“Disposable” vapes are a blight, so good riddance.
this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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They're so obviously unnecessary I'm surprised more places haven't banned them. They're also new, so conservatives should instinctively hate them.
We need a more generic approach to throwaway culture: the societal cost of disposing of things needs to be embedded in the price of those things. But in the case of vapes, I don't see how that can have a big impact: reusable vape pens only seem to be about twice the cost of a disposable, so anyone who is even remotely thinking rationally about price would be getting reusable ones.
They've exploded in popularity in the US since the FDA absolutely decimated the market for juice and mod manufacturers. They want everyone back on cigarettes and will stop at nothing to accomplish it.
Altria has done so much damage. Philip Morris did a damn good job hiding it's influence in the vape market.
I'd kinda like to see standards for vapes written so we can invent/install refill stations. Making things easier for people cuts the demand for undesirable outcomes like excess waste.
Disposable vapes are massively convenient but the waste is truly excessive and awful.
Regular pod devices are already ridiculously easy to use and maintain. You fill it and charge it. New pod every 1-2 weeks, a 30ml bottle of juice will last you around a month. There's no need for refill stations or anything like that. If ypu were still allowed to buy juice and pods at a gas station (in the US) they'd be more easily accessible but that's about it. Where I'm from at least there's a smoke.shop on damn near every corner though so there still isn't that much of a barrier
You fill it and charge it.
While I am certainly into this idea, the market has clearly shown high demand for disposable vapes. Beating that market in convenience factor would be the intent.
If ypu were still allowed to buy juice and pods at a gas station (in the US) they’d be more easily accessible but that’s about it.
I'd strongly support this legislation tho
I'm not trying to be an ass or anything, I just couldn't find a better way to phrase this. Have you ever used a vape, disposable or not? Having a designated place to swap out disposables would be more of a hindrance than using pod systems. I'm honestly not even sure how that could be structured. The most popular disposables are already rechargeable and people already do that task for themselves. Refilling is a ~10 second endeavor in pod systems. And I'm not even sure how you could go about reusing disposables on a sanitary level. You can't replace the mouth peices and many of them are very poorly built. The juce leaks into the electronics and can cause all sorts of problems.
In order to make this feasible you'd basically have to implement a reusable pod system that people just walk into the shop and swap out for a freshly filled pod when theirs dies out. This would dramatically increase the costs associated with pod systems.
My vape cost me $18, a pack of 4 pods costs $10, and a bottle of juice is ~$15 on average. $43 in total, or a little over the cost of 2 disposables. Disposables are only good for a week max, usually less. For a month of vaping (including the cost of a new vape) it cost me the price of 2 weeks in disposables. Ignoring the cost of the vape and only worrying about pods and juice, you get a months worth of nicotine for less than the price of one disposable. It's not really a convenience problem because reusable vapes are already more convenient and cost effective than disposables. It's not even a flavor or strength thing. Most disposable brands sell bottles of their flavors at the strengths they come in in the disposables. It's just people making poor consumer choices, it's as easy and cheap as it's ever been to use a reusable pod system. It can get even cheaper by ordering online.
Not to say there isn't room for improvement, I mentioned the gas station thing earlier and there used to be a lot of shops that made their own juice and you could order custom bottles with varying flavors, strengths, and vg/pg ratio. I'd like to see those return but there was a lot of restrictions passed in the last few years that have made it exceedingly difficult and cost prohibitive to do. You also used to be able to make your own juice at home but it's illegal to ship concentrated nicotine to individuals now. There's plenty of areas to fix but convenience isn't one of them
I do vape, yes.
It’s just people making poor consumer choices, it’s as easy and cheap as it’s ever been to use a reusable pod system. It can get even cheaper by ordering online.
People always make dumb choices in the name of convenience. That's the problem we're trying to solve.
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I know disposable vapes are very common in the marijuana industry as well; I've been to a handful of dispensaries where they were the only vape product for sale. And frankly in much of America where cannabis is still illegal, using a discreet, disposable vape pen is the safest way to get high (other than when your bootleg Chinese vape kills you 🤣).
Not only that, but federal prohibition on cannabis makes it that much harder to bring alternative products to market, both from an R & D perspective and because marijuana companies can't use traditional banking systems. It's a whole industry built on cash. And right now the big money interests in the cannabis industry are largely tobacco companies who don't have the greatest track record when it comes to making healthy and environmentally friendly products...
There are plenty of reusable vapes on the market that I've used (MFLB, Pax, Volcano, Silver Surfer, etc) but I would definitely choose a concentrate vape pen over all of those options if given the choice. It's just the superior method/form factor and it gets you higher faster. Plus it's perfect for microdosing.
I agree an outright ban on disposable vapes is a must, but we also need to make new, convenient, reusable liquid concentrate vapes with refills that are widely available, like those that already exist in the tobacco industry.
This was a bit of a tangent from the main discussion. It's crazy that disposable nicotine vapes are a thing.
