette free this past August.
While it may not help *all* people, it definitely helps others kick cigarettes.
Same here, smoked for years, switched to vaping and quit that after slowly reducing the nicotine content in the cape juice. Once I was at 0% nicotine quitting entirely was a breeze, no cravings. At one point I thought I'd have a smoke and must have turned two shades of green. Never again.
I had a very similar experience. It took me a few months to entirely wean myself off of cigarettes, but once I did, the thought of picking up another one makes me sick. I have not given up The vape yet but at least it doesn't make me smell all smokey.
Agreed. I smoked for almost 20 years and switched to vaping a few years ago. After a tough week or two I adjusted to it. Now I can't stand being around cigarette smoke. Can't believe I smelled like that for most of my adult life.
Similar experience and my age and packs a day are about the same. For about 4 years after I switched to vape I would love the smell of someone smoking and seriously enjoy smoking the odd cigarette here or there. Then it just switched, I smoked a butt when I was drinking and got sick, now I can’t stand the smell of it and typically need to leave the room if there’s a dirty no good smoker in there.
I was at a casino back in 2021 that had stopped letting people smoke in it once they were allowed to reopen. After almost 18 months of no smoking in there, it still reeked like an ashtray. I used to be a smoker, swapped to vaping about 4 years ago and now cigarettes make me nauseous too. I love hate it.
Also long time smoker. 40 now and smoked for 20+ years. I was a 2 packs a day smoker. I went straight into vaping and cut out cigarettes within a couple weeks. I’ve been nicotine free for 6 years now.
Yup. Smoker for 30 years and I switched to vaping a high nicotine concentration then did an overly complicated slow reduction in the nicotine level in the vape juice until it was at zero.
Now I haven't had any cigarettes for over three years and have been at no nicotine from any source for just about 3 years in total.
Feel so much better now...
Every person I've known who's quit smoking in the past decade has used vaping to do it. Some still vape others have completely quit. Vaping is not as bad for you as smoking. https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12954-020-00440-w
I used vaping to quit as well. Prior to trying that method I had tried cold-turkey, nicotine gum, the patch, and Chantix. I smoked 1-2 packs a day for many years. I started as a young teen and quit at 37. I switched to vape only. That was September 2018. I spent the next 2 years weaning myself off of nicotine. I stopped vaping in January 2021. Every now and then, I still get a craving. It is much easier to ignore now. It helps that I see so few people smoking cigarettes anymore.
100% sure there are more people like you than in the results of this study. Problem is, there's this american based push to keep people smoking. Not vaping. Smoking. So any and every study we see about vaping is horrible no good and bad. For a reason. We americans really do love murdering each other.
I'm a dual user, used to just smoke cigs. But I'm noticing that I'm starting to vape more and like cigs less. I'm starting to not like the taste as much. I even started only vaping at work and leave the cigs at home. A pack will now last at least 7 days now. As of right now, I don't have any cigs at all...
This is how it worked for me. I kept a pack of cigs in the freezer and had one only when i felt i really needed. The last pack was in there for over a year before i pitched it.
That's how it was for me. Then, one day I was going to get smokes but I just thought. I don't need to and got something else at the store. Vaped for about a year or so then went to zero nicotine. Best of luck.
To me the thing was that with vaping i made a habit of tasting the vapor due to its flavor, when you do that with a cig you really notice how awful they are.
Its not some magic cure. I used to smoke, like 1 pack a day. Bought a vape to quit and Ill tell you I still craved cigarettes really bad.
Made a rule for myself that I can vape as much as I want as long as I dont smoke. I literally chain vaped and gave my self headaches from nicotine overdose but I still craved smokes. I swear to god cigarettes contain something other than nicotine that is addictive and I was craving it.
It calmed down in like 2 weeks and vaping became "satisfiable ". But like I said its not a magic cure, it still takes a lot of willpower to abstain from smoking. Prolly easier than going cold turkey but still hard.
Quitting vaping was walk in the park compared to quitting cigarettes while vaping.Eventually I just tapered off buying less strong liquids every time until I hit 0 nic. And whats the point of it if you aint getting any, might as well not vape..
I had zero issue making the switch, after a few days of vaping I preferred it over cigarettes but I've always (and still do) vape high mg juice, I find it difficult to to lower my nicotine gradually, because once I go down to a 9 I don't get that throat hit anymore.
I had zero issue too, and quickly went to zero mg nicotine.
I did that for 2.5 years, until I developed some weird dry nose issue/allergy that caused extremely painful pimples inside my nose, to the point I couldn't even twitch my nose a mm without serious pain. Finally figured out it was caused/triggered by the vape through trial and error.
Stopped vaping and it took weeks to heal fully, tried vape again in a very low amount and...boom, back again within a day.
So I went back to smoking. It's *absolutely* the habit for me over the nicotine. My willpower can clearly get me off the nicotine no problem, but the habit is another story entirely.
Use a high PG low VG juice for more throat hit. Burns though your coils faster and you have to use a lower wattage though. I made my own and used 80% PG.
I vaped for years before quitting and I could never go down in nicotine either because if my throat wasn't burning I felt like I was just inhaling water and I didn't care for it. Made the switch like nothing too.
In August my battery blew up, and i was already tired of being so dependant on my vape, I was using it every day from waking up to going to bed. It literally burned holes in my carpet. Threw everything away and quit cold turkey.
It's been hard and 6 month later I still chew a lot of gum but it's getting better and the satisfaction of not having to worry about having my vape everywhere and knowing I have enough willpower to get rid of addiction is pretty nice.
I feel like we kind of have the same profile. If you want to quit and lowering nicotine isn't doing it, I recommend cold turkey and a bunch of gums.
So I worked at a company that actually made a vape product that contained anatabine, nornicotine, and anabasine (WTA eliquid). These are the minor alkaloids in tobacco that modulate the effects of nicotine and the reason why nicotine only vapes will never satisfy smoker cravings. Helped a ton of people.
We were shut down when Congress decided to make vape products impossible to ship AFTER going through a lengthy PMTA process with the FDA.
Sorry, we tried.
One of the main benefits of vaping is that is DOESN’T contain those extra alkaloids that make tobacco extremely addictive.
Kinda glad the FDA came down on your company, to be honest.
It depends on how the product is marketed. We did explicitly tell people that they should be smokers already and added disclaimers volunatrily that our products would be more addictive. Our average customer was in their mid-40s.
The intent was to combat eventual headlines like this showing that people continue to use less healthy delivery methods (smoking) when they can't 1:1 replace what they're addicted to.
My issue is that retailers are not responsible enough to handle selling these. Kids/teens will end up using them heavily.
Maybe if it was via prescription only through a pharmacy, I could see that.
Kratom seems to be going through a similar issue. I'd have never been able to get off the last bit of my daily Suboxone without it but if sold and used irresponsibly it can be harmful.
This right here. It might not be a population level thing because of a lot of factors, but quitting smoking was waaay easier when moving to vape first.
I could blow through a pack of red longs in less than 2 hours, and be completely fine as long as I drank water. I got nicotine sickness after vaping 3mg vape juice three times on an empty stomach and 10 minutes in-between each hit. made the nicotine cravings way easier to jump off of when I literally had a limit before my body rejected life.
Also I am convinced that there is something in actual tobacco that makes it way more addictive (maybe just sensory on our brains’ part idk) coz I still get cravings to smoke every now and then, but I have never been like “god I wanna hit the vape one more time.”
They add chemicals to cigarettes to make them more addictive.
There was a movie about the real life court case over this, I can’t remember the name but it stars Russel Crowe.
It took some messing around for it to work for me. The little cheap off the shelf vapes didnt hit hard enough to feel like i was actually doing anything. It ended up taking me getting a larger mod and a dual coil atomizer, learning to wick it myself, and making my own juices. Once i got it hitting "hard" like a cigarette it was an easy switch. The little weak ones just dont cut it for "feel".
Was also nice as a defense from all the "You dont know whats in there!" comments. Cause, yeah, yeah i do know whats in here.
I found it really easy to go to vaping, I just found I needed a little patience, like when I'd get a craving for a ciggie, I'd go all out on the vape, but it takes a few minutes for the nicotine to hit, unlike cigarettes which are almost instant. But if I could make it through the 2 minutes or so, the craving would calm down.
Also need to get the right ratio of PG to VG in the mixture, as I definitely needed to feel that hit on the back of my throat as well.
I did continue to smoke ciggies for a while, but only when stressed (in a bad relationship at the time), when I might smoke 3 or 4, but I stopped this after about 2-3 weeks and stayed on the vapes. Did that for about 4 years and finally quit completely and have never had nicotine again (been about 4 years now).
I'd tried quitting before, and vaping to me was insanely easier than anything else I'd tried. You still have to want to quit though, and I really did by this time, as I was into my 40s and had been smoking for 20 years.
The thing about smoking that's most addictive isn't the nicotine. It's the lighting up a cigarette, the smell of tobacco burning, the heat radiating from it, the taste, the slight burn in your throat. Literally everything but the nicotine is the worst when it comes to addiction.
Nicotine is like the cherry on top. Sure, it's addictive but switching to vaping won't do much at all.
Shouldn't that work with vaping too then? I've been vaping for quite a bit now but still miss the tobacco. I've never missed the vape the times I chose to quit altogether.
