Cigarettes look so uncool, though. Hardly a step up from vapes and they fuckin stiiiinnnnk.

I would much rather be near someone vaping their blueberry muffin raztastic whatever than a lit cigarette

Don't laugh .... my wife has pulmonary fibrosis ... it's basically a mysterious inflammation of the lungs with your immune system running haywire. No one knows what causes it or what triggered it ... all we know is that it is happening. They suspect it was originally a virus of some kind (this all started about three / four years before the pandemic). There is no cure, there is no remedy, there is no healing, there is no recovery. It only grows worse with time, spreads through the lungs and drowns you to death as you run out of healthy lung to breathe.

Take care of your lungs everyone.

Nobody has gotten popcorn lung from vaping

Vaping is less carcinogenic than smoking by a significant degree but it is carcinogenic

Acrolein, a carcinogen, forms in small amounts from the breakdown of glycerin during heating

If a “dry hit” occurs the effect is worsened, acrolein forms in higher amounts, and formaldehyde (another carcinogen) can occur from the breakdown of both glycerin and propylene glycol

Vaping still leads to inflammation and oxidative stress in the lungs and long term use will almost certainly lead to irreversible damage

Harm reduction is important. Vaping is likely better than smoking but it is not yet clear whether that is the case. It is likely the case based on short term anecdotal data from people who have switched but this does not mean that long term use won’t create more severe lung issues over a period of 20-30 years. We don’t know.

In the meantime for further harm reduction to reduce risk you can vape with low temperatures as this mitigates much of the carcinogen risk, you can use reusable devices and frequently change coils and ensure the coil is saturated, and you can use a liquid that is free of flavorings as these present much of the “unknown” variables.

Or you can work to quit. It is challenging. I smoked and vaped, I know it is tremendously hard. But frankly these companies don’t deserve your money. They’re all fucking scumbags

We don't know for sure yet.

For example here is a study seemingly published by the department of subdomains and acronyms: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11773639/

RESULTS

We included 39 studies in the main analysis and 12 in the subgroup analysis. Of these, 2 were longitudinal observational studies, 9 were cross-sectional studies, 1 case report and 27 were cell/in vitro and animal studies. All human studies were conducted in adults, and about half of them had a low risk of bias. No significant incident or prevalent risk of lung cancer or other types of cancer was found in the never smoker current vapers population. However, there was substantial biomarker-based evidence of a significant association between e-cigarette exposure and oxidative stress, cellular apoptosis, DNA damage, genotoxicity, and tumor growth, particularly following acute exposure. We did not find any age or sex-based differences in cancer risk, and findings on race and education-based differences were insufficient.

CONCLUSIONS

There is substantial evidence that e-cigarette exposure is associated with biomarkers reflective of cancer disease risk. However, the overall evidence on cancer risk is still limited and should be further investigated by future research, particularly rigorously designed clinical trials and population-based research.

Either way, purposefully inhaling toxic chemicals is pretty stupid.

Europe is a geological region where most countries share a lot of cultural ties with each other, including the smoking culture.

I had the same journey and now have been smoke/vape free for 2 years.