I am curious to hear from people who started vaping without having smoked beforehand.

I’m curious about these things - feel free to respond to as many or as few of them as you wish. Primarily I am thinking about nicotine, but feel free to reply if you vape something different.

  1. What age were you when you started vaping? Feel free to reply with a vague range (e.g. 12-15) or description (e.g. young teen / adult)

  2. Why did you start?

  3. Do you regret having ever started? If so, why do you regret it?

  4. Have you noticed any long-term negative health effects from vaping?

  5. Do you feel that the socialogical and/or legal issues around vaping are more or less of a concern than health effects? (e.g. having to go outside to vape, vaping being banned/restricted in certain places/situations/countries, the risks of vaping being more legally controlled in future, etc.)

  6. Do you feel that the financial cost of vaping is more or less of a concern than the health effects?

No need to follow the numbered format or anything, this isn’t a survey, I’m just looking for answers to these questions for my own personal curiosity! Also, feel free to add any more information that you wish!

Please only share from your personal experience - no links to news stories or studies, please.

Also, not interested in responses from ex-smokers, sorry - those can be found in huge volume already.

  • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    10 months ago

    If you want my opinion: Don’t get addicted to nicotine.

    I’ve quit vaping. And it’s supposedly easy for some people… But for me, overcoming the nicotine addiction has been hard and just shit and taken way longer than I thought. So, I don’t know why you’re asking all these questions… Just be a bit cautious with nicotine and things like that.

      • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
        0·
        10 months ago

        German law. Crazy high taxes were introduced starting earlier this year.

        Why do you want to know all the things in your post? They’re somewhat specific for ‘just curious’. (If I might ask…)

        • Blake [he/him]@feddit.ukOP
          0·
          10 months ago

          So it’s a monetary thing, mainly? If it was cheap would you still want to quit?

          I’m very curious on the topic - having had many friends and relatives who have started vaping, I wanted to get an understanding of the topic, both in terms of health data, but also the perspectives of people who vape.

          It’s incredibly difficult to get good, clear information about this - lots of responses are from smokers talking about how much better vaping is than smoking - but we know that kids/teens have been picking up vaping at a high rate without ever having smoked and have been doing so now for a number of years, so those responses aren’t helpful.

          On the other hand, when it comes to finding the negatives of vaping, it’s very difficult - so much has been written about one or two overblown stories (e.g. vitamin E acetate in THC vapes, or issues involving black-market or gray-market vapes/nicotine solutions) which absolutely drowns out the ability to find information about the negative health effects of a typical vape user buying name-brand products from reputable suppliers.

          Long story short, I’m just trying to gather opinions and personal experience with vaping products. I have no real opinion either way, I’m just looking for the truth.

          If you do want to help people avoid nicotine, all of the research has shown that the best anti-smoking campaigns used storytelling and strong emotional messaging - so I would encourage you to share your story if you’ve had a negative experience with vaping.

          Edit: I just saw your edit saying my questions were a bit specific, it’s possibly my autism or something that makes me inclined to the way I asked, if that helps. It’s genuinely just curiosity, I’m just weird, haha

          • themachine@lemm.ee
            0·
            10 months ago

            I like your curiosity. Smoker turned vaper here. Being addicted to anything rules a part of your mind and life. I crave it constantly. It seriously occupies so much of my time and focus and I don’t really get anything out of it outside of feeding the addiction.

            I guess you can say it’s fun but it doesn’t stay fun if you get hooked it’s like a tractor beam.

            I’m only talking about my experience with the drug, I realize it’s not this way for others. It’s a powerful drug nonetheless.