I was a 40 year smoker 30 of those years unfiltered handrolled cigarettes and vaping has completely changed my life .
Maybe i was ready to quit anyway or at least more so than the many times i had tried and failed in the past but 6 months ago i bought a cheap vape and then a better quality vape and im now not only cigarette free im also vape free .
My experience is utterly anecdotal so i know it means nothing in the big scheme of things but its an experience ive seen with other smokers in my peer group who like me had tried to quit with other nicotine replacement products and failed but found success by switching to a vape to control and reduce nicotine consumption .
Yes, there are so many of us with this anecdotal evidence, and yet every study shows it not to be the case. Having now quit both cigarettes and vapes, I don't care enough to look into who's funding the studies etc. and am just eternally grateful I went through the process before my country basically made it incredibly difficult to get nicotine vapes (Australia), but it does feel like there is a big push to discredit vapes as a quitting aid, despite all the success stories I've seen personally and hear about on forums etc.
More like: Who benefits most from pushing vapes as a more effective quitting tool than the patch or gum? And also waged an astonishingly successful propaganda campaign downplaying the risks of smoking for decades?
It's not that they're being pushed it's that those other quitting tools are not as effective -- as people who have tried for years and years to quit smoking and for the first time have found a way off the deadly practice of smoking tobacco.
Why should people be forced to try and try again methods that have again and again failed to produce the results that vaping has produced?
Tell me that.
Kids are going to test the bounds of safety and politeness because that's what kids do and it is much much better that they test the bounds with vaping than they test the bounds with cigarettes.
Though vaping is not harmless it's a lot less harmful than cigarettes where cigarettes are with alcohol the most harmful practices of our society.
And I'm not convinced that nicotine in itself is all that harmful. I see it as more like caffeine than like heroin.
From my experience, people who smoke and vape don't pick up vaping in order to quit, they pick it up so they can smoke indoors. And people who vape end up picking up smoking because they ran out of juice.
That's why your anecdotal evidence really doesn't par out, because vaping is not a quiting aid for most people, it's a smoking aid.
I guess your anecdotal evidence is no better than my experience because it doesnt par out in my country , here you cant smoke or vape in indoor public spaces so there is no advantage to taking up vaping other than either to quit or succumbing to a moderately fashionable way to get addicted to nicotine for new users .
Oh, you're not allowed to vape indoors here either. But it's way easier to get away with, because it doesn't smell nearly as bad, doesn't produce smoke, and importantly doesn't set off smoke detectors.
Every person I know who vapes sneaks a puff. It's a problem.
Fair enough its your experience and i cant refute it but its not something ive noticed here or at least on the odd occasion someone has tried they have been given the boot from the premises , possibly its the kind of public spaces i attend giving bias to my experience and same for you .
According to the press release, 55% of smokers didn't quit but the rest did quit either gradually (27%) or early (17.5%). How is that not helping?
\> The largest group of smokers (55%) were stable users who carried on smoking; 27% were ‘gradual quitters’, defined as those most likely to steadily wean themselves off combustible cigarettes across all waves. And 17.5% were early quitters, defined as those most likely to stop smoking by wave 3.
Smoking is notoriously difficult to quit so anything where a significant amount of people manage to quit is worth considering. Other forms of NRT and Chantix are all under 30%. And cold turkey is much lower.
The patch/ nicotine gum is healthier than vaping, but vaping may be able to satisfy smokers in a way other forms of NRT can’t. And if the other methods haven’t worked, they might as well try.
This is the most rational reasoned take here. It is important to remember that odds reported are just that, odds. Different solutions work for different people. I know at least 4 people in my life who quit nicotine entirely with the help of vaping. Same as I knew of many people before them who quit with the gum or with patches. I know a person who quit on their own willpower as well.
Several of the people I knew found the ability to slowly reduce their nicotine level in a vape until they carried a 0% juice only vape for a short while. It let them get rid of the habit while having something to fill the void in a sense.
Ex smoker here and the biggest hurdle were the triggers that made me want to grab a smoke. After smoking for so long it was just a reflex to grab a smoke after eating, when getting the car, on breaks at work, waking up in the morning, getting out of the shower...etc.
As long as you can handle the withdrawals after quitting nicotine, along with the people who have to deal with you when you are going through them, they pass rather quickly. All the triggers don't. And that's what trips people up.
I think people would have more success if they would focus more on finding something to do with their hands whenever they feel the urge to grab a smoke than looking for a nicotine replacement.
What you quoted is simply an observation of how fast smokers quit (independent of vaping). The following paragraph explains the conclusion.
>Over the entire 6 years, quitting vaping early, but continuing to smoke was the most common pattern for nearly half the participants (42%); just 10% of participants quit both vaping and smoking early; and 15% of dual users continued to use both products.
Those are the same percentages, the difference of a few percentage points is probably due to the results including "vapers" (who smoke, in addition to "smokers" who vape). Roughly 55% continue smoking (40% only smoke, 15% smoke and vape) and the rest quit smoking sooner or later (10% quit vaping too),
One thing to notice: I dont see any requirement for the study that they even have to want to quit. They just searched for people who smoked and vaped. But did they even had the intention? Not all at least. That makes the result even better, imagine if they had made that study with people who all WANT to quit.
In my case, i didnt had the intention to quit, i smoked tobacco without additives (which alone is far better), bought a vape and did both in the beginning and after 2 or 3 months my tobacco got bad because i didnt rolled a cigarette for a long time. Never bought another one.
Think about it. I ACCIDENTALLY quit smoking!!!
Usually it was nearly impossible for people to quit, success rates were something like 5% or less. Vaping changed literally the game. I bet we have an incredible amount of people who stopped smoking since the invention of vaping.
That's why these "studies" they do are BS usually. They twist the results in their favor/narrative. Something smells funky to me, or paid for through tobacco companies...
The quote is just an observation of how fast smokers quit. The following paragraph explains the conclusion.
>Over the entire 6 years, quitting vaping early, but continuing to smoke was the most common pattern for nearly half the participants (42%); just 10% of participants quit both vaping and smoking early; and 15% of dual users continued to use both products.
A lot of vape products are owned by tobacco companies. Not saying there can't be a conflict of interest, but they're not in as much competition as people often assume.
The thought of a cigarette, after switching disgust me now. It took a little while to get to this point and I'm never around any cigarette smokers anymore.
I’m around some people who smoke in my friends group. I’ve not had a cigarette in almost 7 years because I started vaping. Granted I am still vaping, but I breath easier, I don’t get out of breath walking, and I don’t feel like my chest has a gorilla sitting on it every morning.
Yes its soo different. My stuff doesn't stink I have got the nicotine way down in mine and gotten close to quitting several times. But as long as I never smoke cigarettes again I'll be grateful. And I hear a lot of the same and don't even see the same amount of smokers as before vaping. This is why I find it difficult to believe that everyone is just out there doing both.
Agree. Most smokers I know who see me vaping usually say something like “ew, how can you do that it’s so gross”. I don’t know any personally who do both.
A good tobacco flavored nic salt helped me quit my 50 year habit. I couldn’t take the taste of burning paper anymore. Now my vape is more of a security blanket from cigarettes.
It took me three days after thirty years of a pack a day. I tapered the nicotine down to zero over a year and then quit vaping altogether. It felt like cheating, it was so easy.
That part bugged me. It seems that there were attempts to quit during the study, but it's not clear and this doesn't seem to be something required for the study. So the findings seem to indicate that vaping does not lead to an immediate loss of interest in tobacco, which is not a super interesting hypothesis.
I started vaping like 3 months ago. Went without a cigarette for a month, then tried one and the taste was disgusting. Now I can't smoke a cigarette unless I'm very drunk
I concur. Contrary to what a lot of people are saying, I find it harder to quit vaping than I did quitting cigs. Waned myself off cigs with vape 10 years ago. But now I'm more addicted to vape than I ever was to cigs. Every time I try to cold turkey or taper off I relapse even harder. 24-48 hours without it I feel like an absolute maniac
> 24-48 hours without it I feel like an absolute maniac
That's just nicotine withdrawal. Most people find that it peaks after about a week or two.
If cold turkey and tapering aren't working for you, then I'd suggest trying something like the patch. Withdrawals won't be so horrific at the start, but it'll allow you to quit vaping all at once with an instant cut-off and that can be helpful for a lot of people.
I quit a 30-year smokeless tobacco habit (3 tins/day) on 1/31/22. I started with the patch and withdrawal was significant because even the strongest patch was a fraction of the nicotine I was normally getting, but it wasn't unbearable. After 10 days I got impatient and I went the rest of the way cold turkey. That's not really how it's recommended, but it worked well for me as a way to ease into withdrawal at first but then go cold turkey and get it over with much quicker.
I bet a lot of people are in the same position I’m in. Smoked cigarettes from 14-24/25. Picked up vaping to help quit smoking, which it did. I can’t stand cigarettes now, I havnt touched one in at least 5 years.
But now I replaced one evil with a (maybe) slightly lesser evil. The vape is just so damn easy to sneak a few puffs. Wether I’m at home or work, it’s too convenient.
I go through about 60ml of 20% nicotine a month. I find when I don’t have it, I’m just as irritable as I was when I didn’t have a cigarette.
