For You Smokers Who Know You Need to Quit

[oscarsear]

Seriously - If anyone feels the need to quit smoking they need to also feel the need to quit abusing their lungs. E-cigs do not do this. Every E-cig manufacturer has purposely sidestepped any federal oversight. None of their products are FDA inspected or are manufactured to any federal regulatory standards. E-cigs are not devised to help anyone quit a nicotine habit. They are devised, designed and marketed to reenforce all of those 'cigarette' habits. Their goal is clear. They want the nicotine addict business base. They want it perpetuated. They want your $$$$. They do not care about your health or well being.

Now if you really want to quit there are a number of regulated nicotine replacement products (patches, gum) that are specifically gauged to dose you down from the addiction so that you can end tobacco usage (lung abuse) entirely. Among those products is Nicotrol, a metered inhaled nicotine device. Now, think about this. Nicotrol is an inhaler made for the lungs. It is FDA regulated/approved and the quality control of it's manufacture is so vital that it requires a medical prescription. Or, you can trust inhaling E-cig nicotine vapor manufactured in Guangdong, China (Shenzhen Beautiful Technology Co, LTD). Just one bad batch of inhalant - and your life will become headline news until it ends. E-cigs also use another curious business mode - the end user on-line product endorsement campaign. Read the testimonials here and the profligate placement of brand names. You see these endorsements popping up everywhere. Sound like an occult Madison Avenue?

Bottom line: For You Smokers Who Know You Need to Quit........... and really WANT to quit. Quit. Stop playing Russian Roulette with your breathing. E-cigs simply offers you a new gun with an unknown set of bullets. Throw the gun(s) away completely. Quit using tobacco and do not put anything weird into your lungs. Let em heal up.

[hideaf]

Or, you can trust inhaling E-cig nicotine vapor manufactured in Guangdong, China

My juice is manufactured right here in America. In fact, most all the companies are based in America. You really should read up on things before you start spewing biased garbage. We're talking about peoples lives here. Whatever it takes to get off
analog cigarettes, is a step in the right direction. For some people,
it's not that easy to "just quit". There are 30 - 40 year smokers out
there, by the boat-load, that are finally giving up cigarettes.

-"But the agency (FDA), has never presented evidence that the trace amounts
actually cause any harm, and it has neglected to mention that similar
traces of these chemicals have been found in other F.D.A.-approved
products, including nicotine patches and gum." - NYtimes

- Dr. Rodu concludes that the F.D.A.’s results “are highly unlikely to
have any possible significance to users” because it detected chemicals
at “about one million times lower concentrations than are conceivably
related to human health.” His conclusion is shared by Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. - NYtimes

- "For a smoker, the health hazards of continuing to smoke greatly outweigh any potential risks of using nicotine replacement therapy". - Cancer Research UK

- A recent Greek study found that e-cigarettes are no threat to the heart. Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos of the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center in Athens told the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology
that "Electronic cigarettes are not a healthy habit but they are a
safer alternative to tobacco cigarettes. ... Considering the extreme
hazards associated with cigarette smoking, currently available data
suggest that electronic cigarettes are far less harmful and substituting
tobacco with electronic cigarettes may be beneficial to health."
Farsalinos and his team examined the heart function of 20 young smokers
before and after smoking one tobacco cigarette against that of 22
e-cigarette users before and after using the device for seven minutes.
While the tobacco smokers suffered significant heart dysfunction,
including raised blood pressure and heart rate, those using e-cigarettes
had only a slight elevation in blood pressure. The Greek clinical study
was the first in the world to look at the cardiac effects of
e-cigarettes. Another small study, also in Greece, reported earlier in
2012 the devices had little impact on lung function.^[41]

- A report from a UK Government advisory unit favoured the adoption of
"smokeless nicotine cigarettes" over the traditional "quit or die"
approach, believing this would save more lives.^[42]

- (This one I have witnessed personally) In an online survey from November 2009 among 303 smokers, it was found
that e-cigarette substitution for tobacco cigarettes resulted in reduced
perceived health problems when compared to smoking conventional
cigarettes (less cough, improved ability to exercise, improved sense of
taste and smell).^[48]

[ace168516]

Good luck, I hope your method works. I quit last year and I know how rough it is, but well worth it!

