How so?

A massive, decades-long decline in the habit? Stemming from ad restrictions, warning labels, media campaigns, taxation, legal action by states/Feds, etc.

This must be why there’s not 50 vape shops in my town with big neon signs.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see vaping turn into a prescription-only smoking cessation aid, but it's not smoking. I'm 100% happy with even a one-for-one replacement of smoking for vaping, even in kids, given the dramatically lower risk of resulting health problems.

Have you not seen people vaping at a young age now?

Vaping isn't the same thing as smoking.

They are consuming nicotine, and tobacco companies are invested in / are the companies producing products in that space. It seems functionally to be the same.

Only if you ignore... a lot. Cancer rates, smoking sections in restaurants, the smell, the yellow grime and used butts sprinkled everywhere, the impact on asthmatics... Smoking a cigarette gets you a lot more than just the nicotine.

A smoker moving to vaping is an enormous benefit to health and society.

That sounds like you are being disingenuous. Smoking sections haven't been a thing in the US for a long time (I went to the last one I could find around 2009). Waste from single use vapes is also a huge problem. Similarly there are health effects specific to vaping, time will tell if cancer is among them.

> Smoking sections haven't been a thing in the US for a long time...

Yes, the regulations that made this happen are good. That's my point.

> Waste from single use vapes is also a huge problem.

Nothing like the cigarette butts that used to be everywhere.

> Similarly there are health effects specific to vaping, time will tell if cancer is among them.

We've plenty of data to safely conclude vaping is safer than smoking tobacco. That doesn't make it safe, but it's absolutely safer.

You aren't exactly disproving my point. It seems like vaping is close enough to smoking to say that it is functionally close enough to be equated.

But you have raised my curiosity about your relationship with vaping. Do you work in the industry?

> It seems like vaping is close enough to smoking to say that it is functionally close enough to be equated.

Bullshit. Both are nicotine delivery methods. One is far better for both individual and societal reasons. Water and whiskey are both wet, but that doesn't make them the same.

> But you have raised my curiosity about your relationship with vaping. Do you work in the industry?

No, nor do I vape/smoke. I'm just old enough to remember how shitty it was to have smokers everywhere, in a way that isn't the case for vapers... and I've seen the multi-decade decline in lung cancer incidence stats.

Nicotine by itself is harmless besides the addictiveness. A nicotine addiction is not going to drastically affect your mental state or cause socially disruptive behavior like domestic violence or armed robbery so it’s really nothing to be concerned about.

No, they are not remotely the same. Nicotine isn’t really that harmful, but combustion byproducts very much are. Also the effects on bystanders are orders of magnitude better.

Most of the harm from smoking comes from the smoke, not the nicotine or associated addiction.

I agree it is different, but the jury is out on whether it is better. Banning "social media" is likely to push users to a "lite" version of it. I'm not convinced that will be better.

I would call IRC "social media lite", and it is indeed better.

Vaping is way cooler than smoking.

Vaping (non flavored) vapes has basically a negligible impact on your health.

It's more influence than actual regulation enforcement. Smokers these days are seen as social pariahs in some circles.

You also had to go in store to buy cigarettes, so the application of regulation would work a little differently in the case of social media.

Growing up in the 80s, no one I knew avoided cigarettes because of regulations. Cigarettes were easy to get your hands on as a kid, even though it was illegal to sell to children. We avoided cigarettes because we had a general understanding of the health risks, because we knew our parents would beat our asses if they caught us smoking, and because smoking makes your clothes smell like shit.

Yet that wasn't enough to stop your generation from smoking, they added even more regulations and then the generation after yours stopped.