I’m not changing my name to vape-j, stop asking.
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I’m known in certain circles as that cranky old guy who chain smokes all the time, and this was always pretty damn accurate, so much so I couldn’t dispute it. That is until December of 2018, when I had my last cigarette. Not everyone knows I quit smoking, I didn’t virtue signal about it on Twitter 3 times a day like I’m suppose to. I’ve learned from this mistake, and have vowed to work on my useless Twitter platitudes more in the future. This post isn’t about idiots on social media though, it’s about my smoke filled past, my vapor filled future, and an attempt to get through the ever increasing amounts of bull shit on the topic. I know personal blog posts aren’t a normal thing around here, and I don’t see that changing in the future. However I feel it is important to do what I can to help, especially right now when everything is going to hell. If you smoke read this, if you have ever read a headline about how vaping kills people read this, if you love your mother read this.
My Smoking & Vaping Story
Like so many I started smoking when I was young…very young. I was 10 when I tried an Ultra Light. I don’t remember much about the experience, but that was the first, and that led to decades of smoking. All through middle school I was smoking on and off, as much as is possible when so young. Through the majority of high school I started what could be called “regularly smoking”, then once I enrolled in college, I was going hard and heavy. At this point I was easily a two pack a day smoker on a slow day, mainly because for the first time I was old enough to purchase cigarettes. This kept going for years, all through college while I was there, after college, and up until December of 2018.
A lot of people who smoke get addicted to the nicotine, I was too, but at the same time it was more. I wanted to smoke, I didn’t need a fix, I wanted it. The action of smoking is what I craved, the release, and the positive effects from the nicotine. It was always based on the enjoyment, and almost never on the need to get my next hit. I know the chemical addiction is what drives the majority of people to keep smoking even after they want to stop, but this wasn’t the case for me. My issue was always that I liked smoking too much, way too much to stop.
I never made the decision to quit, it sort of just happened on accident. In November of 2018 I ran across a Dash Vapes quit smoking promotion and decided to pick up some liquids, and an Aspire Breeze 2. My thought process was to just see if it was something I liked, if vaping would have the same effects I craved from smoking. After over a decade smoking was starting to take it’s tole on me. Late at night and early in the mornings my lungs were getting tight, not badly, but to the point of being quite noticeable. I didn’t want to quit, I just figured why not give it a try and see if it is something I enjoyed.
The liquids and the vape came, I tried them, and after just a couple days I was smoking a maximum of five cigarettes a day. I wasn’t trying to smoke less, I just personally enjoyed vaping more. After a month I started to feel better. Mint chocolate chip milkshake and peanut butter banana are so much more enjoyable than tobacco. I didn’t know this before hand, but after vaping a cigarette just wasn’t enjoyable in the same way. The only enjoyment I got out of a cigarette was the hard fast hit of nicotine, but that wasn’t ever the main reason I smoked in the first place. With vaping I was getting a max of 70mg of nicotine in a day, and that was when using a higher nicotine liquid. With smoking two packs a day I was getting between 320 and 640mg of nicotine a day. I could have had the same nicotine from vaping, but I didn’t need it.
This was the start of it all, and after a month I just stopped smoking. December 14 2018 was my last cigarette, and I haven’t even wanted another one since then. I stopped using the little breeze 2 after a little bit,now I use a bigger mod that allows me to get all of the flavors. I’ve moved down from 18mg nicotine to 1.5mg nicotine. To put that in perspective, your body absorbs 4 to 8mg of nicotine per one cigarette. With vaping your body absorbs 50% of the nicotine in the liquid. So with 1.5mg my body only absorbs 0.75mg. That puts me at about 22mg of nicotine a day, and nicotine is not bad for you in safe amounts. I feel a million times better in ways I never knew I was effected. I sleep better, I have so much more energy, my mood is better, and I have a new vaping hobby.
The Vaping Myth
It isn’t all sunshine and roses though. Right after starting and quitting smoking the shit has really started to hit the fan when it comes to vaping. There are a lot of fucking morons out there who want to shut down vaping and ban it. Every single ounce of information is either twisted, wrong, or downright lies. Most people have no clue, they just saw the news say people died from vaping so they assume it is bad. Then the government says kids like flavors, so all flavored vape products must be made to target kids. It is a lot of misinformation and disgusting lies causing this, and it has the danger of putting over 10,000,000 adults back to smoking, and almost certainly dying early.
The truth of it is pretty short and sweet.
Vaping is not smoking, it does not involve any form of combustion. Combustible tobacco is harmful because of the act of burning something and in hailing the smoke.
Vaping is not harmless, however it is 95% less harmful than smoking according to the Royal College of physicians.
In Canada and Europe the government and doctors promote vaping for smoking cessation, and encourage smokers to try switching, but it is being banned in the States.