ACE

[oscarsear]

Hmmmmm..... The thread is about quitting smoking and advocates replacing them with E-cigs. That requires an informed decision. Is there a problem with people being better informed? There is no E-cig manufacturer, from anywhere, that will tell you that using their product is better for your health than not using their product - is there? There is no E-cig manufacturer that says quitting altogether is worse for your health than switching to E-cigs. Most E-cigs are manufactured overseas - correct? E-cigs are not yet subject to FDA regulations - correct? E-cigs are not nicotine replacement therapy and do not guarantee nicotine dosages. Lungs are not made for tobacco or E-cigs, or crack or meth or marijuana (ya think?). E-cigs are not in any way meant to improve lung function, are they? $$$$$$$$$$ drives the tobacco industry and the e-cig industry as well (no duh). There is absolutely no functional purpose to using either product - none. Many, many, many people have quit tobacco habits entirely (truth). I have every confidence that others can do it. Key to getting that done is to modify the - habits of use - behavior. Remove the cigarette hand feel, the draw, the inhale and the social constructs of smoking. E-cigs intentionally sustains and encourages those errant behaviors. Non-inhalant forms of nicotine replacement therapy do not. Any person who has smoked for decades really should seek to quit completely. Their lungs could well be at a crucial disease threshold. Quitting and allowing the lungs to heal is the single best solution. Right? There are many much better options to help people quit smoking than E-cigs. THAT is my message. And I can assure you that it is correct.

[hideaf]

E-cigs intentionally sustains and encourages those errant behaviors

Agree. As I previously stated, this is the problem I have with the way companies like Blu market their product. Though, these kind of ecigs are merely scratching the surface of what is possible in the realm of vaping.

There are many much better options to help people quit smoking than E-cigs

Disagree. Ecigs are just as effective if not more so, than patches/gum. If you can quit cold turkey, great. If not, than I believe ecigs offer the best (IMO) medium to successfully stop smoking, and/or to bring a realization that you don't need cigarettes. Like I said, it is a great first step. Fact - Nicotine is not the only addictive substance in tobacco smoking. Once you switch to vaping, if desired, it is much easier to quit.

Most E-cigs are manufactured overseas - correct?

Incorrect. ProVape is proud to be the industry’s leading designer, manufacturer,
and direct retailer of the highest quality, US-made electronic
cigarettes. - http://www.provape.com

And there are many more like ProVape here in America. I believe all the "cigarette looking" ecigs are made in China. Although Blu ecigs are manufactured in China, their juice is still manufactured here in America. Though, companies like ProVape are a dime a dozen here in America.

Seriously, go google ECF and click on the first result. It will be e-cigarette-forum.com. It is a great site with all the unbiased information you could ever want to know about ecigs. They keep up with all the health related issues, as well as all the legislation. Please, take an hour or two and go read up on this before trying to convince people on your own personal beliefs.

[jacksonbart]

Best of luck in living along and heathly life. Cheers. Lets not debate about that.. Ehh?

[hideaf]

Best of luck in living along and heathly life. Cheers. Lets not debate about that.. Ehh?

Agreed. How are you liking the 510 Jeff?

[oscarsear]

hideaf....... Lungs do not have pain receptors. Did you know that? To be clear, the larger airways feel pain and the pleural lining on the inside of the chest wall feels pain. But beyond that things that go wrong in the lungs do not cause pain - until they become so profound that pain or other sensations are felt in adjacent areas. People do not feel lungs erode away as emphysema progresses. This is why a nasty cough is too often the initial presentation of a tumor. The tumor has become so large that it pushes or pulls on the major airways. Tugging or shoving a larger airway causes that insatiable tickle often felt with a dry hacking cough. Another presentation is the abrupt presence of blood in the sputum. Something down deep in the lungs is bleeding. It does not hurt. It just oozes blood that works its way into the sputum. When in a smokers history does any related disease start? What day and what event pushed that critical domino over? E-cigs were not invented to help people quit hurting their lungs. There is no proof that their long term usage is safe. E-cigs are not a quit therapy but an alternative nicotine addiction product and one that is not shown to be safe. There are proven effective products available to help people quit that are safe and are part of complete cessation programs. No medical professional would recommend shifting to e-cigs over quitting entirely. No medical professional would recommend using e-cigs as a quitting tool. Anyone who has a significant history of smoking has years of accumulated lung damage. Anyone who does not smoke has no good reason to start. There is no ethical place for an unproven alternative nicotine delivery product. Quitting a nicotine addiction is hard. Changing to a new one is stupid. Recommending that people should change to a new one not shown to be safe is pretty despicable. Hawking such an addictive product to young people is heartless. For my friends here on the forums if you are a tobacco user and want to quit - quitting is the right answer. Do not add a new layer of unknown harm on top of what is already there.

[Jeff Matthews]

Best of luck in living along and heathly life. Cheers. Lets not debate about that.. Ehh?

Agreed. How are you liking the 510 Jeff?

Pretty much just fine. Will be looking into a larger tank as I only have the little .8 ml ones.

