Smoking vs Vaping

Mom used to chain smoke throughout most of the day, though especially at night. I know vaping gets a bad rap here because a bunch of hipsters do it, but it did really help her cut back. She still smokes throughout the day, but it's more spread out and one big puff will keep her happy for a long while. She usually has some caramel-vanilla flavor that actually smells good, so that's definitely an improvement for me -- cigarettes smell nasty.

Adrienne smoked when she was a teenager but gave it up about.... 5 years ago? Before she met me. Either way, she's forbidden to smoke cigarettes. She still occasionally wants one if she's really really really stressed, but hasn't caved and doesn't want to. If she's mid-panic attack and does need something, she might have a tiiiiiiny amount of marijuana. But even that's only happened once in the time I've known her.



(I tried smoking once and hated the sensation, so I've never done it again.)

A couple of the guys I worked with were regular smokers and I know some guys from high school who were/are really into it, but that's more or less all I know. My dad used to spoke when he was in university to help stay awake for exam review, he apparently didn't like coffee back then or something.


Vaping's never interested me personally, I just don't see the appeal in it. Same with smoking and all the risk of lung cancer and potential dental hygiene issues.

I have been known to puff on a cuban cigar or a pipe once in a blue moon, and by that I mean maybe a half dozen times total in my life. I won't say I'm a huge fan because my mouth always tastes like an ash tray afterwards, but after a big social event or meal? A pipe and a Woodchuck is a nice cooldown. Cigarettes? No. HELL no. I don't see how anyone can smoke those things with that genuinely abominable smell.

Especially not after my dad's (literal) quest to quit smoking. Back in the 70s he realized he was going through two packs a day and decided to quit. So he and his brother went on two six week treks through the Sierra Nevadas and Cascades because nothing short of weeks in the wilderness living on bologna sandwiches would get him to quit. Like I said; a literal quest.

My mother and I have talked about vaping at some length, however. She doesn't and never has smoked, but she's deep into alternative medicine and vaping is a really attractive way to deliver some of her essential oil therapies. The downside is that the propylene glycol most vaping formulas use as a binder degenerates and makes some nasty chemicals at vaping temperatures. As nasty as a cigarette? No, definitely not, but it's not harmless, either. Until we find a safer binder she's not really comfortable making it into a product.

Vaping if it's a means to stop smoking, though smoking on occasions where it is merited isn't terrible. But on the day to day I'd choose neither. If we're talking which is worse, it would probably be smoking.

I have a vape, and occasionally will use it. Not for quitting smoking or anything, just because I sometimes like to have some air with a flavor. And I like to blow a big cloud.

That's my favorite thing about regular smoking too, making a big cloud. I have no interest in regular cigarettes, everything about them is awful. But I do have a small collection of pipes and I will smoke a bowl of tobacco once in a while. Often a very long while, but when I do it's relaxing to sit in the yard and have a whiskey and a pipe, and good pipe tobacco actually has some pretty nice flavor. Sometimes if I'm playing at a very smoky venue I'll bring a pipe with me and slowly work through a bowl at the gig, or maybe a black and mild. About once or twice a year I'll buy a pack of cloves and slowly use them over the course of about a month or two. So, maybe about fifteen individual tobacco products consumed each year? Huh, I've never added it up before.

Took up smoking during a time when I was with my ex (like THE bad ex).
Stuck with it for 3 years after we broke up before i was finally able to quit.

I think my only problem with vaping are with people who are so very, very obviously still addicted to what they put in their rigs as they were to cigs, but pretend they aren't and can "totally quit anytime." Actually, it's when their insistence that they're not still addicts is so great, that they try to convince other people who are genuinely trying to quit and using vaping to quit that they don't have to quit, and it's okay to keep using it, all because they themselves can't stand the idea that another person is actually okay with quitting.

And the whole lack of smoke/vapor exhale etiquette. I don't care that it's vapor and not smoke, you're still as much of an asshole as a smoker if you blow it out in any direction and not care about the others around you.

Otherwise, eh, whatever man, it's not a thing I care for or am interested in, though I definitely grew up with it as my Dad smoked.