Normal nicotine vaping has never killed people or made them sick in the decade since it has been around.
Vaping black market THC vapes cut with vitamin E acetate is very dangerous, and kills people according to the CDC. In fact 100% of vaping related deaths were from black market THC products.
Over 400,000 people die each year from Smoking, exactly 0 people die from nicotine vaping.
Vape flavors are not made for kids, they are made for adults, and they aren’t the leading reason minors vape according to a 2019 CDC survey.
Vaping is twice as likely as gums, patches, or sprays to help people quit smoking according to a 2019 UK study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Nicotine itself is very similar to caffeine. It is being studied as a treatment for many things including Alzheimers and delaying Parkinsons, along with it’s positive effects as a stimulant and for boosting short term memory.
Every study to date which has claimed to link vaping to X has used questionable methods. This normally involves supernaturally large amounts of nicotine, flavorings, or heat. This would be the same as saying coffee causes cancer because we forced mice to drink 65 cups of coffee a day and they got cancer and had kidney failure.
Flavored liquor is publically available and age restricted, flavored beer is available and restricted, flavored tobacco the same, politicians are trying to ban flavored vape products.
Juul is a company that produces 1 vape product, the majority of those who vape hate Juul because of the damage they have done for adults who vape.
Each state receives hundreds of millions each year from the tobacco settlement which is based on projected cigarette sales.
Cigarette sales and usage has dropped by a considerable amount, and is dropping faster as vaping has grown in popularity. On the flip side, states currently receive no meaningful amount of money from vaping.
The above are all true facts, and there is no spin involved with them. It is so simple that no one has to lie about the positive effects of vaping. The hard part comes when those with ulterior motives are pushing lies and misinformation to get vaping banned. The truth is if vaping is banned people will start smoking again, and those people will die by the hundreds of thousands. Any person with a working brain, and who cares about public health understands smoking is bad and vaping is the most effective replacement or path to quitting completely.
Does Not Seeing Matter?
I’ve had conversations with blind folk and seen others wonder if it is possible. Like nearly everything it is perfectly doable and accessible, but it also can be difficult if you go about it all wrong. Most importantly nothing is a replacement for knowledge, go watch videos and read reviews of products. There is a big vaping community out there, and they are all willing to help.
There are different types of tanks, pods, subohm, , RDAs, RTAs, and each one has different requirements and uses. There are also different Mods for different types of tanks, knowing this is essential. A Juul is not the same as a Pulse V2 for example, they could not be more different.
quick blind tips for buying a mod:
get one that does not round robin, this way you can easily count button presses to set it to your preferred wattage.
Do not buy anything with a touch screen, only physical buttons.
Seeing AI can be used on short text or hand writing mode to read most mod screens. Useful for checking wattage.
Once you’ve seen one tank you’ve seen them all. Not including RDA and RTAs.
the drip tip is the mouthpiece, don’t ask why it is called a damn drip tip.
If you want to know more just reach out. This isn’t a post about how to vape, but rather to let people know it is a viable option. I’m more than willing to help where possible, so don’t hesitate.
Wrapping It Up
This post is partly to share my story, and partly to do my small part to let people know they have been fed a giant plate full of shit on the topic of vaping. You can’t just go through life reading headlines and assuming that all vaping is the same, and that vaping is killing people. When someone is told not to drink and drive you know it means alcohol, not Pepsi. Then when someone reads about how people are dying from vaping, it is assumed and inferred by everyone they mean all forms of vaping. Media outlets know the real cause, but that doesn’t cause clicks, they commonly mention the fact somewhere in the middle to end of their articles instead of the headline. I’ve seen people share posts about vaping killing people, and how those who vape are stupid, Though I won’t call them stupid in turn, They are extremely ignorant on the topic. The true people at fault are those who publish click bate headlines to elicit an emotional response. If they were interested in the truth the headline would mention it was black market THC vaping that was killing people.
The most important part is to realize if vaping is banned, over 10,000,000 people who vape will start smoking, and they will more than likely die from it. If they are able to keep vaping, they’ll continue living better healthier lives. Also stop reading and sharing clearly stupid click bate headlines, if it makes you go oh damn, that’s crazy, then it is probably crazy and a 80 20 bull shit to reality ratio. Sharing stuff like that on any topic does nothing but harm, and sometimes it can effect the freedoms and lives of millions.
If you want more information on anything I mention in the above post just reach out to me @blind_jhon on twitter, or via the blog twitter @bsg_blog. If you are a smoker and are interested in vaping, don’t ever hesitate to shoot me a message and I’ll help however I can. I never planned on quitting smoking but here I am over a year without one, I’m proof that even the most stubborn lover of smoking can easily switch to a better nicotine delivery system.
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