https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37923037
Some drugs that treat depression have a side effect of causing a lot of people to stop smoking. Maybe someday we will understand depression well enough to effectively and reliably treat it. At least until then, blanket statements about smoking aren't really reasonable.
I hate smoking. I have respiratory problems. I don't want people smoking around me.
But nicotine is a morally neutral chemical that, like any chemical, can have constructive uses.
That's interesting because nicotine contains MAOI(monoamine oxidase inhibitors) compounds that are used treat depression.
Posting on the internet is an exercise in frustration. HN used to be something of an oasis better than that. Not so much these days.
Cigarettes are tasty, but if I have a couple in a row it hurts my lungs, so I smoke very few of them.
I don't really see an issue with this personally. Moralizing health is weird.
And as some others have mentioned it may be that there is much more harm done to things like the environment by powers much greater than just those who smoke. So while there are some arguing for that point of view, I do understand those who argue against this one due to there "being much bigger fish to fry"
We unfortunately live in a society that prioritizes freedom to harm others over freedom from being harmed by others.
The persistent smell of the tars that cling to surfaces? Not so much.
That said, I put up with it because I respect the freedom of those wishing to enjoy it. I also have no choice, because the smell has become ubiquitous almost everywhere you go.
I do not respect people who do it around other unconsenting people in areas that are meant to be used by the general public i.e. not in your own home (though even then if you live in apartment/multi-family dwelling it can become a major issue for your neighbors) or a designated spot since there is plenty of research documenting second-hand effects being harmful.
People who smoke and walk end up going in the same direction and pace as other people, annoying them. It's easier to avoid a smoker who is staying put.
I am the same way, I will risk getting hit by cars sometimes just to avoid smoke I hate it so much. Even outdoors after a brief exposure it gets lodged in your hair, clothes, and eyes. With the legalization of marijuana in so many places, the problem has become even worse.
In contrast, we've been using vapes for about 20 years - and they've only been widespread for maybe 10.
From Wikipedia:
The practice is believed to have begun as early as 5000–3000 BC in Mesoamerica and South America. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 17th century by European colonists.
If that's a reference to a spate of "popcorn lung" cases of THC vapers, where it's suspected that the juice was laced with vitamin E, you might as well say that Tylenol is deadly because someone once spiked it with cyanide†. Don't put junk in the juice, regulate the ingredients. I'm saying this as a non-vaper and non-smoker, if it makes any difference.
†I know, I know, acetaminophen _is_ deadly is you overdose on it. That's not what I'm talking about here.
Note that many of the toxic chemicals referred to in this paper are normal components of nicotine vape juice, including but not limited to the flavorings, so the comparison to spiking Tylenol with cyanide is not particularly apt.
Vaping is not as safe as inhaling nothing but air. But we do know scientifically that it is substantially safer than smoking [1], despite the (big tobacco-funded) scare campaigns that claim otherwise.
In other words, nothing > vaping > smoking. If you don't use nicotine today, don't start. But if you want to get off cigarettes, vaping is a great choice and provably safer.
[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/vaping/tests-show-bootleg-mar...
[1] https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/vaping-substantially-less-harmful...
nothing > oral/mucousa nicotine > inhaled nicotine > oral/mucousa tobacco > inhaled tobacco
The CDC recommends not using THC vapes at all because of EVALI, but make no such recommendation about standard nicotine vapes (unless you've never smoked) [0].
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/s...
Vaping is absolutely not safe, but smoking cigarettes is likely much more damaging to your health.
Serious drowning incidents from drinking water are extremely rare and usually involve underlying medical conditions or very specific circumstances. Conversely, the health risks associated with vaping, including lung injury, addiction, and potential cardiovascular effects, are well-documented and have been observed in a significant portion of users, especially among young people and adolescents.
Vaping has been linked to a significant rise in nicotine addiction among teenagers and young adults, often drawn to flavored vape products. This trend threatens to reverse decades of progress in tobacco control and nicotine addiction. Water consumption does not carry a similar public health risk; it does not lead to widespread addiction or serve as a gateway to the consumption of more harmful substances.
While water is essential and generally safe, there are still regulations in place to ensure its safety (e.g., water quality standards). The call to regulate or ban vapes stems from a similar public health perspective — protect consumers, especially young ones, from products that have been shown to pose significant health risks.
Lastly, equating the act of vaping with drinking water is a false equivalence. The two activities serve different purposes and have vastly different implications for health. While water is necessary for life and generally promotes health, vaping introduces unnecessary risks, particularly to young and vulnerable populations.
Don’t worry, we’re tackling that in Australia! Due to a moral panic, vapes are all set to become harder to purchase than actual tobacco!
:facepalm:
Somewhere in that mess there was a path to making them a good way to really squash that last few percent of people that smoke, at least by moving them onto something a little better even if they never quit, but it’s been missed.
Even then, I’d understand and support making them as hard to get as tobacco, regulated very similarly so when Bob Smoker goes to the servo (gas station) or smoke mart, he can choose the less harmful and less harmful to others path with little effort. Not now though (well later this year), he has to pay for a doctor’s appointment and get an approved therapeutic device prescribed if he wants to vape. Or he can buy cigarettes at the corner.
And the schoolyard mom grapevine apparently has it that vaping is worse than smoking. The clusterfuck is complete, and a great health opportunity was missed.
(For the record I neither vape nor smoke, but I did use the former to quit the latter a little over 10 years ago)
(Edit - oh that thing in New Zealand? The new government scrapped it, I think for reasons of tax revenue. One of the most naked money > lives decisions I’ve seen in recent years)
But then I think about the law of unintended consequences (or from a more optimistic/fun angle, the perspective of "Optimal Gameplay"), like how the people I am inconveniencing while blindly maximizing my group's fine-grained personal enjoyment may seek revenge (consciously or otherwise) when the time arises where they happen to be the ones who hold power of any sort, such as the decision to comply with public health recommendations, as just one example among many, many thousands.
