Interesting perspective:
http://blog.thedripclub.com/5-meaningless-arguments-in-the-great-vaper-wars
http://blog.thedripclub.com/5-meaningless-arguments-in-the-great-vaper-wars
6 Terrible Arguments For and Against Vaping
- Thread starter FireFly
- Start date
6 Terrible Arguments For and Against Vaping
April 6, 2015
Knowledge, Featured
As the war against vapers rages on, people on both sides of the debate often end up using terrible arguments to make their case for or aginst vaping. Below are a few I see frequently that are causing some serious palm-shaped indentations on my forehead. I hope the people who use these arguments never end up in a situation where they have to talk a computer into self-destructing, because it's just not going to happen with this sort of logic.
1. "Cigarette smoke contains 4000 or 5000 or 7000 chemicals, and e-cigarette vapor only contains 4, or 100, or 200 or whatever"
These numbers are usually just pulled out of thin air, and they don't mean anything. A fruit salad has thousands of chemicals in it, while pure arsenic trioxide has only one. If the number of distinct chemicals in a substance was directly correlated with its toxicity, humans themselves would be extraordinarily toxic. So let's stop trumpeting this fact around like it means something on its own.
2. "E-cigarettes produce an aerosol, not a vapor"
This is one that the Califonia Department of Public Health has been tossing out with the hopes that people will think it means something, even though it doesn't have any bearing on the conversation. They're calling e-cigarette vapor an "aerosol" of "particulates" to make it sound scary because those are scary-sounding words. There are many dangerous aerosols and particulates that we shouldn't breathe because they actually are hazardous to our health, and when we're discussing these dangerous aerosols is usually the only time we hear the term "aerosol" used at all.
But there are also many non-dangerous aerosols and particulates. They don't bother to mention that the air we breathe always contains solid particles or droplets and is therefore an aerosol when they're trying to make vaping sound scary. And they even go so far as to say "your lungs and small particles are not friends", so I guess we should all just stop breathing. To my understanding, whether e-liquid is a vapor or an aerosol when it's inhaled is a moot point. If it were vapor it would cool and condense either way, and we'd have the exact same thing in our lungs, baring the question of whether heating the liquid to a vapor would alter the composition by driving unwanted reactions, of course, but that's irrelevant. When they start talking about particles, keep in mind that the particles emitted by an e-cigarette are liquid particles, not solid particles.
3. "E-cigarette vapor contains hazardous chemicals"
Without pointing to the concentration of specific chemicals, this is another moot point. We are always breathing toxic chemicals and substances. This is completely unavoidable, and it causes a mathematically insignificant amount of harm provided the substances in question are at low enough concentrations.
4. Any non-specific discussion about "chemicals" as if there was something inherently bad about them
Chemicals are [almost] everything. We are made of them. We need tons of them to stay alive. Stop acting like "chemical" is a dirty word already. I mean, here, have a look at the ingredients in an all-natural strawberry. It's chemicals all the way down, my friends, and that's a good thing.
5. "You're still putting crap into your lungs"
Calling something you can't identify due to your own ignorance "crap" doesn't change what it is, or how hazardous it is to one's health. You're pulling crap into your lungs every time you inhale unless you're in the vacuum of space, and then, well, you probably have more pressing matters to worry about.
6. "We don't know the long-term effects yet"
We don't know the long-term effects of the 2015 Chevy Corvette Z06 or the iPhone 6 Plus either. Noting this doesn't help us answer a question that's actually important: do we have any good reason to believe these things will be harmful?
And let's get something else straight: you are a lab rat at all times, throughout your entire life. Do we know this year's crop of tomatoes or acorn squash haven't had unknown gene mutations that cause them to produce some previously unknown compound that will slowly kill everyone who takes a bite of them or goes near somebody who has? No, we don't know. Do we have good reasons to believe this is an unlikely event? Yes, we do.
We are not working in the dark in some magical vacuum of knowledge here with e-cigarettes. We know a whole hell of a lot about the human respiratory system, carcinogens, the chemistry of propylene glycol, glycerine, and nicotine, and the effects of inhaling them (see note 1). The effort and money that some organizations are putting into telling us, "hey, we don't know anything," (see note 2) is not only a heinous attempt to provoke fear without any good reason for it, but the message itself is a lie. We know a lot. If they had a good reason to believe vaping was significantly hazardous, they would just tell us. But of course we don't yet know for sure that they aren't working for the secret underground Nazi mole-people, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see (see note 3).
