I was reading another post that really got me thinking. So I have been a smoker for 14 years. I started smoking when I was 13 years old and am now 27. Just a couple months ago, I jumped onto the Electronic Cigarette, or E Cig, craze. I am stoked that I decided to do so because in that time I feel healthier ( note healthier not healthy), I don’t smell like smoke and cigarettes any longer, and I have saved a lot of money over that time. What I don’t get is why in the hell E Cigs have to be scrutinized so heavily.
Ok cigarettes are unhealthy, yes, but that is a lifestyle decision that people make of their own free will. Even though cigarettes contain over 4,000 different chemicals, all of which are known to cause diseases and cancers, the people still buy and smoke them and the government still allows all of this to happen. I can understand the banning of smoking inside of buildings to protect the people around you. What I don’t understand is why E Cigs have to be placed under these same restrictions?
Not allowing minors, under 18 years old, to purchase them is understandable. Kids should not be making decisions or purchases like that until they are adults and able to do so if they choice to. E Cigs have been shown to not contain even a fraction of the harmful ingredients of a traditional cigarette. The liquid, or E Juice, used in an E Cig contains enough ingredients for you to count on your fingers. These include Propylene Glycol, or PG, Vegetable Glycerin, or VG, liquid Nicotine, and natural or artificial flavorings. Some standards have already been put forth to ensure that quality ingredients are being used in E Juice, which i completely support. The PG and VG have to be of USP food grade. The liquid Nicotine has to be of a certain purity. Most if not all ingredients found in E Juice are ingredients that you consume on a daily basis anyways when eating. Why is it that so many people are banning the smoking of E Cigs inside, you are exhaling a water vapor that contains no trace amounts of anything not the chemically toxin drenched second hand smoke of a cigarette.
Over the last few months, I have saved a ton of money. A good start up E Cig is around $30. A new coil for the tank that vaporizes your E Juice is $3 and only needs to be replace once a month, give or take. A 10ml bottle of E Juice is around $5, give or take depending on where you are buying it from, and can last you anywhere from a few days to over a week. A pack of cigarettes is over $5 and will last you a day, two if your not a heavy smoker. You do the math. I believe that a lot of the laws, rules, and regulations beginning to be slammed down on E Cigs is because of big tobacco companies losing so much money from people making the transition from analog to digital. I am a firm believer that government is full of lobbyists and people with big businesses in their pocket and they now both have to find a way to make up the money they are losing.
I will not say it is safe and healthy, no, but I will say it is safer and healthier than smoking traditional cigarettes. Many states are now selling medical marijuana, which once was evil, the devil, and a gateway drug. How many people drink and drive and kill other people, drink too much and die from alcohol poisoning, or drink for too long and develop health problems because of that. Why should something that is obviously changing peoples lives for the better be categorized as foul, inappropriate, and wrong just because big business and Uncle Sam say so??
Huskey's Randomness 
Tobacco is a highly-subsidized industry, and the associated taxes are a rich source of revenue for the government. A cynic would ask how much revenue the government is getting from the e-cig business, and if regulation is designed with increasing that revenue. They have to fund health care and research somehow, and since there can be little information on the long-term effect of this new set of toxins on the human body, research seems necessary.
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Research is fine and the only real toxin is Nicotine which they already know about, unless you count everything in a vaporized form as a new toxin. They are already beginning to tax some aspects of this industry. I just hope they do not turn it into what cigarettes and tobacco have become as far as the stereotyping and the massive cost associated with it through their every growing taxation.
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Nicotine, by itself, is a beneficial compound, believe it or not. It’s the chemicals the industry bombards it with that make burning it release poisons. Propylene glycol, which is majority of the vape gel, is a toxin, no matter the formulation used. It’s the primary ingredient in anti-freeze, for instance.
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True but it is not itself anti-freeze where many people make that misconception. It is one ingredient similar to hundreds of others that we intake everyday by contact with substances or that we consume in the foods that we eat. Either way it goes smoking of any kind is harmful to the body but it is also a choice. And I choice the cheaper, safer, and healthier alternative. I would rather intake a few harmful substances to curve my addiction than a few thousand.
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Is the e-cig designed to be an alternative to smoking, or a way of quitting smoking entirely? That’s never been clear to me.
Different as it may be, anything that looks like smoking is going to be publicly judged as if it were smoking. If you want to vape, do it, and disregard the judgments of others.
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For many it is just an alternative but for many others it has been a means to quit. It has been quite the interesting back and forth.
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A sensitive area for me. Many family members have died of related cancers. Both my parents a year ago from lunge cancer pursuing their God given right to smoke. They hurt no one, but everyone in our family! That doesn’t even count my asthma that I hold them responsible for. I remember them with those little plastic cigarettes just to have something to hold on to. No there is my son. Who had quit, and started again thanks to flavored “cigarettes.” Plenty of harm to come as far as I can see.
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I can completely understand and am very sorry for your loses. I’m not denying that cigarettes are not only harmful you yourself but to those around you. But as far as every study I have seen it is safer alternative, and I use that word loosely as nothing is 100% safe in this case. Many studies have shown that second hand vapor does not carry all the harmful trace elements of second hand smoke and the traces it does have are at greatly lower levels than smoke. I also know of many people that have had asthma that have never been around smokers as well as people who have died of lung cancer that have never smoked a day in there life. I look at it like at least there is a better way than the old way. I know first hand that trying to stop smoking in the stress filled world we live in is easy by no means.
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Playing with the flavors sucked my son back in. That is all the proof I currently need. Why risk it. Just stop. I didn’t even mention the Emphysema. Talk about life wrecking!
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True indeed. But after smoking for 14 years its not an easy thing to quit altogether and I find this a far safer and healthier alternative. Maybe one day I will be able to quit after I gradually decrease the nicotine content of my juice. But until then I personally am happy with it and feel better
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Great post as always. Its good to touch on the subject of why e-cigarettes are being mistreated, with some people even saying that e-cigs are more dangerous than cigarettes (what???).
In my opinion though, cigarettes will become a thing of the past. We (us grown ups)are the last generation to buy in this cigarette scam that has been going on for decades. Everything is being transitioned into vape form now (cigarettes, marijuana, and even alcohol) and everybody in the future will be wondering why cigarettes were so popular in the past.
I’m totally against kids vaping, but kids will be kids. Younger people prefer vaping over cigarettes is just a prelude of what will happen in the future.
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