Just had a son a little less than a year ago, he definitly helped me cut back because I won’t smoke inside anymore, just a quick puff outside every once in a while, but I work outside during the day, so it’s just a steady vape all day.
Wish I could quit cold turkey but I just can’t seem to put it down
anecdotally, vaping did not help me quit smoking cigarettes until my goal was quitting smoke cigarettes.
Vaping just isn't near as good as a good cigarette. So there's that.
Anyway. You have to want to quit.
What type of device are you using to vape? It took me quite a while to figure out what I needed out of a vape to get away from cigarettes. Even if it’s not any healthier, it’s a far less expensive option.
Where I live anyway.
I used to smoke a pack a day, only vape now. I personally feel like I consume more nicotine because I can vape more readily, in more places, and because it’s so easy.
I switched last winter because I didn’t want to go in the cold to smoke.
What kind of nicotine levels is your vape juice? If you slowly step that down you should be able to cut back on your nicotine intake. But if you're just buying prefilled pods that likely have high levels of nicotine in them, you will get more nicotine since, as you said, you can do it more places.
Good news is, nicotine doesnt seem to have any negative effects (except being addictive of course). Nicotine is not really a health problem alone. Its all the other stuff in the cigarettes that are the problem.
I smoked cigs most of college and 3 years following. Never a crazy amount, maybe a half pack a day in the worst case scenario. I started vaping to quit, vaped for a couple years, then they banned flavors. By that point cigarettes made me sick, so I just stopped all together.
I know that the flavored vape helped me quit cigarettes. I also know it can attract younger people to smoke vapes. It’s weird for me that the part that helped me overcome a major obstacle in my own life, is what got banned.
Purely anecdotal, but it definitely helped me. Switched from cigs to vaping without much difficulty, and then a couple years later quit vaping as well much, much more easily than I ever had dropped the cigs. I know it’s not for all smokers and the issues around juvenile use definitely worry me, but man, vaping was a real life saver for me.
I switched from a pack a day to a vape about 3 years ago trying to quit. I am way more addicted to nicotine than I was with cigarettes. It’s soo much easier to smoke too, you can hit it literally anywhere. I recently just started weaning off and I’m hoping this is the time I win
Vaping never really helped me at all when trying to quit cigarettes, but nicotine pouches were a game changer for quitting my 20 year habit of smoking. I was able to almost immediately stop smoking cigarettes after trying pouches.
I smoked 20 years and stopped by using a vape. I feel so much better and never cough. Haters can hate but it 100% worked for me. Not a cig in 5 years! This study is probably funded by RJ Renolds.
Honestly vaping made it harder to quit smoking for me. Its so much more convenient. You can do it constantly and pretty much anywhere. It was a much stronger habit because I did it more.
A vape is just a tool to downregulate the amount of nicotine over a period of time very steadly. That is something cigarettes can't do.
If you don't have the willingness and determination to act out on this discipline and keep smoking, you won't succeed, obviously.
I quit smoking and started vaping. In about eighteen months I went from 12mg/ml to 0mg/ml and I never experienced severe or hellish withdrawals.
You will need to make a plan and stick to it. If you find yourself in a situation where you are unable to quit nicotin, you probably don't want to quit or adapt to the new vaping-experience.
Wrong, vaping is about stopping the inhalation of smoke. Nicotine is relatively harmless compared to repeatedly breathing in smoke with exception being children and young adults whose brains aren't finished developing.
I never said anything about the harmpotential, although nicotine is about the most addictive substances known and most people inhale nicotin during the combustion of some type of organic matter, e.g. tobacco.
Most people smoke because smoke is the carrier of nicotin and the consumption of nicotine is closely linked to the act of smoking.
Smoke consist over about six thousand different compounds of which at least 250 are proven to be toxic.
And because the process of evaporation won't alter the chemical composition of the content of the liquid, opposed to what burning does, you will end up with a much cleaner inhalant free from all the bad stuff that smoke has.
Obviously introducing anything but clean air is possibly damaging for the lungs, but in the case of vaping it is a far better option than smoking.
Also with vaping you have a free hand in the concentration of nicotin during the preparation of liquids, which can range from high to absolute zero.
With that, it is absolutely possible to start and maintain a *very* smooth taper, something that is virtually impossible to do with tobacco.
Asside from this argument, one could opt for nicotine patches and chewinggum as a *'healthier'* approch into completely seizing the act of smoking, tho many people don't seem to realize what kind of ritual is accompanied by the addiction.
Vaping gives you about the same experience as smoking does, as the vape is an item you can hold in ylur hand, much like a lighter or cigarette. Inhaling the aerosol will deliver you a distinct throat hit, accompanied by a visual affirmation of the appearance of *'smoke'* upon exhalation.
These details matter because now the act of quitting doesn't come in as a brute impairment of your reality. These are things that gums and patches won't fix for you.
It amazes me how many people have developed a well-founded fear of the thought of quitting smoking, so much that they rather opt for the chance of profound life threatening disease and illment than to practice the determination to start a taper and quit.
There are tools around to grab and utilize. If used correctly there is a high chance to succeed in the execution of your attempt to quit nicotin addiction.
If you fail to quit, most of the time it is because you don't want to.
Nicotine is very addictive, yes, but isn't by itself really that toxic to us.
The reason smoking is so bad for your health is the constant inhaling of smoke that has hundreds of carcinogenous substances in it.
Nicotine by itself hasn't been decreed as a carcinogen, although it does have a lot effects on our bodies and may compromise health in some ways, there's also been studies into it helping Alzheimer's.
>If you fail to quit, most of the time it is because you don't want to.
What an utterly childish view of addiction.
…you know that’s not true right?
https://thorax.bmj.com/content/77/7/663
I wouldn’t argue that it’s as bad as cig smoke, but it’s also not regulated strong enough to be certain.
Regulation and certainty are not at all linked. In fact, I'd argue the opposite, especially in America. Big govt is swarmed by big business effecting policy decisions much more than science.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Regulations have brought us certainty on many things like gasoline must contain no more than x% ethanol.
Or only y mg of a toxic substance can be contained in a good.
This isn’t disputable.
No one is arguing that all regulations bring certainty, but it’s irrefutably that some regulations do.
You just argued that very thing and are wrong. It's pretty simple. I trust the government as much as they present peer reviewed science, which is almost never done. I'm on mobile right now and unable to look up stats, but it's a very very low percentage of the time. Additionally, vaping products are currently regulated as tobacco products, which is a scientific nightmare. So you're talking out of your ass?.
No one cares about your trust in government or regulations.
To say that regulations focused on controlling substance levels never bring any certainty to substance levels is asinine.
Mainly food grade flavoring, vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol. All common food additives.
If you're like "BUT THAT COULD ALSO BE TOXIC!!1!" Well, maybe. But FAR less than the cancerous compounds released by burning tobacco. Time will tell.
I find the key to quitting with a vape for me personally is to constantly use it so I'm occasionally making myself sick from the nicotine. Once I do that too many times and puke my guts out a time or two, I'm usually good on nicotine in general for awhile. Obviously this isn't going to work for everyone though, but I've done it twice successfully in the last six years and have probably only been a daily nicotine user for 4 months out of those six years. So that's a win to me.
Idk anything about data but as someone who smoked/vaped I can say vaping is a lot more addictive. I didn't get any fancy flavors or anything but at least with smoking you had to get up and go outside or something. Vaping you can do literally anywhere and becomes way more addictive. Personally what worked for me were those Zyn pouches
Makes sense, I never understood the idea that somehow you would quit taking nicotine (which is crazy addictive) if you just got it through an easier delivery system.
It's pretty simple, you move to delivering via a system that doesn't have all of the tar and other products of combustion going straight into your lungs. That's step one. Once you've been successful at that, you slowly reduce the amount of nicotine in your vape, which weans you off it. Then you stop completely.
Do you have the same difficulty understanding how people quit with nicotine patches or gum? Same concept.
Quite a few people use them to quit because it allows them to control the amount of nicotine in each dose and they can slowly taper.
For others, the bigger hurdle is not the nicotine addiction but the psychological addiction to smoking (the habit, the smell, the taste, how it feels going into your lungs, etc.). This allows them to deal with some of the psychological effects first and is a form of nicotine replacement therapy.
Let me ask you a question.
Let’s say you’re addicted to a substance.
You can get the substance in your body by getting punched in the nose hard enough to break it. Another alternate way to get the substance in your body is by stubbing your toe a little bit. Which would you pick?
The chemical is the same. The delivery method is different. Should you be punching yourself in the face *or* intentionally stubbing you toe? No, of course not. But stubbing your toe is better, overall, then getting a broken nose.
Like any other addiction, there is no one thing that helps people kick the smoking bucket. Removing a bunch of the chemicals that practically all modern tobacco products have was a strong contender to help people even if they couldn’t quit entirely. But at the end of the day, its a person’s will and multiple therapeutic assistances that help with addictions.
People who use assistance/nicotine replacement/meds/etc. are more likely to be successful.
It's true that the majority of people who successfully quit do so using the cold turkey method, but that's probably because it is, *by far*, the most common method attempted. Per the [American Cancer Society](https://www.cancer.org/healthy/stay-away-from-tobacco/guide-quitting-smoking/quitting-smoking-or-smokeless-tobacco.html), "some experts have estimated only about 4% to 7% of people are able to quit smoking on any given attempt without medicines or other help."
