Health experts think low tobacco prices, a general tolerance of smoking and changes brought by the pandemic may explain the uptick in cigarette use.

    • Krachsterben@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      As a German living in Australia I can ensure you, smoking is still just as prevalent, it’s just people here being addicted to vapes instead of traditional cigarettes.

      Disposable vapes are also dangerously cheap (2000 puff vapes are equivalent to about 10 packs of cigarettes, while only costing about $20) and despite efforts to ban them, easily available at any TSG/Ezymart without age verification.

          • tal@kbin.socialOP
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            1 year ago

            I dunno. It’s growing pretty quickly globally.

            https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/e-cigarette-vaping-market

            The global e-cigarette and vape market size was valued at USD 22.45 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.6% from 2023 to 2030. The public’s growing understanding of e-cigarettes being safer than traditional cigarettes, particularly among younger people, due to numerous studies conducted by medical institutions and associations, is forecasted to fuel market growth. In addition, it is anticipated that the manufacturers’ wide range of customization options, including temperature control and nicotine dosages, will help the product demand. Moreover, growing e-cigarette technologies like pod systems and squonk mods have gained popularity and user adoption in recent years.

            Market size value in 2023

            USD 28.17 billion

            Revenue forecast in 2030

            USD 182.84 billion

            The anti-smoking movement – at least in the US – didn’t center around nicotine addiction, but around the negative secondary health effects.

            Any similar secondary negative effects for vaping are pretty limited. So it’s arguing just against the addiction alone. And I’m not sure that that’s an easy case to make.

            • banana_meccanica@feddit.it
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              1 year ago

              I don’t doubt it’s growing, but I think it’s the classic temporary trend, a huge growth with an equally huge fall. Vape is harmful, something to be left to itself, there aren’t many excuses that hold.

              • escapesamsara@discuss.online
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                1 year ago

                Everything is harmful though, that’s the problem of existence. Nicotine is a psychoactive drug that does have both positive and negative effects. Vaping is safer than almost every other delivery method, and it’s the safest recreational delivery method available. There’s more than enough education on why nicotine is bad, which is the most you can really do.

                People still drink, despite the physical addiction risks, the massive health risks of even a single drink a week, and the fact drinking any amount puts you almost comically more at risk of physical injury than not drinking. The education is fully out there. People still do it.

                Free will is a hell of a thing, and restricting it has never ended well for those that restrict it, regardless of reason.

                • banana_meccanica@feddit.it
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                  1 year ago

                  No one talked about restrictions, just common sense. A smart person will always realize that smoking or vaping doesn’t make sense, that there are no positive aspects, that all the qualities they’d like to associate with are idiocy, to give something toxic a positive aspect. An evolved society must bury these trivia.

                  • escapesamsara@discuss.online
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                    1 year ago

                    Hyperbole works against your goals, and is a direct driver of teen vaping. There are absolutely positive effects with nicotine, to pretend otherwise is simply ‘Reefer Madness’ for overly panicked sheltered millennials. The primary problem, and thus the messaging, should be that the positives do not outweigh the negatives; and nicotine addiction is incredibly hard to break away from.

                    An ‘evolved’ society that resorts to pointless, unfounded, unscientific scare tactics to justify government control isn’t an evolved society, it’s the 1920s.

              • tal@kbin.socialOP
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                1 year ago

                I mean, I’m not arguing in favor of vaping. I just think that you’re being optimistic about people choosing not to vape.

                • banana_meccanica@feddit.it
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                  1 year ago

                  We just have to open our eyes and see things for what they are, ridiculous and damaging. Like cigarettes will stop being a status symbol when they’re no longer cool

          • AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            I dont belive so. Pretty much all the big tobacco companies now also own vaping brands, which are advertised with large budgets - pretty similar to the 80’s/90’s where smoking companies would spend big money on billboards and magazine ads (look up “popular mechanics” from that time on google books and pay attention to the full page ads), but nowdays it’s targeted online ads and influeners.

            Vaping is still “new” so its less regulated. Profit margins are high. There is at least one brand that offers a “subscription service” where you get delivered your favorite vaping refills by mail. They will advertise vapes to try to grow their market as long as they can, or as long as regulations don’t prevent it. Unfortunately even the goverment suggest to vaping as “healtier” alternative to smoking.

            Source: one of my ex-employers for ecommerce solutions with a very flexible moral compass had one of the vaping brands as a customer.

            • banana_meccanica@feddit.it
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              1 year ago

              This is very sad. In my area, it’s a declining phenomenon. I am convinced anyway that this reality will disappear relatively soon, in less than 20 years.

              • AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de
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                1 year ago

                I don’t think it will disappear, because it’s intentionally designed to be addictive, making it hard to quit.

                • banana_meccanica@feddit.it
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                  1 year ago

                  You’re not wrong. These dependencies will fall at a time when something else will be more important, maybe a global war, or maybe the expected climate change with the end of the world to follow, or who knows maybe aliens or asteroids, anything that distracts a capitalist system of viscid dependencies.

      • letmesleep@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        As a German living in Australia I can ensure you, smoking is still just as prevalent, it’s just people here being addicted to vapes instead of traditional cigarettes.

        Sure, but those are almost certainly less harmful. Obviously still bad, but a step towards a lesser evil is a step in the right direction.

    • sparky1337@ttrpg.network
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      1 year ago

      I remember when my parents would get them at $12 a carton. Dad quit when a carton of Marlboro was $21 or so.

      I quit when the special blend was $3 a pack.