Juul was on the right track, with the pods and reusable battery. At least it's just some plastic getting tossed and not an entire fucking battery. Then the government cracked down on them and here we are
Probably because Altria owns Juul and then lobbied to ban flavors. The red flavor was the best, and I miss it a lot.
Experts have warned that not enough is known yet about the long-term impacts of vaping.
Oh boy are they really still on with that disinformation? Also argument from ignorance at best, or consciously lying and misinforming at worst.
Intensive studies were made already in the 50's, to use the base elements for vaping as a defense against airway infections in kindergartens and shopping malls. It was found to both work and be VERY safe!
I don't understand how this misinformation is even legal? Considering there is massive amounts of studies that show the safety puts it a a risk level of about 2% of smoking a cigarette.
That however is if you do not add flavor, and use only the base VG or PG in juices together with medical grade nicotine, which is what almost all makers use today here.
I absolutely agree that there is no need to have single use vapes, they are clearly a resource waste that causes unnecessary pollution much like single use plastic.
I stopped vaping all together when my daughter was born, as it seemed pointless now to go hide in other rooms just to continue a habit I wasn't getting much out of anymore. But while I was still vaping, I would typically stand outside with the smokers from work and listen to their dumb raspy asses try to lecture me on the dangers of vaping and how I don't know what that's going to go to me long term. They would say this while pulling cigarettes from packaging covered in pictures of cancers and disease (Canada).
Tangent:
I used to know a guy who took up smoking in college mainly because he thought hanging out with smokers was a good way to meet people. It worked, but you know, smoking. The last time I was in contact with him, he was a raging alcoholic, too.
This will get repeated until it's the year 2080 when it becomes doubtless. I still see the claim that vaping "fills your lungs with water" when VG/PG produced vapour draws moisture away, the complete opposite.
I wonder if they sometimes design flawed studies on purpose? I saw a study claiming the vape produced Formaldehyde, because when the air quality in a small enclosure was examined, it showed a rise in formaldehyde over time when vaping. Problem was that the level of formaldehyde matched what we exhale ourselves naturally.
Well then they designed another study to show formaldehyde. This time with a vaping machine, that ran the ecig dry, completely ignoring that the taste of taking a dry puff, is at least as bad as smoking the filter on a filter cigarette.
Who has an interest in this? Are those researchers stupid or corrupt?
At the same time, there were dozens of studies, that were NOT shown to be flawed, that showed the level of known toxins in ecig vape was more like 1/1000th compared to cigarettes.
Allegedly the biggest economic interest in this, is pharma companies that sell products to quit smoking. I hope journalists some day will trace the money for such flawed studies.
PS:
I have no personal stake in this, I vaped for more than a decade, and researched it heavily when it was new. I successfully quit entirely 4 years ago by reducing strength over time. I have no friends that vape, and I have no financial interests either. I just get pissed when professionals we need to be able to trust misinform against evidence.
Today it's actually harder to research the topic online, because there is so much misinformation!
I've seen some of those studies with the "vaping machine" and the "OMG they produce toxic chemicals/metals", every time I read them the machine is set to ridiculously high wattage and temps that nobody is actually using.
I read a study that a certain toxic chemical is produced from an ejuice ingredient in vapes, but that chemical only forms at temperatures in excess of 700°F (or somewhere around there). Nobody is vaping at 700°F lmfao
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Same concept also developed and used in WW2 as an anti-chemical weapon device. Basically a grenade that bursts into a cloud of PG, trapping airborne chemical particulates and pulling them down to the ground.
Interesting I didn't know that existed.
I think its use in the field was pretty limited. It was something a scientist at the company I work for was telling me about. They were curious given all the shit chat about a lack of longterm evidence. They wondered what is the actual earliest record of this sort of concept? They ended up finding out about experiments done with this device in some kind of wartime medical journal they showed me. We were pretty tickled by the journal article mentioning propylene glycol was the substance these old researchers were atomising. I tried finding it again to link something, but I haven't been able to find it yet.
Thanks, that's amazing.
I must say that when I started vaping, I was shocked about the state of modern "scientific" research into documenting effects of basically everything. Clearly it's paid for by interest holders, and the research is not generally for the common good, but to serve the interests of those who pay for it. Just as was the case for tobacco and sugar, and lately it was revealed gas companies have done it too in the 70's! I knew it was the case to some extend in the pharmaceutical industries, but it's everywhere!!
There isn't really much peer reviewed evidence suggesting vaping is significantly harmful in a tobacco harm reduction context, though. It's all supportive of vaping, that's why it's been embraced by many medical organisations across much of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The amount of tobacco harm prevention vaping is doing in places like Kuwait right now, where up to 50% of males smoke, is fucking incredible. Australia's blindness on this issue is a farce. They, like most western governments, are addicted to tobacco tax. It's 4% of our overall tax income. That's a proportion of all taxation in our economy, including all the land, property, goods, services taxes. An entire 4% of it comes just from perpetuating tobacco sales. Financially conservative governments aren't giving that away for free. Internally they're like "we'll worry about addressing the leading cause of preventable death when we get voted in for another term, otherwise it won't work out for us politically". That's why we have a nation of Labor state premiers that almost unilaterally support sensible ecig regulation, yet the federal health minister from the same political party has this curious unexplained blindspot on the issue and just parrots big pharma talking points about nicotine, while nicorette isn't even kept behind the counter.