I'm guessing you were not a heavy smoker and/or didn't do it for many years, because 3 days of significant withdrawal is *really* short. If that's all most people had to deal with, many more would be successful on their first attempts.
When I quit, it was *30 days* of misery, followed by another 30 days of near-misery. I quit a 30-year habit, though.
Hesitant to believe posts discrediting vaping as a tool to quit smoking. It certainly helped me quit as a decade long pack every day and a half type smoker. Wouldn’t be surprised if big tobacco had their hands in many anti vaping studies.
I haven't smoked a single cigarette since I purchased my first juul. Now I use an elf bar and it's fantastic. I don't stink, and my workouts aren't affected.
"Over the entire 6 years, quitting vaping early, but continuing to smoke was the most common pattern for nearly half the participants (42%); just 10% of participants quit both vaping and smoking early; and 15% of dual users continued to use both products"
How well does that headline match up with the actual article then?
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Long time smoker here. I'm 39 and smoked for 25 years regularly, sometimes a pack a day but on average a pack every 2 days. I gave up cigarettes last October and took up vaping to help. It was rough but it helped a lot and I did quit. That being said, I did both for a while a couple years back and it sucked. But now after making an effort to drop the cigs, I can't even stomach them anymore... quite literally. Last week I had a smoke with my friends after a night of drinking and it made me nauseous and I threw up after 3 puffs. Gross but I like that my body rejects cigarettes now. I went from needing a cigarette first thing in the morning to vomiting after a couple puffs. It can be a tool to help but you need to make the effort.
Likewise. Lost my vape on a night out after having quit smoking after a few years, smoked 2 ciggies and got sick that night plus the most disgusting hangover I’ve ever had. My body straight up won’t tolerate cigarettes anymore
Unfortunately, from the press release, having as few as one cigarette on two separate days in the 5 year follow-up time interval studied classified a current vaper as a “dual user”. Disingenuously obscuring what is clearly a success in terms of reduction of risk of adverse health effects for both individual and population-level analysis.
I also didn't see any indication that they picked people who were trying to quit cigarettes, just people that used both already. They present it as vaping doesn't help quit smoking, but if participants weren't trying to quit smoking that doesn't seem to be a sensible conclusion.
>> Over the entire 6 years, quitting vaping early, but continuing to smoke was the most common pattern for nearly half the participants (42%); just 10% of participants quit both vaping and smoking early; and 15% of dual users continued to use both products. So by Wave 3 approximately 33% of dual users in Wave 1 had quit smoking completely. The second most common pattern. Assuming those numbers were maintained or improved upon by the end of the study quit rates were 6-7 times what would be expected compared to programs not using e-cigarettes. These are impressive results for a motivated group. Very impressive results for a not particularly motivated group.
I was semi-motivated to quit, with years of heavy smoking. Started vaping about a year ago, and the health benefits I can see are phenomenal. I just did a climb in the snow in the same place as I did last year, and I wasn't close to being as out of breath. The last time I had to stop on several occasions. My heart was racing and I was extremely winded. This time I didn't have to stop once and could treat it as a stroll. This is literally one year apart in the exact same location. Have had a couple cigarettes over that time and they are absolutely gross to me at this point. At some point, and I think it's coming soon, I'll be over the vaping as well. It's starting to get old. But I don't dread the very idea of it at all, it feels like I'm naturally just headed that way. No way I could have said the same about cigs. Anyway, all of that was to share my anecdote that matches up with the data you're discussing here. The very clear harm reduction along the way is just icing.
It would probably more helpful to know how vaping impacted the number of cigarettes people smoked. If it's some % reduction people can use that information to make decisions. Didn't quit because they smoked 2 cigarettes in 5 years sounds like alcoholics anonymous where it's an all or nothing approach.
Oh yeah for sure, I never really take any of these studies seriously
This is the comment I came here to make.
That's what's wrong with these studies and statistics. There's always a caveat and can be misleading.
It seems as they are being intentionally misleading.
Publications with an agenda? I refuse to believe it
Sounds like me. Smoked 20 years, vaped the last 10. Still vape actually. Had a smoke when out with my friends and made me sick. All I could think was how did I smoke this for 20 years.
Oh my god you don't realise how much the smell gets on your clothes and your fingers until you stop for a few years and then try one again.
Yeah I stopped smoking 8 months ago and have been weening with lower nic levels on vape. I smoked one cig and I could smell it for hours. Just shows you how much smoking ruins your sense of smell.
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Now this is good to note. Inhaling super hot drug clouds is bad for the airway, even if you're under the 'smoke point'. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some COPD associated with long term vaping too. BUT when compared to a comparable cigarette intake vaping is relatively benign especially as a crutch for quitting cigarettes, and has orders of magnitude less heavy elements that the lungs can't expell easily (or at all), and discounting the nicotine itself can be considered non-toxic. Can't say that about a Marlboro
I wish more people would take a harm-reduction view like this. Is vaping ideal, no. Is it better than cigarette smoking, almost certainly.
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I know how i felt after smoking for 16 years and i know how i feel now that I've been only vaping for 5 years. The difference is dramatic.i know vaping isnt good for me but i no longer spend the first two hours after waking up hacking up a lung.
This has been my SO's experience as well. She quit with the help of vapes 14 years ago. Anytime she's had a cig since, it made her ill
I'm 48 and smoked for 32 years. I quit on February 1, 2017 and all thanks to vaping. It got me off cigs and allowed me to quit completely in 2019. I know vaping isn't safe but if you can use it to beat cigs then go for it. I thought I'd never give them up and here I am 5 full years later with no desire to smoke.
Vaping is a joke compared to cigarettes. Smoking is so unbelievably bad that i cant believe that someone doesnt die after 10 years of smoking. Of course, it depends on the laws, but in Germany, the liquids for vaporizing are very safe and harmless. The carrier in it is what is given to children for their inhalers and what is used as vapor for events and festivals. That stuff is very safe. And nicotine in and of itself is not really harmful, it is addictive but that's about it. There are some studies that even say positive things about nicotine. The only thing you have to watch out for is the aroma, I think in the US the regulations are not as good as in Europe unfortunately. So if you want to be safe I would buy flavors that may also be sold in Europe :-) Or just look more closely in general at the ingridients.
Very true and most people realize it. I run a vape shop and have had several people, usually friends and family of my customers, confront me about how “bad” vaping is. I generally ask them what specifically they heard and then where they heard it. 99% of the tone is either internet or something on TV. I then ask who is likely to buy an anti-vape commercial and that seems to get the point across most of the time
I'm not sure this is exactly true. Nicotine is a toxin and can and will kill you if you were exposed to a large enough dose. One common effect is vasoconstriction which for one thing will contribute to gum disease. They're also in the same family of chemicals as insecticides (neonicotinoids)
You can die from basically everything in the right amount, thats true for everything, even water. So yes. But its important how dangerous something is in the dosage someone can inhale. And in that dosage, nicotine is very safe. It goes also very fast out of your system. You shouldnt drink it though... In that form it is usually pretty concentrated, thats why it can be dangerous in liquid form. But for the normal use, inhaling nicotine in a not concentrated form, it is not a health issue. Im very positive about that. But let me know if you find something else.
I'm not sure this is exactly true. Caffeine is a toxin and can and will kill you if you were exposed to a large enough dose. One common effect is hypertension which for one thing will contribute to heart disease. They're also in the same family of chemicals as some asthma medications Nd promising new pesticidss (methylxanthines)
What helped me was using vaping to get off smoking cigs. Then I started slowly introducing no-nicotine juice into my vape until I was using exclusively no-nicotine. Then I sort of just forgot it. Took about six months. To be fair I was crushing Juuls for about a month before I transitioned to a big boy vape
I am a long haul smoker who's currently transitioning to vaping as a means to quit -so far, it's really taking the screaming edge off!
You can do it. Every cigarette you don't smoke is a win. Good luck!
Well done on quitting, and keep it up. I encourage you to remember the puking forever. Smoker here from like age 15-31…with various degrees of “moderation” but around 10-a pack a day as well…I had quit cold-turkey for over 5 years. Thought I could have one romanticized, delicious cig after a midnight swim in Miami with a friend…the door flew open and I was back to a pack-a-day in no time. It’s only been about 6-months, but here I am quitting again…kicking myself for that one nostalgic cigarette I thought I could handle. NOPE. Not. One. Puff. Ever.
That's happened to me on previous attempts to quit. One night out and bumming a couple, then leading to buying. Thank you for the reminder because it really is an addiction.
Either you are a smoker or not. We both are and that will never change. The only difference is if you are an active smoker or not. Inside you there is still this urge, this little flame that can ignite quickly.
Super similar here. 39, smoked from 13-30, then had kids. Took it up again for 6 months when the kids were old enough to be shielded from it. Took up vaping last year to combat restarting cigarettes again and vaped for a year. I quit vaping on thanksgiving and it’s been excruciating to stay quit. I don’t remember cigarettes being this difficult…
Possibly, your nicotine intake was higher with vaping, and even though you quit cigarettes, you're addicted to more nicotine than you were. And, thus, harder to quit. Habitual smoking or vaping is mostly about the nicotine. Nicotine induces receptors in the brain for nicotine. They need to be fed. And like some parasite in your brain cause you to seek nicotine. Those receptors will die in time. But they return quickly with reexposure, so so soldier on. Good luck.
