The smoker's guide to why vaping is the first step in the road to quitting cigarettes

“A cigarette in my hand, I felt like a man” - was the catchy rock jingle, doing the rounds on cable TV when I was a kid, exhorting people to stop smoking. It showed the slow and steady decline of a young man who gets into smoking in his teenage years, and eventually ends up destroying his life, finally reconsidering the choices of his youth in a cancer ward. Clearly, the messaging didn’t work on me, because the first thing I did with my new-found freedom in college was to smoke a cigarette at the nearest tapri. And by glob, it felt good! Apart from the head rush, the whole thing of standing around with other “like-minded” smokers and talking the talk was just so “cool”. Much like that public service message from yesteryears, my habit continued into my work life. Smoke breaks, bonding with coworkers, stress relief during long hours… you know how it goes. Even when my former boss suffered a stroke and had to kick his own habit cold turkey overnight, it didn’t serve as a wake-up call. Human nature and addiction are perfect partners in that way.

Normally, I consider myself a rational person – open to reason and guided by logic. But when it comes to this, I found myself engaging in a fair bit of mental gymnastics to convince myself that things like cancer and strokes only happen to other people. “Not you. You smoke only five cigarettes a day, that’s nothing!” I told myself. Of course, this wasn’t true. I was smoking way more than five a day, but as I said, our ability to delude our own selves is legendary. Pretty soon smoking started taking its toll. I’d frequently get what is known as smoker’s cough, I’d have no stamina, and I suspect my hairline suffered too. I had to look for an alternative.

Could vaping be the answer?

Honestly, before I started researching this topic properly, I had a vague belief that vaping is as harmful as cigarettes, if not more. My memory threw up something about a disease called popcorn lung and the discovery of formaldehyde in e-cig vapour. When I did some more digging, I found out that the panic over popcorn lung started as a result of a link between diacetyl (a buttery flavouring agent in early e-cigarettes) and cases of the lung disease being reported amongst factory workers who manufactured this flavouring agent. The chemical has long been discontinued in vape juices and as it turns out the link between diacetyl and popcorn lung was itself tenuous, considering the insanely large amounts of exposure that were needed to cause it. What about formaldehyde? It’s been similarly debunked. The test conditions of the study which spawned the panic – specifically heating temperatures used – were outside of the operating range of most vapes. Besides, who says formaldehyde isn’t present in regular cigarette smoke? (Hint: it is —  and in large quantities)

So, is vaping safe then?

A: No, it isn’t.

Is vaping better than smoking?

A: If you’ve never smoked before and you are thinking of “getting into vaping” then no, it’s not “better”. But the real question to ask is: if you are already addicted to cigarettes, is vaping less harmful than smoking? The answer is a resounding yes!

And it’s not just my opinion. According to Michael Blaha, M.D., M.P.H., director of clinical research at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease, “Regular tobacco cigarettes contain 7,000 chemicals, many of which are toxic. While we don’t know exactly what chemicals are in e-cigarettes there’s almost no doubt that they expose you to fewer toxic chemicals than traditional cigarettes.” Another study found that vaping is about 95 percent less harmful than tobacco. Even that whole “we don’t know what this does in the long term” perception is changing as new research emerges. So why does vaping get such a bad rap? A simple google search with search terms such as “is vaping better than smoking?” or “is vaping safer than cigarettes?” will throw up mostly negative results. However, once you delve into those articles, you’ll realise most of the negativity is about the addiction danger vaping poses to kids (underage minors) and about the paucity of long term studies. You will find comparative statements with cigarettes conspicuously missing in most of the articles that try very hard to portray vaping in a bad light. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but something strange is afoot. Big Tobacco is, after all, one of the most powerful lobbies out there right next to the NRA #JustSaying< Here’s what it boils down to: In isolation, there’s no way in hell vaping can be classified as healthy. But if you are already addicted to nicotine, wouldn’t finding a less harmful delivery mechanism be the most rational thing to do? What most people don’t realise is they smoke for the nicotine and satisfaction but die from the tar and toxins which are present in conventional cigarettes. Nicotine by itself isn’t nearly as harmful.

Believe me, I’ve tried nicotine gums and other methods to quit. But none can mimic the experience of smoking an actual cigarette as well as vapes. And that bit is necessary to fool the brain. Most smokers, myself included, who turn to a vape to replace cigarettes (as opposed to recreational vaping) go for closed systems such as JUUL and Myle. These are easy to use and work with the help of salt nicotine pods which are able to deliver nicotine in the same quantities as cigarettes (hence giving that satisfaction and hit). Within a month of acquiring my first pod-based system, I was well on my way to discovering ways to refill the pods with salt-nic juices of my own choice, since the pods are a bit expensive (there’s almost nothing you can’t learn on YouTube these days). Following this, I have successfully cut down my vaping costs to a fifth of what I would spend on cigarettes in the past. It’s been three months since I took to vaping, and I’m happy to report I haven’t smoked a single cigarette in all that time. I just don’t feel like it anymore. I don’t smell like an ashtray, I can run up the stairs once again without huffing and heaving for dear life, and I generally feel great! At this point, some of you may be wondering if I’ve inadvertently given up one bad habit and picked up another (albeit less harmful) one. Yes, but with vaping, I don’t find myself doing it as much. Eventually, I plan to buy pods and juices with lesser and lesser nicotine strength and eventually wean myself off of it entirely; unlike cigarettes, you can actually do that with vapes without compromising on taste. Wish me luck!