This section is mostly historical at this point as I don’t plan to be doing many significant updates, and some of the content is rather old right now (from circa 2010, vs it being 2020 as I type this). The information is still useful from the perspective of the journey of stopping smoking and moving to e-cigarettes, but not necessarily for specific models of e-cigarettes, as they’ve come a long way.
However, I will say a few things as brief updates to the original articles.
I smoked from a relatively early age, and while active in a good number of sports growing up, wound up continuing to smoke for some time.
Most of us with office jobs along with otherwise relatively busy lives see our general activity rates go down as life and career progressions happen, and I was no different.
I did realize, however, I was starting to wake on some mornings coughing, and was winded pretty easily - enough to the point I would think about quitting. To make a long story short - I did, but only via e-cigarettes, and I haven’t had a real cigarette with all of it’s chemicals and tar, in over a decade. I feel - better. I breathe - better.
There’s lots of fear being inspired, not least of which is down to the usual spreaders-of-fear - greed and loss of revenue from tobacco companies, and poliiticians wanting to have their words on it, and the nanny patrols of ‘omg, why should anyone every want vape to be flavored - think of the children!’’ While I don’t belive children should be vaping by any means, I do think the collective tends to go overboard on so many things, not always to the true benefit of “We, the People.”
I won’t say vaping, with or without nicotine, is healthy. I will say that assuming some level of sanity in use and purchasing (don’t buy random e-liquids from unknowns, for starters, and keep to low/non-exotic or ununusual flavorings, examine contents), that is is certainly lower harm than continuing to smoke cigarettes with cigarette’s enormous payload of carcinogens and chemicals.
The majority of e-cigarette liquid, or e-liquid, contains propylene glycol, or ‘PG,’ which was used in years past to flood children’s wards and hospitals as an anti-bacterial. No, it is NOT antifreeze (ethylene glycol). Propylene glycol is used as a solvent for intravenous, oral, and topical pharmaceutical preparations. It is generally considered safe. E-liquids are also made of, or in differening quantities of ‘VG’ or vegetable glycerine, which is a bit sweeter and tends to make more ‘fake smoke’ in e-cigarettes. Note than both PG and VG are in many products, fro shampoos and health products to - toothpaste.
The other typical component is some amount of nicotine, which is roughly equivalent when not ‘free-based’ via cigarettes along with the rest of cigaretter chemicals, is about on parity with - caffeine, as a mild stimulant. Yes, there can still be some long-term health concerns over prolonged use of nicotene (or caffeine…), but nowhere near those associated with the tar and other chemicals involved in cigarettes.
The remaining components are flavorings, which can both generally be looked up as to their usage by humans, as well as a majorty of them being in the ‘GRAS’ or ‘Generally Recognized As Safe’ category. You do your research and you decide to take your chances or not, but I’d love to see more research-based discussion over the greed of companies, and the frequently ignorant assumptions people so often make leading to the copout of ‘because it’s bad’ or the ever-present ’think of the children!’ refrain.
Some recent evidence as of 2020:
CDC Steps Back From Broad Recommendation to Refrain From E-Cigarettes
False Fears preventing smokers from using e-cigarettes to quit (UK gov press release)
Royal College of Physicians Harm Reduction report (older, from 2016)
And a video evidence update from 2020 from the UK Public health
I do. I don’t get the craze over pure VG or sub-Ohm vaping - it makes tons of fake smoke, and is good at annoying others, but - why?
I use a Nautilus Aspire Mini tank nowadays, as they last all day, with a BPA-free non-steel tip on the tank instead of stainless, vape relatively low-nicotine level 12mg/ml e-liquid with 1.8Ohm atomizers on top of a Kanger Mini with replaceable 3.7v 1865- batteries - usually Samsungs. I’ve used the same pair of base mini boxes for years and they still work, and I occasionally buy a new Nautilus Mini tank when I eventually manage to break one or have dropped it enough times to bend the screw-in shaft enough to annoy me. :)
And yes - companies like Juul and anyone pretending their device is ‘special’ and trying to sell individual cartridges that can’t be refilled - is still annoying to me, and of questionalbe integrity even before their marketing gets into the picture. They’re all fine enough to hand someone to see if they like it, but switch quickly to get out of their ‘special’ (and pricey) forced cartridge sales and into just picking a tank and your e-liquid of choice.