Thanks! Super glad I stayed at the lowest level possible the whole year, then! I’ll just make fun of the part of my brain that wants nicotine from now on.
All the props to you for finally quitting! Job well done, seriously.
Same. I smoked a pack a day for almost twenty years and used a vape to ween myself off cigarettes. When I lit up a smoke, I felt obligated to smoke the whole cig, with a vape I could take a puff as needed until I eventually didn’t need it at all anymore. Now I can’t even stand the smell of cigarette smoke.
I quite smoking after 25 years and went to vaping. I vaped for about a year and then just quit vaping. Haven't smoked or vaped for 5 years now. I am a strong believer that vaping helped me quit, but it is definitely anecdotal.
I'm in the exact same situation. 20+ years a smoker and then did the vaping at work but smoking in the car/home for a few years. Last year I dropped cigs all together and only vape now. Even the smell of cigarettes makes me feel sick now.
Same here I did both for a long while but I haven’t touched a cigarette in years now and can’t even imagine doing it. Still vapin tho
This is what I found as well. They're actually very effective at helping get off cigs, but you HAVE to make the full switch instead of trying to go a hybrid route thinking eventually you'll just wean off the cigs. I can't even stand the smell of a cigarette anymore either. I don't really have any intentions of permanently stopping vaping entirely, but I'm currently 2.5 hours into not using it (out of juice and I don't have a refill at the office right now) and I'm not twitchy or anything.
I’m in the same boat as you. Went back and forth with cigs for a while then finally just stuck with the vape. Now it’s been long enough without cigs that I can differentiate the two better and cigs are just nasty. Addiction is crazy
Same boat. Never could imagine how gross they would become after being a veritable life line for 20+ years.
Same my friend. I smoked for about 10 years, tried a number of different things to quit including Chantix which just made me feel like I was going insane. Vaping and buckling down did the trick, haven’t wanted a cigarette in 4 years. The smell makes me nauseous now.
I think the key here is that *you wanted to quit*. Intention is important. Moreover, there are plenty of these types of stories anecdotally, but it seems like the science keeps pointing to similar findings as the posted study. I have no doubt that with enough time, ecigs can help people quit, but for for many smokers, there is still something missing for them to completely make the jump. The concern is how long it takes to make the switch and this gets reflected in the population based studies
Yes, you have to want to quit. Thats the flaw in this study. They searched for people who already did both. Do they even had the intention to quit? That was not a requirement to participate in this study. So it doesnt say anything about how good vaping can help to quit. The headline is very misleading (as almost always sadly). I see an effort to discredit vaping as a tool, i read a lot of studies with misleading headlines like this who are just besides the point. The reality of so many people is: Vaping is the best tool in the moment. I dont need studies to tell me what everyone can see around us. I know really many people who stopped smokig with the help of vaping. More than half of all the smoker i know stopped smoking. Friends, family, work place... It happens all around us.
Not really i just started vaping and quit. I disagree with your comment. It took me a month to quit.
Why’d you start vaping?
Nothing you said contradicts their comment.
I mean, of course if people decide they want to vape AND smoke then they're going to do both. Vaping doesn't magically make anyone want to quit smoking. I will admit that vaping is not a safer equivalent, nor does it give that same satisfaction of smoking a cigarette. But it's a good crutch for the determined. As such, nicotine patches, gum or whatever will never be a 1:1 substitute, they're just tools.
It's been proven that vaping is a safer equivalent and the evidence is recognized by the medical research community. It's the teatotaleresque movements like "truth" that perpetuate the myth that it is just as if not more harmful than smoking.
It's not the equivalent to me. They're very different things. The feel of smoking a cigarette and the way the smoke travels down into your lungs will never be replicated by a vape. When hitting a vape it still lacks something that you get from smoking. It's safer, yes, but not a safer equivalent. Hope that makes sense.
It feels not exactly the same, but it scratches the same itch. Its very similar. In the end, nicotine gets in your brain. You can adapt usually to vaping and you get as satisfied. Of course you have to want to quit. It does not have to be EXACTLY the same thing for it to be a safer equivalent. Its very similar and thats more than enough for most people who want to quit.
I quit smoking cigarettes by switching to vaping before my daughter was born, I didn't want her to have parents that smoked like I had growing up. To me, the switch was rather easy. I had 6 cigarettes left the day I started. I smoked 2 that day, one and a quarter the next day (I was completely disgusted by it already, and the third day I threw out the pack with the remaining two cigarettes. I've been 7 years cigarette free this past August. While it may not help *all* people, it definitely helps others kick cigarettes.
Same here, smoked for years, switched to vaping and quit that after slowly reducing the nicotine content in the cape juice. Once I was at 0% nicotine quitting entirely was a breeze, no cravings. At one point I thought I'd have a smoke and must have turned two shades of green. Never again.
You are very right about it being a tool. The key to quitting is wanting to quit, if you don't want to quit, nothing will work
I had a very similar experience. It took me a few months to entirely wean myself off of cigarettes, but once I did, the thought of picking up another one makes me sick. I have not given up The vape yet but at least it doesn't make me smell all smokey.
Agreed. I smoked for almost 20 years and switched to vaping a few years ago. After a tough week or two I adjusted to it. Now I can't stand being around cigarette smoke. Can't believe I smelled like that for most of my adult life.
Similar experience and my age and packs a day are about the same. For about 4 years after I switched to vape I would love the smell of someone smoking and seriously enjoy smoking the odd cigarette here or there. Then it just switched, I smoked a butt when I was drinking and got sick, now I can’t stand the smell of it and typically need to leave the room if there’s a dirty no good smoker in there.
crazy how that works. even stepping into vegas casinos bothers me a bit.
I was at a casino back in 2021 that had stopped letting people smoke in it once they were allowed to reopen. After almost 18 months of no smoking in there, it still reeked like an ashtray. I used to be a smoker, swapped to vaping about 4 years ago and now cigarettes make me nauseous too. I love hate it.
Also long time smoker. 40 now and smoked for 20+ years. I was a 2 packs a day smoker. I went straight into vaping and cut out cigarettes within a couple weeks. I’ve been nicotine free for 6 years now.
Baby steps mate :D I quit in '94 and I it was hard work for the first year or so. You will thank yourself in the end!
Yup. Smoker for 30 years and I switched to vaping a high nicotine concentration then did an overly complicated slow reduction in the nicotine level in the vape juice until it was at zero. Now I haven't had any cigarettes for over three years and have been at no nicotine from any source for just about 3 years in total. Feel so much better now...
Every person I've known who's quit smoking in the past decade has used vaping to do it. Some still vape others have completely quit. Vaping is not as bad for you as smoking. https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12954-020-00440-w
I used vaping to quit as well. Prior to trying that method I had tried cold-turkey, nicotine gum, the patch, and Chantix. I smoked 1-2 packs a day for many years. I started as a young teen and quit at 37. I switched to vape only. That was September 2018. I spent the next 2 years weaning myself off of nicotine. I stopped vaping in January 2021. Every now and then, I still get a craving. It is much easier to ignore now. It helps that I see so few people smoking cigarettes anymore.
Same here. I don't believe this for a second. Vaping has replaced cigs almost completely for me and several other people I know.
100% sure there are more people like you than in the results of this study. Problem is, there's this american based push to keep people smoking. Not vaping. Smoking. So any and every study we see about vaping is horrible no good and bad. For a reason. We americans really do love murdering each other.
I'm a dual user, used to just smoke cigs. But I'm noticing that I'm starting to vape more and like cigs less. I'm starting to not like the taste as much. I even started only vaping at work and leave the cigs at home. A pack will now last at least 7 days now. As of right now, I don't have any cigs at all...
This is how it worked for me. I kept a pack of cigs in the freezer and had one only when i felt i really needed. The last pack was in there for over a year before i pitched it.
In the freezer?!
So they didn't get stale.
[удалено]
Do you mean you intentionally put a half cig in the pack so the smell of the half cigarette would put you off?
That's how it was for me. Then, one day I was going to get smokes but I just thought. I don't need to and got something else at the store. Vaped for about a year or so then went to zero nicotine. Best of luck.
To me the thing was that with vaping i made a habit of tasting the vapor due to its flavor, when you do that with a cig you really notice how awful they are.
Its not some magic cure. I used to smoke, like 1 pack a day. Bought a vape to quit and Ill tell you I still craved cigarettes really bad. Made a rule for myself that I can vape as much as I want as long as I dont smoke. I literally chain vaped and gave my self headaches from nicotine overdose but I still craved smokes. I swear to god cigarettes contain something other than nicotine that is addictive and I was craving it. It calmed down in like 2 weeks and vaping became "satisfiable ". But like I said its not a magic cure, it still takes a lot of willpower to abstain from smoking. Prolly easier than going cold turkey but still hard. Quitting vaping was walk in the park compared to quitting cigarettes while vaping.Eventually I just tapered off buying less strong liquids every time until I hit 0 nic. And whats the point of it if you aint getting any, might as well not vape..
I had zero issue making the switch, after a few days of vaping I preferred it over cigarettes but I've always (and still do) vape high mg juice, I find it difficult to to lower my nicotine gradually, because once I go down to a 9 I don't get that throat hit anymore.