Sometimes my (or others, including those of The Experts) mind counters with attractive, rhetorical stories/memes to counter this approach, but I endeavour to apply critical consideration to those lest I mistake them for shared/primary reality.
I have no idea how well I perform at this, but my intuition is that it is better than if I did not try at all, which seems to be the default approach in our culture afaict.
If you're really worried about inhaling stuff when outside, worry about something meaningful like diesel cars and aerosolised dust.
https://apnews.com/article/california-trucks-epa-greenhouse-...
Because you know, to most non-smokers we would prefer smell of literal manure to what smokers of cigarettes produce.
And no amount of whataboutism about car fumes is gonna change that, thats a poor attempt to diverge conversation.
Puritans did something similar during their witch trials. They say they're burning someone for being a witch, but nearly all of their victims just so happened to have one of the following characteristics: spinsters with no children, widows who never remarried, single men into their 30s who never mastered a craft or became a clergyman, etc.
These were universally unacceptable, impure traits. Puritans were all about the collective rather than the individual, and they believed that the collective had the liberty to shape and bend the individual to its will, else the collective suffers. Non-conformists were made to conform, whether through shunning, shame, or violence, or else they were removed from the collective.
So no, you can't smoke in public, not because we care about your health or our health, but because it is decidedly impure, and a good Puritan must be pure, and if a member be not pure, he must be shamed and molded to be so, for if we're not all pure, our moral fabric comes apart.
Culture fundamentally changes very slowly over time, although the particulars may transform quite a lot, and this is a great example of that. A very interesting look at how Puritan culture is expressed in the modern day.
In reality its just sleep, anime, and weed.
It probably averages out to the equivalent of a beer every week or two.
The negative social externality may not be "second hand drinking", but it exists nonetheless.
Damn that’s fairly passive aggressive. I no longer smoke but you’re aware it’s incredibly addictive?
But I still think even these people should be aware of those around them when they are smoking and how they are affecting them as well. Smoking while in transit on a sidewalk is the example I'm speaking of. Every person you walk past or who walks in your same direction is being affected by you.
At this point I think I'm more addicted to the harmaline than the actual nicotine.
Smoking is not healthy and smokers should be considerate of others when engaging, but let's be real about it.
That sounds like rationalization of your own actions.
Sure, the environment in cities isn't pristine, but it is a lot better than several decades ago, and multiple bans on noxious substances were needed to clean the air up a bit. When my mother was a kid (1950s), smog was so severe that street lamps had to be lit during the day. Ah, the beauty of burning coal in the middle of a city without any filters.
Maybe, if you are a smoker, you are just so used to smoke that you don't realize how disgusting it is for non-smokers.
A friend of mine quit and, after a few months, as his sense of smell slowly came back from the dead, sincerely apologized to everyone else for smoking around us. He said that he, as a smoker, just didn't realize how pungent and revolting the smell of tobacco smoke is to others.
Once upon a time, people threw all sorts of garbage in the streets, including rat carcasses and what have you. It was the norm and people complaining about it were considered sissies.
In the 1900s, this was already beyond the pale, but "everyone" was fine with black soot from coal-fired furnaces covering everything, and with car engines smelling to high heavens.
Nowadays we don't tolerate either, so smokers are starting to be targeted.
An imperfect world is not an excuse for inaction
If you break your leg, is it okay for someone to punch you? I mean, it's way less damage than you've already sustained, right...
You're overcomplicating it, it's not about that, it's simply fuck them for flagrantly smoking right in my face. It's literally a physical assault, and entirely "optional" / their choice to not give a fuck about anyone else.
There's a huge range of possible things like this people could do to each other which is simply not okay out of basic consideration for others / not being a massive dick. What if I decided I like the smell of some other chemical that's bad for you / proven carcinogen etc, and open this up on a busy train platform. Do I then get to argue technicalities about other unhealthy things too? What if everyone did this?
Is this the point we've reached in society, where we want to argue our right to do such things to each other? Purely out of choice, not even some necessity...
Smokers should be considerate, that's a given, but you're arguing a false premise with hyperbole.
Honestly, since they banned indoor smoking and having people smoke 9m from doors, I don't mind it. What I do mind is people throwing butts all over the place, for some reason, even people who avoid littering don't think twice about throwing their dirty butts everywhere. Every time spring comes and snow starts melting it's so disgusting everywhere.
In the developing world, where very old cars are routinely used, the fumes are worse than smoke from individual smokers. In the EU, it is the other way round.
How come that nations that have more diesel engines don't suffer from cancer more?
In Ireland or Italy, something like 40 per cent of new cars are diesels. In Finland it is less than 20 per cent and in the Netherlands less than 10 per cent.
If diesel was a cancer machine, I would expect Italians to have a lot more cancer than the Dutch. Dose-response is a thing in toxicology.
Cigarette smokers, they never to stop amazing me how arrogant and self-centered many of them are when talking about actual topics.
Its btw a great way to find out who you are really dealing with - anybody can produce sweet talk on demand if they have a clear goal. Stub their toe with say some hard addiction of theirs and personalities surface very quickly
I hate the smell of it and how it feels breathing it, every time I walk behind somebody smoking while walking somewhere I literally run in front of them or cross the street. I honestly think public smoking should just be outright banned for being a health hazard against others.
If you still want to smoke, go to small out of the way designated places for it where you aren't bothering others.