Oscar is earnest, but he doesn't quite get it. I think his position comes from being on a non-smoker's pedestal. As I tried to ask him before: How much mercury is acceptable in fish? How much steroids are good in cows and chickens? How much pesticides are good in fruits and vegetables? This same debate which he takes with ecigs is pervasive throughout everything non-smokers do, but holy non-smokers aren't ranting about it. (Nor am I). Pesticides, steroids and mercury are acceptable risks. Of course, the jury is out on that, as well. It's just that Oscar, being on the pedestal and looking down on lowly smokers, gets to act like the Pope when it comes to birth control. Easy for the Pope, eh? He isn't out having fun with the girls.

So, clearly, there is a bias. Oscar's right in terms of quitting is better to switching. Everyone can grant him that much. He just thinks that everyone would do as he commands, and he sees no in-betweens. Reality is that fewer are inclined to quit without a substitute, and nic patches and gums are poor substitutes.

[oscarsear]

Jeff - when some serious clinical data proves these glowing contentions about e-cigs then I will be more in agreement with the products use strictly as a bridge therapy to stopping the habit entirely. That data does not exist and none of the manufacturers are urgently pursuing the scientific validation of these claims. Trying to sidestep the issue by introducing confounding issues is also invalid. 2 or 3 wrongs does not make anything right that is inherently wrong. This E-cig craze is being marketed much like tobacco in the 50's and 60's. You got fooled once. And please do not confuse 'bias' with facts. My prudent advice is the best logic based upon the factual information understood today. You do have your personal choices. As a lifelong nicotine addict you think from an addicts perspective. As a trained medical professional with decades of experience - that is how I think. As for hideaf his recent interest in the Klipsch Forums and this thread in particular is certainly interesting. Perhaps it is more commercially fortuitous than any audio intrigue that brings him here. Jeff..... Have you had your lungs evaluated? With what you have already offered it appears that you meet the criteria for the newly accepted lung cancer screening protocols. Yeah, they have an imaging tool able to detect the earliest signs of lung cancer. Like many cancers it is quite curable if found early.

[Jeff Matthews]

Oscar, I appreciate the "scientifically" correct view you have. I just disagree that your view is "statistically" correct from a human behavior perspective. Studies have been performed on the ingredients, and it has been shown - not that they are undeniably safe - but that they are undeniable a lot safer than those contained in cigarettes.

So, if the sole strategy was to quit smoking, you might have, to loosely show the idea: 30 million cigarette smokers.

If ecigs are in the picture and there continues to be a lack of evidence of danger: 10 million cigarette smokers, 10 million ecig users and 10 million who quit altogether after transitioning to ecigs.

From a human behavior model, rather than that of doctors and chemists, it makes a lot more sense.

[Jeff Matthews]

Also, e-cigs are now in that stage where they are a serious economic threat to big-Pharma and big-Tobacco. So, as the politics progresses in this arena, much care should be taken to watch for conflicts of interest.

Big tobacco is heavily vested in trying to squash e-cigs, though one smaller tobacco comapny bought Blu-cigs. They have huge financial investments and have set up massive and complex bureaucratic and regulatory systems to meet their needs. They do NOT want some unregulated "new kid on the block" coming in and eating up their market share.

How do we know this? Take a look at recent statements by the FDA. Not so much "against" e-cigs, but inconsistent with prior FDA claims. Now, FDA is claiming that ingredients added in tobacco cigarettes can make a substantial difference in safety. Yet, up until this point, the FDA's position was that removing such ingredients (or failing to add them) did not make a safer cigarette. Does this new stance by the FDA have market-share connotations? Yet bet it does! The bowling pins are being set up against ecigs, so that big-Tobacco and big-Pharma can get the FDA to roll a strike and knock out ecigs.

You are right. Tobacco does not give a shite. All they want is their market.

[dtel]

Your right quitting is better, but to get to that point vapor is better than real smoke and possibly easier to cut back. If nothing else it does eliminate many other chemicals while doing so.

Trying to quit is better than doing nothing and e-cigs are a step in that direction. Quiting is easy if you have never tried it, it's also part habit and not just the chemical addiction.

But your right everyone should just quit, it's common sense, but people are stubborn, texting/talking and driving, drunk driving, terrible diet, no exercise, the list is very long of common sense things people are ignoring.

The concern is appreciated, I don't want to sound like I don't believe you, I already know it's bad, your right I need to quit, of course everyone does in the long run. [W]

[oscarsear]

Your right quitting is better, but to get to that point vapor is better than real smoke and possibly easier to cut back. If nothing else it does eliminate many other chemicals while doing so.

Trying to quit is better than doing nothing and e-cigs are a step in that direction. Quiting is easy if you have never tried it, it's also part habit and not just the chemical addiction.

But your right everyone should just quit, it's common sense, but people are stubborn, texting/talking and driving, drunk driving, terrible diet, no exercise, the list is very long of common sense things people are ignoring.