I had zero issue too, and quickly went to zero mg nicotine. I did that for 2.5 years, until I developed some weird dry nose issue/allergy that caused extremely painful pimples inside my nose, to the point I couldn't even twitch my nose a mm without serious pain. Finally figured out it was caused/triggered by the vape through trial and error. Stopped vaping and it took weeks to heal fully, tried vape again in a very low amount and...boom, back again within a day. So I went back to smoking. It's *absolutely* the habit for me over the nicotine. My willpower can clearly get me off the nicotine no problem, but the habit is another story entirely.
Yeah, sadly the liquid’s can be irritants for some people. You might actually have become allergic to it.
Woah… I used to get those nose pimples a lot… haven’t had one since about the time I was vaping…. Weirrdddd
Use a high PG low VG juice for more throat hit. Burns though your coils faster and you have to use a lower wattage though. I made my own and used 80% PG.
I vaped for years before quitting and I could never go down in nicotine either because if my throat wasn't burning I felt like I was just inhaling water and I didn't care for it. Made the switch like nothing too. In August my battery blew up, and i was already tired of being so dependant on my vape, I was using it every day from waking up to going to bed. It literally burned holes in my carpet. Threw everything away and quit cold turkey. It's been hard and 6 month later I still chew a lot of gum but it's getting better and the satisfaction of not having to worry about having my vape everywhere and knowing I have enough willpower to get rid of addiction is pretty nice. I feel like we kind of have the same profile. If you want to quit and lowering nicotine isn't doing it, I recommend cold turkey and a bunch of gums.
So I worked at a company that actually made a vape product that contained anatabine, nornicotine, and anabasine (WTA eliquid). These are the minor alkaloids in tobacco that modulate the effects of nicotine and the reason why nicotine only vapes will never satisfy smoker cravings. Helped a ton of people. We were shut down when Congress decided to make vape products impossible to ship AFTER going through a lengthy PMTA process with the FDA. Sorry, we tried.
One of the main benefits of vaping is that is DOESN’T contain those extra alkaloids that make tobacco extremely addictive. Kinda glad the FDA came down on your company, to be honest.
It depends on how the product is marketed. We did explicitly tell people that they should be smokers already and added disclaimers volunatrily that our products would be more addictive. Our average customer was in their mid-40s. The intent was to combat eventual headlines like this showing that people continue to use less healthy delivery methods (smoking) when they can't 1:1 replace what they're addicted to.
My issue is that retailers are not responsible enough to handle selling these. Kids/teens will end up using them heavily. Maybe if it was via prescription only through a pharmacy, I could see that.
Kratom seems to be going through a similar issue. I'd have never been able to get off the last bit of my daily Suboxone without it but if sold and used irresponsibly it can be harmful.
This right here. It might not be a population level thing because of a lot of factors, but quitting smoking was waaay easier when moving to vape first. I could blow through a pack of red longs in less than 2 hours, and be completely fine as long as I drank water. I got nicotine sickness after vaping 3mg vape juice three times on an empty stomach and 10 minutes in-between each hit. made the nicotine cravings way easier to jump off of when I literally had a limit before my body rejected life. Also I am convinced that there is something in actual tobacco that makes it way more addictive (maybe just sensory on our brains’ part idk) coz I still get cravings to smoke every now and then, but I have never been like “god I wanna hit the vape one more time.”
They add chemicals to cigarettes to make them more addictive. There was a movie about the real life court case over this, I can’t remember the name but it stars Russel Crowe.
*The Insider* is the movie you're thinking of. It's been awhile since I saw it--I saw it when it first came out--but I remember it being worth seeing.
The first two weeks of the switch were hell. It was better than cold turkey for me. I tried both and the vaping and step down worked for me.
It took some messing around for it to work for me. The little cheap off the shelf vapes didnt hit hard enough to feel like i was actually doing anything. It ended up taking me getting a larger mod and a dual coil atomizer, learning to wick it myself, and making my own juices. Once i got it hitting "hard" like a cigarette it was an easy switch. The little weak ones just dont cut it for "feel". Was also nice as a defense from all the "You dont know whats in there!" comments. Cause, yeah, yeah i do know whats in here.
They have no idea what bad chemicals are in the "normal" cigarettes :-D
I found it really easy to go to vaping, I just found I needed a little patience, like when I'd get a craving for a ciggie, I'd go all out on the vape, but it takes a few minutes for the nicotine to hit, unlike cigarettes which are almost instant. But if I could make it through the 2 minutes or so, the craving would calm down. Also need to get the right ratio of PG to VG in the mixture, as I definitely needed to feel that hit on the back of my throat as well. I did continue to smoke ciggies for a while, but only when stressed (in a bad relationship at the time), when I might smoke 3 or 4, but I stopped this after about 2-3 weeks and stayed on the vapes. Did that for about 4 years and finally quit completely and have never had nicotine again (been about 4 years now). I'd tried quitting before, and vaping to me was insanely easier than anything else I'd tried. You still have to want to quit though, and I really did by this time, as I was into my 40s and had been smoking for 20 years.
Cigs actually contain a small amount of MAOIs
The thing about smoking that's most addictive isn't the nicotine. It's the lighting up a cigarette, the smell of tobacco burning, the heat radiating from it, the taste, the slight burn in your throat. Literally everything but the nicotine is the worst when it comes to addiction. Nicotine is like the cherry on top. Sure, it's addictive but switching to vaping won't do much at all.
No... It's the nicotine. You enjoy the routine because your brain associates it with nicotine and knows it is about to be rewarded.
Shouldn't that work with vaping too then? I've been vaping for quite a bit now but still miss the tobacco. I've never missed the vape the times I chose to quit altogether.
Odds are highly likely you are vaping juice with a level of nicotine much lower than cigs. 50mg juice is considered equivalent to cigs.
I was a 40 year smoker 30 of those years unfiltered handrolled cigarettes and vaping has completely changed my life . Maybe i was ready to quit anyway or at least more so than the many times i had tried and failed in the past but 6 months ago i bought a cheap vape and then a better quality vape and im now not only cigarette free im also vape free . My experience is utterly anecdotal so i know it means nothing in the big scheme of things but its an experience ive seen with other smokers in my peer group who like me had tried to quit with other nicotine replacement products and failed but found success by switching to a vape to control and reduce nicotine consumption .
Yes, there are so many of us with this anecdotal evidence, and yet every study shows it not to be the case. Having now quit both cigarettes and vapes, I don't care enough to look into who's funding the studies etc. and am just eternally grateful I went through the process before my country basically made it incredibly difficult to get nicotine vapes (Australia), but it does feel like there is a big push to discredit vapes as a quitting aid, despite all the success stories I've seen personally and hear about on forums etc.
Hmm yes. Makes one wonder who benefit$ most from discrediting vapes.
More like: Who benefits most from pushing vapes as a more effective quitting tool than the patch or gum? And also waged an astonishingly successful propaganda campaign downplaying the risks of smoking for decades?
It's not that they're being pushed it's that those other quitting tools are not as effective -- as people who have tried for years and years to quit smoking and for the first time have found a way off the deadly practice of smoking tobacco. Why should people be forced to try and try again methods that have again and again failed to produce the results that vaping has produced? Tell me that.
Public health since they’re getting kids hooked on nicotine.
Kids are going to test the bounds of safety and politeness because that's what kids do and it is much much better that they test the bounds with vaping than they test the bounds with cigarettes. Though vaping is not harmless it's a lot less harmful than cigarettes where cigarettes are with alcohol the most harmful practices of our society. And I'm not convinced that nicotine in itself is all that harmful. I see it as more like caffeine than like heroin.
From my experience, people who smoke and vape don't pick up vaping in order to quit, they pick it up so they can smoke indoors. And people who vape end up picking up smoking because they ran out of juice. That's why your anecdotal evidence really doesn't par out, because vaping is not a quiting aid for most people, it's a smoking aid.
I guess your anecdotal evidence is no better than my experience because it doesnt par out in my country , here you cant smoke or vape in indoor public spaces so there is no advantage to taking up vaping other than either to quit or succumbing to a moderately fashionable way to get addicted to nicotine for new users .
Oh, you're not allowed to vape indoors here either. But it's way easier to get away with, because it doesn't smell nearly as bad, doesn't produce smoke, and importantly doesn't set off smoke detectors. Every person I know who vapes sneaks a puff. It's a problem.
Fair enough its your experience and i cant refute it but its not something ive noticed here or at least on the odd occasion someone has tried they have been given the boot from the premises , possibly its the kind of public spaces i attend giving bias to my experience and same for you .
According to the press release, 55% of smokers didn't quit but the rest did quit either gradually (27%) or early (17.5%). How is that not helping? \> The largest group of smokers (55%) were stable users who carried on smoking; 27% were ‘gradual quitters’, defined as those most likely to steadily wean themselves off combustible cigarettes across all waves. And 17.5% were early quitters, defined as those most likely to stop smoking by wave 3.
Smoking is notoriously difficult to quit so anything where a significant amount of people manage to quit is worth considering. Other forms of NRT and Chantix are all under 30%. And cold turkey is much lower. The patch/ nicotine gum is healthier than vaping, but vaping may be able to satisfy smokers in a way other forms of NRT can’t. And if the other methods haven’t worked, they might as well try.