April 6, 2015
Knowledge, Featured
As the war against vapers rages on, people on both sides of the debate often end up using terrible arguments to make their case for or aginst vaping. Below are a few I see frequently that are causing some serious palm-shaped indentations on my forehead. I hope the people who use these arguments never end up in a situation where they have to talk a computer into self-destructing, because it's just not going to happen with this sort of logic.
1. "Cigarette smoke contains 4000 or 5000 or 7000 chemicals, and e-cigarette vapor only contains 4, or 100, or 200 or whatever"
These numbers are usually just pulled out of thin air, and they don't mean anything. A fruit salad has thousands of chemicals in it, while pure arsenic trioxide has only one. If the number of distinct chemicals in a substance was directly correlated with its toxicity, humans themselves would be extraordinarily toxic. So let's stop trumpeting this fact around like it means something on its own.
2. "E-cigarettes produce an aerosol, not a vapor"
This is one that the Califonia Department of Public Health has been tossing out with the hopes that people will think it means something, even though it doesn't have any bearing on the conversation. They're calling e-cigarette vapor an "aerosol" of "particulates" to make it sound scary because those are scary-sounding words. There are many dangerous aerosols and particulates that we shouldn't breathe because they actually are hazardous to our health, and when we're discussing these dangerous aerosols is usually the only time we hear the term "aerosol" used at all.
But there are also many non-dangerous aerosols and particulates. They don't bother to mention that the air we breathe always contains solid particles or droplets and is therefore an aerosol when they're trying to make vaping sound scary. And they even go so far as to say "your lungs and small particles are not friends", so I guess we should all just stop breathing. To my understanding, whether e-liquid is a vapor or an aerosol when it's inhaled is a moot point. If it were vapor it would cool and condense either way, and we'd have the exact same thing in our lungs, baring the question of whether heating the liquid to a vapor would alter the composition by driving unwanted reactions, of course, but that's irrelevant. When they start talking about particles, keep in mind that the particles emitted by an e-cigarette are liquid particles, not solid particles.
3. "E-cigarette vapor contains hazardous chemicals"
Without pointing to the concentration of specific chemicals, this is another moot point. We are always breathing toxic chemicals and substances. This is completely unavoidable, and it causes a mathematically insignificant amount of harm provided the substances in question are at low enough concentrations.
4. Any non-specific discussion about "chemicals" as if there was something inherently bad about them
Chemicals are [almost] everything. We are made of them. We need tons of them to stay alive. Stop acting like "chemical" is a dirty word already. I mean, here, have a look at the ingredients in an all-natural strawberry. It's chemicals all the way down, my friends, and that's a good thing.
5. "You're still putting crap into your lungs"
Calling something you can't identify due to your own ignorance "crap" doesn't change what it is, or how hazardous it is to one's health. You're pulling crap into your lungs every time you inhale unless you're in the vacuum of space, and then, well, you probably have more pressing matters to worry about.
6. "We don't know the long-term effects yet"
We don't know the long-term effects of the 2015 Chevy Corvette Z06 or the iPhone 6 Plus either. Noting this doesn't help us answer a question that's actually important: do we have any good reason to believe these things will be harmful?
And let's get something else straight: you are a lab rat at all times, throughout your entire life. Do we know this year's crop of tomatoes or acorn squash haven't had unknown gene mutations that cause them to produce some previously unknown compound that will slowly kill everyone who takes a bite of them or goes near somebody who has? No, we don't know. Do we have good reasons to believe this is an unlikely event? Yes, we do.
We are not working in the dark in some magical vacuum of knowledge here with e-cigarettes. We know a whole hell of a lot about the human respiratory system, carcinogens, the chemistry of propylene glycol, glycerine, and nicotine, and the effects of inhaling them (see note 1). The effort and money that some organizations are putting into telling us, "hey, we don't know anything," (see note 2) is not only a heinous attempt to provoke fear without any good reason for it, but the message itself is a lie. We know a lot. If they had a good reason to believe vaping was significantly hazardous, they would just tell us. But of course we don't yet know for sure that they aren't working for the secret underground Nazi mole-people, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see (see note 3).
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