The concern is appreciated, I don't want to sound like I don't believe you, I already know it's bad, your right I need to quit, of course everyone does in the long run.

How do you know vapor is better for you than real smoke? It is different. It sounds like it should be better. But there is no proof. The main transport vehicle is propylene glycol. That is also used in medicinal inhalers. But, medicinal inhalers are not used like E-cigs. Remember the diet drug Fen-Fen? It had all the FDA approvals and it worked to help people lose weight. Then in less than 5 years Fen-Fen was shown to have really bad side effects. This is stuff you are inhaling into your lungs. Every dose has got to be pristine. Every time the device is used it has got to deliver sterile material or you will get sick. You're coating the insides of your lungs with this stuff and with E-cigs - you are using a lot of it. Who knows where E-cigs will end up? They could be innocuous or they could be far worse than anything tobacco currently delivers. That is the problem. The E-cig industry is not trying to find the answer........... and they do not want anyone looking. The age old adage applies: If it sounds too good to be true............ There are better ways to try and quit. Try those. Try them all. Try anything before you consider E-cigs.

[Jeff Matthews]

How do you know vapor is better for you than real smoke? It is different. It sounds like it should be better. But there is no proof.

It all depends on what level of "proof" you demand.

Read this recent abstract from the Journal on Inhalation Toxiclogy.

Let's face it. There is no such thing as "proof" to the degree of certainty. So, what we do is study and gather data.

There are many similar studies available. Just google away....

Here's what you won't find: You will not find anything that says, "We followed controlled studies of e-smokers for 20 years, and here is what we see." Even then, critics who demand "certainty" would be disappointed. E.g.: "How do we know his lung damage wasn't from his wife's overuse of Chanel No. 5? She used it everyday, and they worked together in the same office."

What level of "proof" do you need? It seems to me your preferred level is to have no question at all - to remove the need for any inquiry. I would agree with that. But again, this is a matter which involves more about predictable patterns of human "behavior" than it does "science."

[dtel]

I don't know, but i would guess vaporizing ditch water would be better than trusting cig companies.

[Jeff Matthews]

Remember the diet drug Fen-Fen? It had all the FDA approvals and it worked to help people lose weight. Then in less than 5 years Fen-Fen was shown to have really bad side effects.

Correct. And if you are among the medical professionals who deliver pharmaceuticals to patients, you are daiy exposing people to unknowns. Clearly, unknowns are acceptable risks in some cases. If the choice was between inhaling something and inhaling nothing, you win. But let's not give you the benefit of such a perfect and theoretical option. Let's throw you a real-life curve-ball: Patient says, "I am a committed smoker, but will switch to e-cigs. Otherwise, I will continue to smoke cigarettes." There's some real life for you. Do you say:

1. Might as well stay with cigarettes,

2. Go with the e-cigs, but bear in mind not much study has been done, and they could prove to be dangerous.

Guy presents you with 2 - and only 2 - options. You don't get the 3rd. No cop-outs. A decision must be made.

This is the way millions of smokers think and act. They smoke until they die - irregardless of all the doses of logic and persuasion you want to prescribe. Let's deal in the real world. Option A? Or Option B? There is no Option C.

[Jeff Matthews]

Dtel, and any others:

Should you go the route of trying vaping, I am finding that even though most seem to say use 18 mg nicotine strength when starting, 18 mg is strong. I just got some 14 mg. I think next time, I am going down to 8 mg or in that range. I am not worried, as Oscar is, about inconsistent batching of nicotine, because, as we smokers know, it's pretty obvious when you feel you've had too much. It's not like you are going to get suddenly caught off-guard and go into cardiac arrest.

[dtel]

We are going to try it, they just returned a question we had asked, I think we will try a few different strength's and flavors since we smoke menthol until we get it figured out. How are the batteries working out because I did see the bigger batteries for only a few dollars more which they say last longer before charging ?

[Jeff Matthews]

Trust me. You will get more than adequate nicotine at 18 mg. More than adequate. I wouldn't bother with 24 at all.

I have the 600 mah batteries. Kit comes with 2. 1 battery will last most of the day, while the other charges. I did run out of battery charge the other day, but that was because I started using the battery the previous evening. IMO, get at least the 600 mah like mine. Don't go any lower. You can always step-up a month later or so if you feel you want to. Upgrades are cheap enough.

I got my 2nd round of juices in. They were 14 mg strength of Pineapple, Blueberry, Apple and Vanilla. While the PG RY4 was a very tasty-sweet tobacco, the other 4 flavors I got were hum-drum. The fix for those was for me to mix some pineapple and vanilla in to get something very nice and comparable to the RY4.

So, yes.... you can mix juices.

What model and flavors are you going to get?