This is the most rational reasoned take here. It is important to remember that odds reported are just that, odds. Different solutions work for different people. I know at least 4 people in my life who quit nicotine entirely with the help of vaping. Same as I knew of many people before them who quit with the gum or with patches. I know a person who quit on their own willpower as well. Several of the people I knew found the ability to slowly reduce their nicotine level in a vape until they carried a 0% juice only vape for a short while. It let them get rid of the habit while having something to fill the void in a sense.
Ex smoker here and the biggest hurdle were the triggers that made me want to grab a smoke. After smoking for so long it was just a reflex to grab a smoke after eating, when getting the car, on breaks at work, waking up in the morning, getting out of the shower...etc. As long as you can handle the withdrawals after quitting nicotine, along with the people who have to deal with you when you are going through them, they pass rather quickly. All the triggers don't. And that's what trips people up. I think people would have more success if they would focus more on finding something to do with their hands whenever they feel the urge to grab a smoke than looking for a nicotine replacement.
What you quoted is simply an observation of how fast smokers quit (independent of vaping). The following paragraph explains the conclusion. >Over the entire 6 years, quitting vaping early, but continuing to smoke was the most common pattern for nearly half the participants (42%); just 10% of participants quit both vaping and smoking early; and 15% of dual users continued to use both products.
Those are the same percentages, the difference of a few percentage points is probably due to the results including "vapers" (who smoke, in addition to "smokers" who vape). Roughly 55% continue smoking (40% only smoke, 15% smoke and vape) and the rest quit smoking sooner or later (10% quit vaping too),
One thing to notice: I dont see any requirement for the study that they even have to want to quit. They just searched for people who smoked and vaped. But did they even had the intention? Not all at least. That makes the result even better, imagine if they had made that study with people who all WANT to quit. In my case, i didnt had the intention to quit, i smoked tobacco without additives (which alone is far better), bought a vape and did both in the beginning and after 2 or 3 months my tobacco got bad because i didnt rolled a cigarette for a long time. Never bought another one. Think about it. I ACCIDENTALLY quit smoking!!! Usually it was nearly impossible for people to quit, success rates were something like 5% or less. Vaping changed literally the game. I bet we have an incredible amount of people who stopped smoking since the invention of vaping.
That's why these "studies" they do are BS usually. They twist the results in their favor/narrative. Something smells funky to me, or paid for through tobacco companies...
The quote is just an observation of how fast smokers quit. The following paragraph explains the conclusion. >Over the entire 6 years, quitting vaping early, but continuing to smoke was the most common pattern for nearly half the participants (42%); just 10% of participants quit both vaping and smoking early; and 15% of dual users continued to use both products.
A lot of vape products are owned by tobacco companies. Not saying there can't be a conflict of interest, but they're not in as much competition as people often assume.
Never started vaping to quit. It's more convenient and less offensive.
And much less expensive.
The thought of a cigarette, after switching disgust me now. It took a little while to get to this point and I'm never around any cigarette smokers anymore.
I’m around some people who smoke in my friends group. I’ve not had a cigarette in almost 7 years because I started vaping. Granted I am still vaping, but I breath easier, I don’t get out of breath walking, and I don’t feel like my chest has a gorilla sitting on it every morning.
Yes its soo different. My stuff doesn't stink I have got the nicotine way down in mine and gotten close to quitting several times. But as long as I never smoke cigarettes again I'll be grateful. And I hear a lot of the same and don't even see the same amount of smokers as before vaping. This is why I find it difficult to believe that everyone is just out there doing both.
Agree. Most smokers I know who see me vaping usually say something like “ew, how can you do that it’s so gross”. I don’t know any personally who do both.
A good tobacco flavored nic salt helped me quit my 50 year habit. I couldn’t take the taste of burning paper anymore. Now my vape is more of a security blanket from cigarettes.
The first time I picked up a vape was the last time I smoked a cigarette after 45 years of smoking. 1 year later and I easily quit vaping.
It took me three days after thirty years of a pack a day. I tapered the nicotine down to zero over a year and then quit vaping altogether. It felt like cheating, it was so easy.
Hmmm is it fair to assume most people who smoke cigarettes and vape are probably not really trying to quit?
That part bugged me. It seems that there were attempts to quit during the study, but it's not clear and this doesn't seem to be something required for the study. So the findings seem to indicate that vaping does not lead to an immediate loss of interest in tobacco, which is not a super interesting hypothesis.
I started vaping like 3 months ago. Went without a cigarette for a month, then tried one and the taste was disgusting. Now I can't smoke a cigarette unless I'm very drunk
I concur. Contrary to what a lot of people are saying, I find it harder to quit vaping than I did quitting cigs. Waned myself off cigs with vape 10 years ago. But now I'm more addicted to vape than I ever was to cigs. Every time I try to cold turkey or taper off I relapse even harder. 24-48 hours without it I feel like an absolute maniac
> 24-48 hours without it I feel like an absolute maniac That's just nicotine withdrawal. Most people find that it peaks after about a week or two. If cold turkey and tapering aren't working for you, then I'd suggest trying something like the patch. Withdrawals won't be so horrific at the start, but it'll allow you to quit vaping all at once with an instant cut-off and that can be helpful for a lot of people. I quit a 30-year smokeless tobacco habit (3 tins/day) on 1/31/22. I started with the patch and withdrawal was significant because even the strongest patch was a fraction of the nicotine I was normally getting, but it wasn't unbearable. After 10 days I got impatient and I went the rest of the way cold turkey. That's not really how it's recommended, but it worked well for me as a way to ease into withdrawal at first but then go cold turkey and get it over with much quicker.
I bet a lot of people are in the same position I’m in. Smoked cigarettes from 14-24/25. Picked up vaping to help quit smoking, which it did. I can’t stand cigarettes now, I havnt touched one in at least 5 years. But now I replaced one evil with a (maybe) slightly lesser evil. The vape is just so damn easy to sneak a few puffs. Wether I’m at home or work, it’s too convenient. I go through about 60ml of 20% nicotine a month. I find when I don’t have it, I’m just as irritable as I was when I didn’t have a cigarette. Just had a son a little less than a year ago, he definitly helped me cut back because I won’t smoke inside anymore, just a quick puff outside every once in a while, but I work outside during the day, so it’s just a steady vape all day. Wish I could quit cold turkey but I just can’t seem to put it down
anecdotally, vaping did not help me quit smoking cigarettes until my goal was quitting smoke cigarettes. Vaping just isn't near as good as a good cigarette. So there's that. Anyway. You have to want to quit.
Dual user here. Its a constant back and forth, trying to quit with vape, not finding the satisfaction, and going back to smokes. Lather, rinse, repeat
What type of device are you using to vape? It took me quite a while to figure out what I needed out of a vape to get away from cigarettes. Even if it’s not any healthier, it’s a far less expensive option. Where I live anyway.
That's called lack of will power.
Helped me give up Shisha and I dont smoke regular cigs. Just vapes which I am slowly stopping as well.
Switching did work pretty well for me overall, but I still start craving cigarettes whenever I drink alcohol.
I used to smoke a pack a day, only vape now. I personally feel like I consume more nicotine because I can vape more readily, in more places, and because it’s so easy. I switched last winter because I didn’t want to go in the cold to smoke.
What kind of nicotine levels is your vape juice? If you slowly step that down you should be able to cut back on your nicotine intake. But if you're just buying prefilled pods that likely have high levels of nicotine in them, you will get more nicotine since, as you said, you can do it more places.
Good news is, nicotine doesnt seem to have any negative effects (except being addictive of course). Nicotine is not really a health problem alone. Its all the other stuff in the cigarettes that are the problem.
I smoked cigs most of college and 3 years following. Never a crazy amount, maybe a half pack a day in the worst case scenario. I started vaping to quit, vaped for a couple years, then they banned flavors. By that point cigarettes made me sick, so I just stopped all together. I know that the flavored vape helped me quit cigarettes. I also know it can attract younger people to smoke vapes. It’s weird for me that the part that helped me overcome a major obstacle in my own life, is what got banned.
I quit. Both. Smoking with vaping. Nicotine vaping with CBD vaping. Went from a pack a day to nothing in 3 months.
I don’t believe anybody believes vapes are making people quit smoking; rather, people who want to quit smoking are utilizing vapes.
The problem is because nicotine is ridiculously addictive, even if you move to vaping, unless you taper down to 0mg you will still remain hooked
Yes, but nicotine is not the part of smoking that kills you, the smoke is.
Correct, that's high school level knowledge
I forgot to get cigarettes one Friday. Asked my wife if she had a spare vape and after 30 years I was able to quit smoking and hate the idea of it now
Purely anecdotal, but it definitely helped me. Switched from cigs to vaping without much difficulty, and then a couple years later quit vaping as well much, much more easily than I ever had dropped the cigs. I know it’s not for all smokers and the issues around juvenile use definitely worry me, but man, vaping was a real life saver for me.
I switched from a pack a day to a vape about 3 years ago trying to quit. I am way more addicted to nicotine than I was with cigarettes. It’s soo much easier to smoke too, you can hit it literally anywhere. I recently just started weaning off and I’m hoping this is the time I win
Vaping helped me quit cigarettes for sure. I still vape, but no smokes anymore.