It sounds a bit like here, where they had witch hunts from health authorities against shops that sold anything vape related containing nicotine. Despite all evidence showed it was less harmful than cigarettes, and the best way to quit too. This kind of activity was almost completely unheard of, but I guess health authorities, are the ones that are best paid by big pharma.
It was only when EU regulated it, that it became legal in Denmark. Luckily being in EU we could buy from other EU countries.
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In Australia, most of the tobacco store chains were grey market importing vapes from Asia that had nicotine in them even if they were labelled nicotine-free. They also weren't up to our mandated standards, often containing many nasty chemicals that people shouldn't vape.
The industry also shot itself in the foot with these vapes by opening countless amounts of stores right up the road from every high school in the country. The one near mine has 8 within quick walking distance. They were selling these dodgy vapes to kids, often still in uniform like candy. It wasn't unusual to see kids come and go from these shops in their school uniforms all the time. A few kids ended up in hospital because of these vapes too.
Personally, I'm glad to see these go and the health of our people will be a lot better for it. This article is also incorrect about the timing, it was announced some months ago that this ban on vapes was coming.
I have a prescription vape. Five pharmacies in my area don't stock the device or juice. The one that had it charged me for 7 boxes of juice even though they only had 5 boxes because "we're only allowed to sell 7 at a time". Went to refill my prescription and they don't have the juice and refused to order it. They told me to go to another store over an hour away.
Noone wants smokers to quit, the government wants the taxes from cigarettes, the quit foundation openly tell you they don't want to stop smoking (that would put them out of a job) and the pharmacies make more from all their nicotine replacement therapies than a vape setup that lasts 8 months. The black market is fantastic though. Cheap smokes sold at all convenience stores, milk bars, gift shops and independant supermarkets. They don't ask for id either. My go to shop is opposite a police station.
Disposable nicotine vapes, or any other kind of nicotine vape, have been banned federally for import other than via a special access scheme for the last few decades since nicotine was included on the poisons standard.
Just want to clarify that the actual change here is limited to banning 0mg disposables. Since Mark Butler's health department has decided to continue the trend of totally failing to act on sensible ecig regulation, an entirely expected and totally avoidable de facto standard shipping method of stealth packing nicotine products amongst 0mg has resulted. The China suppliers know that we have zero capacity to detect nicotine at the border and that every word that comes out of Butler's mouth on the topic is bullshit. They can just flout the law and get away with it. There's literally no system set up to hold them to account. Border Force aren't doing GC-MS analysis on your Amazon packages. The only reason the headline says 'to be banned from January 2024' is because the government don't want you to realise they are currently banned, and in fact always have been.
Sounds like he reckons that just keeping an eye out for anything that looks like a disposable shipment will do the trick now? Aw yeah, tell me more about how you don't understand the scale of freight logisticsin Australia. Is it going to invalidate the existing prescriptions for those products via special access scheme? I've had a nicco script for 2 years and haven't had a single parcel checked.
To wit: if you read this article and didn't come out of it thinking "shit I've gotta hop on AliExpress and get on this for a quick buck", it's because you got bullshitted. It's gonna be creeping up to dethrone cocaine as the hottest Aus consumer commodity 2024. Cheers Mark
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The same in France:
The government also wants to ban “puffs”, single-use disposable e-cigarettes that Rousseau said were popular among young people, but which had a heavy impact on health and the environment.
How many times have they "banned" vapes now? Are they actually going to do it?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Australia will ban imports of disposable vapes from January, in an effort to curb nicotine addiction in children.
Vapes, or e-cigarettes, are lithium battery-powered devices that have cartridges filled with liquids containing nicotine, artificial flavourings, and a range of other chemicals.
It has been illegal for any Australian to purchase or import e-cigarettes or nicotine vapes without a doctor's prescription since 2021, but despite those restrictions rates of addiction have continued to skyrocket.
"All Australian governments are committed to working together to stop the disturbing growth in vaping among our young people," said Mark Butler, the federal health minister who is leading the ban.
Importers and manufacturers supplying therapeutic vapes will also have to comply with tighter government regulation concerning the flavours, nicotine levels, and packaging of their products.
Australia's announcement comes just days after New Zealand's government scrapped its world-leading smoking ban to pay for tax cuts.
The original article contains 361 words, the summary contains 148 words. Saved 59%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Aww. I liked the free batteries.
I'm sure it's a coincidence that the tobacco industry is thrilled with this news.
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