VAEP Shareables are images utilizing graphics, colour and text to quickly teach people about vaping. Each Shareable provides the reference on the bottom.
Nicotine myth
Like any substance, too much can cause adverse effects. For instance 4000mg of Tylenol can cause severe liver damage.
Medications that are available on the shelves in a drug store are called over-the-counter (OTC) medications. They available without a prescription and used safely by the public.
Nicotine is a mild stimulant and can form a dependance, much like caffeine. Nicotine in eliquid helps smokers transition to a source of nicotine that doesn’t kill them.
Nightshade plants naturally have nicotine in them to protect them from insects. So if you eat tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and eggplants, you have nicotine in your body.
Vaping offers the smoker an alternative that allows them to continue inhaling nicotine without all the disease causing chemicals found in cigarette smoke.
Dr. John Britton of the U.K. Center for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies explains that nicotine addiction isn’t a big deal because “…nicotine itself isn’t particularly hazardous.”
It would be unethical to give nicotine to teens and then test their brains. In this referenced study used by Health Canada to scare smokers away from harm reduction, rats were given nicotine all day through an IV (2mg/kg/d).
Tobacco smoke has 7000 chemicals in it, many of which cause damage to the body. This fear-provoking message from Health Canada suggests that all smokers have some kind of brain damage. How is it that they can identify nicotine as the cause and not the 7000 toxins found in cigarette smoke?
Health Canada claims vaping “can” cause lung damage. They provide no evidence to support this speculation. Health Canada “can” deceive the public about harm reduction. They “can” have a motive to promote disease and serve the pharmaceutical industry.
VAEP Shareables are images utilizing graphics, colour and text to quickly teach people about vaping. Each Shareable provides the reference on the bottom.
Using vaping to quit smoking
Vaping triples the quit rate of the patch
Controlled clinical trials are the gold standard of science. In 2014, a group of smokers who didn’t want to quit smoking were given eliquid and simple vapes (the vapes today are even more effective). 21% of the smokers quit smoking; compare that to 6% success with patches.
Long term vaping increased quitting smoking by 300%
Smokers that bought a vape and used it while still smoking were compared to smokers that didn’t buy a vape. After 2 years, 42% of smokers who also vaped quit smoking, while those that didn’t vape, only 15% quit smoking.
Vaping satisfies the nicotine addiction & smoking behaviour PLUS vaping offers thousands of flavours to help the smoker replace the taste of smoke with something better. That is why it is more effective than sticking a patch to your arm or chewing gum.
The 5.7 million Canadian and 34 million American smokers demand for a safer alternative has driven the vaping industry’s growth. If vaping didn’t help smokers quit smoking then there would be no vaping industry.
Controlled clinical trials are the gold standard of science. In 2014, a group of smokers who didn’t want to quit smoking were given eliquid and simple vapes (the vapes today are even more effective). 21% of the smokers quit smoking; compare that to 6% success with patches.
Long term vaping increased quitting smoking by 300%
Smokers that bought a vape and used it while still smoking were compared to smokers that didn’t buy a vape. After 2 years, 42% of smokers who also vaped quit smoking, while those that didn’t vape, only 15% quit smoking.
Vaping satisfies the nicotine addiction & smoking behaviour PLUS vaping offers thousands of flavours to help the smoker replace the taste of smoke with something better. That is why it is more effective than sticking a patch to your arm or chewing gum.
The 5.7 million Canadian and 34 million American smokers demand for a safer alternative has driven the vaping industry’s growth. If vaping didn’t help smokers quit smoking then there would be no vaping industry.
Vaping uniquely satisfies the ritualistic behaviour
The ritual: bringing the smoke to the mouth; tasting the drag; sensations in the throat & lungs on a big inhale; a visible exhale and nicotine enters the blood through the lungs. A pack-a-day smoker does this 87,600 times a year. Vaping uniquely satisfies this ritual.
Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) such as patches and gums aren’t that effective because they don’t replace the behaviour. Smokers are experts at self dosing nicotine through inhalation. Eliquid is nicotine in a rather benign base & allows the smoker to continue getting nicotine through inhalation.
After dual use for a while, a large percent of vapers quit smoking. Because eliquid comes in a variety of nicotine strengths (mg/ml), the vast majority of those that switch to vaping, lower their nicotine strengths; some all the way down to zero.
The anti-harm reduction zealots claim that vaping is ineffective for quitting smoking because many dual use for a while. Dual users observed in controlled clinical trials reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke by 60-80%. This significantly reduces the toxins they inhale.
This bar graph illustrates that the MAIN reason for vaping is smokers seeking to quit. Flavours are not the main reason but vaping wouldn’t work if it didn’t offer smokers a more pleasurable and novel experience than smoking because cigarette smoke is more addictive than nicotine on its own.
Surveys and reports show that less than half a percent of people that never smoked are vaping. However, 15% of smokers and 13% of ex-smokers vape. This shows that SMOKERS are vaping to either quit smoking or stay quit. They deserve to continue to have access to harm reduction.
Smoking is so bad for health and so hard to quit that doctors prescribe psychoactive medications to help their patients quit. Side effects include killing yourself.
Health professionals that understand tobacco harm reduction understand the difference of nicotine dependence and addiction. Dependence is when the body has a tolerance to a substance and experiences withdrawal without it. Addiction is the same except there are negative consequences for the dependence such as smoking-related diseases.
Eliquid contains 4 ingredients and only the nicotine can cause dependence. The chances of a youth becoming a smoker is 20 times higher if they start their experimentation with smoking verses with vaping. Vaping is interrupting the historical process of creating smokers.
A common fear tactic is to suggest that vaping leads youth to smoking. If that was the case then the increase in youth vaping would mean an increase in youth smoking. This graph clearly shows that youth smoking continues to decline.
This quote proposes vaping’s harm reduction potential not only for current smokers but for preventing the next generation of smokers. The graph illustrates the significant drop in American youth smoking rates since vaping has been introduced in the USA.
This graph shows the trend in current smoking rates of Canadian 15-19 year olds over 18 years. Within 5 years of vaping being introduced, the youth smoking rate decreased at double the highest previous decrease! Is vaping preventing youth smoking uptake?