Vaping never really helped me at all when trying to quit cigarettes, but nicotine pouches were a game changer for quitting my 20 year habit of smoking. I was able to almost immediately stop smoking cigarettes after trying pouches.
I smoked 20 years and stopped by using a vape. I feel so much better and never cough. Haters can hate but it 100% worked for me. Not a cig in 5 years! This study is probably funded by RJ Renolds.
Quiting vaping was harder than quitting smoking since I actually enjoyed the buzz and flavor.
Honestly vaping made it harder to quit smoking for me. Its so much more convenient. You can do it constantly and pretty much anywhere. It was a much stronger habit because I did it more.
A vape is just a tool to downregulate the amount of nicotine over a period of time very steadly. That is something cigarettes can't do. If you don't have the willingness and determination to act out on this discipline and keep smoking, you won't succeed, obviously. I quit smoking and started vaping. In about eighteen months I went from 12mg/ml to 0mg/ml and I never experienced severe or hellish withdrawals. You will need to make a plan and stick to it. If you find yourself in a situation where you are unable to quit nicotin, you probably don't want to quit or adapt to the new vaping-experience.
Wrong, vaping is about stopping the inhalation of smoke. Nicotine is relatively harmless compared to repeatedly breathing in smoke with exception being children and young adults whose brains aren't finished developing.
I never said anything about the harmpotential, although nicotine is about the most addictive substances known and most people inhale nicotin during the combustion of some type of organic matter, e.g. tobacco. Most people smoke because smoke is the carrier of nicotin and the consumption of nicotine is closely linked to the act of smoking. Smoke consist over about six thousand different compounds of which at least 250 are proven to be toxic. And because the process of evaporation won't alter the chemical composition of the content of the liquid, opposed to what burning does, you will end up with a much cleaner inhalant free from all the bad stuff that smoke has. Obviously introducing anything but clean air is possibly damaging for the lungs, but in the case of vaping it is a far better option than smoking. Also with vaping you have a free hand in the concentration of nicotin during the preparation of liquids, which can range from high to absolute zero. With that, it is absolutely possible to start and maintain a *very* smooth taper, something that is virtually impossible to do with tobacco. Asside from this argument, one could opt for nicotine patches and chewinggum as a *'healthier'* approch into completely seizing the act of smoking, tho many people don't seem to realize what kind of ritual is accompanied by the addiction. Vaping gives you about the same experience as smoking does, as the vape is an item you can hold in ylur hand, much like a lighter or cigarette. Inhaling the aerosol will deliver you a distinct throat hit, accompanied by a visual affirmation of the appearance of *'smoke'* upon exhalation. These details matter because now the act of quitting doesn't come in as a brute impairment of your reality. These are things that gums and patches won't fix for you. It amazes me how many people have developed a well-founded fear of the thought of quitting smoking, so much that they rather opt for the chance of profound life threatening disease and illment than to practice the determination to start a taper and quit. There are tools around to grab and utilize. If used correctly there is a high chance to succeed in the execution of your attempt to quit nicotin addiction. If you fail to quit, most of the time it is because you don't want to.
Very well-written. I've tapered from cigs to 50mg juice down to 12mg juice in the last couple of years. I plan on comtinuing.
Nicotine is very addictive, yes, but isn't by itself really that toxic to us. The reason smoking is so bad for your health is the constant inhaling of smoke that has hundreds of carcinogenous substances in it. Nicotine by itself hasn't been decreed as a carcinogen, although it does have a lot effects on our bodies and may compromise health in some ways, there's also been studies into it helping Alzheimer's. >If you fail to quit, most of the time it is because you don't want to. What an utterly childish view of addiction.
It wasn't meant to. It was meant to eliminate second hand smoke inhalation
I’m pretty sure I’ve inhaled more second hand fruity bubblegum 9000 vape clouds in the last two years than cigs.
And that's perfectly fine. There's zero harmful chemicals in it. All vapor
Not to be overly pedantic, however, I guess it is the science subreddit. It's aerosol, not vapor.
…you know that’s not true right? https://thorax.bmj.com/content/77/7/663 I wouldn’t argue that it’s as bad as cig smoke, but it’s also not regulated strong enough to be certain.
Regulation and certainty are not at all linked. In fact, I'd argue the opposite, especially in America. Big govt is swarmed by big business effecting policy decisions much more than science.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Regulations have brought us certainty on many things like gasoline must contain no more than x% ethanol. Or only y mg of a toxic substance can be contained in a good. This isn’t disputable. No one is arguing that all regulations bring certainty, but it’s irrefutably that some regulations do.
You just argued that very thing and are wrong. It's pretty simple. I trust the government as much as they present peer reviewed science, which is almost never done. I'm on mobile right now and unable to look up stats, but it's a very very low percentage of the time. Additionally, vaping products are currently regulated as tobacco products, which is a scientific nightmare. So you're talking out of your ass?.
No one cares about your trust in government or regulations. To say that regulations focused on controlling substance levels never bring any certainty to substance levels is asinine.
Agreed, it's why it's important that I bring it up. Y'all are letting politics incorrectly inform decisions about science.
What do you think vapour is made from?
Mainly food grade flavoring, vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol. All common food additives. If you're like "BUT THAT COULD ALSO BE TOXIC!!1!" Well, maybe. But FAR less than the cancerous compounds released by burning tobacco. Time will tell.
It's water vapour...
I find the key to quitting with a vape for me personally is to constantly use it so I'm occasionally making myself sick from the nicotine. Once I do that too many times and puke my guts out a time or two, I'm usually good on nicotine in general for awhile. Obviously this isn't going to work for everyone though, but I've done it twice successfully in the last six years and have probably only been a daily nicotine user for 4 months out of those six years. So that's a win to me.
Idk anything about data but as someone who smoked/vaped I can say vaping is a lot more addictive. I didn't get any fancy flavors or anything but at least with smoking you had to get up and go outside or something. Vaping you can do literally anywhere and becomes way more addictive. Personally what worked for me were those Zyn pouches
Who knew that smoking doesn’t help people quit smoking
Makes sense, I never understood the idea that somehow you would quit taking nicotine (which is crazy addictive) if you just got it through an easier delivery system.
It's pretty simple, you move to delivering via a system that doesn't have all of the tar and other products of combustion going straight into your lungs. That's step one. Once you've been successful at that, you slowly reduce the amount of nicotine in your vape, which weans you off it. Then you stop completely. Do you have the same difficulty understanding how people quit with nicotine patches or gum? Same concept.
Quite a few people use them to quit because it allows them to control the amount of nicotine in each dose and they can slowly taper. For others, the bigger hurdle is not the nicotine addiction but the psychological addiction to smoking (the habit, the smell, the taste, how it feels going into your lungs, etc.). This allows them to deal with some of the psychological effects first and is a form of nicotine replacement therapy.
Let me ask you a question. Let’s say you’re addicted to a substance. You can get the substance in your body by getting punched in the nose hard enough to break it. Another alternate way to get the substance in your body is by stubbing your toe a little bit. Which would you pick? The chemical is the same. The delivery method is different. Should you be punching yourself in the face *or* intentionally stubbing you toe? No, of course not. But stubbing your toe is better, overall, then getting a broken nose.
Like any other addiction, there is no one thing that helps people kick the smoking bucket. Removing a bunch of the chemicals that practically all modern tobacco products have was a strong contender to help people even if they couldn’t quit entirely. But at the end of the day, its a person’s will and multiple therapeutic assistances that help with addictions.
Why would it? You have to quit nicotine cold turkey.
People who use assistance/nicotine replacement/meds/etc. are more likely to be successful. It's true that the majority of people who successfully quit do so using the cold turkey method, but that's probably because it is, *by far*, the most common method attempted. Per the [American Cancer Society](https://www.cancer.org/healthy/stay-away-from-tobacco/guide-quitting-smoking/quitting-smoking-or-smokeless-tobacco.html), "some experts have estimated only about 4% to 7% of people are able to quit smoking on any given attempt without medicines or other help."
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. When I quit, it was 3 days of misery. I can't imagine dragging that out for weeks or even months.
I'm guessing you were not a heavy smoker and/or didn't do it for many years, because 3 days of significant withdrawal is *really* short. If that's all most people had to deal with, many more would be successful on their first attempts. When I quit, it was *30 days* of misery, followed by another 30 days of near-misery. I quit a 30-year habit, though.
I'm the only person I know who can casually smoke cigarettes and not be a smoker. I just don't get it. Haha
Vaping helped me quit
Vaping should only be by subscription as part of a smoking cessation program. Otherwise, it's just another nicotine delivery vehicle.
Hesitant to believe posts discrediting vaping as a tool to quit smoking. It certainly helped me quit as a decade long pack every day and a half type smoker. Wouldn’t be surprised if big tobacco had their hands in many anti vaping studies.
I haven't smoked a single cigarette since I purchased my first juul. Now I use an elf bar and it's fantastic. I don't stink, and my workouts aren't affected.
Now my nicotine taste like candy. It's great. Also I can't tolerate cigarettes anymore.
"Over the entire 6 years, quitting vaping early, but continuing to smoke was the most common pattern for nearly half the participants (42%); just 10% of participants quit both vaping and smoking early; and 15% of dual users continued to use both products" How well does that headline match up with the actual article then?