Walking behind someone who was vaping recently is one of the least pleasant experiences I’ve had for a while.
Not to mention people could just as quickly harm themselves going to a 7/11 every day to eat carbs or driving a motorcycle or drinking alcohol or engaging in 'extreme' sports. But we people do those things anyway even though there's plenty of science to show it's dumb.
Especially if those 'evils' are a) entirely non-violent and voluntary only affecting the individual and b) are not going away ala drugs and the giant shift towards harm reduction.
People seem to be mixing up the growing pains of a extremely fast-growing new industry and the long-term realities once the legal, health, business, and administrative systems mature and adapt. The rush to immediately ban everything, well before we fully understand it and/or have experimented with less freedom/fun-destroying strategies, while also accurate measures of usage and risk, doesn't help anyone.
I will admit though, the 'think of the kids' people are making quite an effective stir.
Motorcycling feels odd in that list of otherwise self-inflicted harms.
Sure, one can run into brick wall in a solo accident. But, often it's someone else that kills the motorcyclist.
You're talking like if you were to run across a live gun range and get shot it's not really your fault, but instead it was the shooter that killed you.
That may be technically true but you knew the risks were basically a certainty and chose to do it anyway.
What's the harm?
I smoked for a long time, and went on a vape recently, but the ads everywhere (in Ireland/UK) for various vaping services and devices are pretty concerning.
For me, it's harm reduction, but if non-smokers start vaping, that's a net loss.
Not sure that's what will happen though.
Coffee addiction is preventable, for instance.
We have no idea if it's "deadly". You skipped a few steps there.
Worse than walking behind a smoker? Both my mother and a very good friend of mine smoke and I outright told them: you can vape around me, but don't smoke in my presence. I can't stand the smell.
I personally quit smoking cigarettes and moved from 24mg->3mg of nicotine over a few months (with zero withdrawl symptoms). 3mg is about as low as you can go. You can't do that with smoking cigarettes, "light" cigarettes is mostly just a flavour profile with only small differences in health and nicotine levels.
With cigarettes there were plenty of people who smoked a pack or two a day, those people on a 20yr span are at a higher risk. You see some people who smoke these massive vape clouds and they smoke constantly with high nicotine counts + high heat. Those are all voluntary options and the devices/juice is getting better with time.
Currently nicotine salts are taking over in vape shops, which are smaller devices, smaller amounts of liquid but higher nicotine-liquid ratios, and they have a much smaller exhale clouds which I find easier on the chest and way less anti-social when outside (the exhaled cloud is 10-50% of the size of a normal cigarette, and way smaller than traditional vapes).
Finally, there's second-hand smoke. There was a study showing vape smoke creates extremely small or non-existent second-hand transmission compared to cigarettes. Cigarette smoke stays in the air in a inhale-able state far longer.
> According to Drexel University toxicology expert Igor Burstyn, while the contents of e-cig vapor inhaled by users “justifies surveillance,” there is so little contamination in exhaled vapor that there is unlikely to be any risk.
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1...
^ This is a big deal for anyone who grew up with a parent who smoked around them like I did.