Smoking or Vaping

This is a question that people often find themselves asking, Vaping or Smoking, which is better? Over the years, the most common form of taking nicotine was through cigarettes. The cigarette contains tobacco and when that tobacco is burnt and inhaled, it gives your body a rush of nicotine, which is also called a “nicotine buzz”. Different people have different perceptions of smoking. Some say it helps them with their anxiety, while some say it helps them relax. For young people, it is safe to say that many of them start smoking simply because they think it is “cool” or they just give in to peer pressure.

However, quite recently, there was another invention, which is called a vape. People are divided about whether or not a vape is just as dangerous as a cigarette or less than that. There are different types of vape pods that you can buy for yourself. The difference would be in the size and the amount of battery power that it can retain.

Vaping vs Smoking: The Basic Differences

First, we’ll be talking about the structural differences between the two. When you purchase cigarettes, you are supposed to buy them in the form of a pack. However, when you buy a vape, you only need to purchase one pod. In a pack of cigarettes, there is an average of 20 cigarettes. However, for a pod, all you need to do is recharge its battery once the battery runs out. For that, you could use any power outlet and charge it with the help of a C-type USB cable. You can purchase different flavors for your pods, which mostly include fruit flavors, and for people who have switched from smoking to vaping, you could also buy yourself a tobacco flavor that has some amount of nicotine in it.

When it comes to using the products, both are used in opposite ways. For a cigarette, you need a lighter to light it up. You burn the tobacco, which in turn gives you smoke. Upon inhaling the smoke, the person smoking takes in lots of nicotine and then exhales it. In the case of a vape, there is a liquid that is typically referred to as the “flavor”. The vape heats the liquid and turns it into a vapor. The person then inhales and exhales the vapor and no smoke is produced in the process. As there is no smoking involved, people believe that vaping is much less harmful than smoking a cigarette. Normally, people tend to vape when they are quitting smoking.

This is because it is very difficult to go cold turkey. At first, people cut down on their cigarettes and then make a shift towards vaping. The best option would be to neither smoke nor vape. People are only encouraged to vape if they are quitting smoking so that it is easier to stop. It is a well-established fact that smoking is an addiction and people have a hard time quitting. Most of the time, leaving it all at once is not a possibility, so companies have made vapes to make it easier for people to quit. Not only do cigarettes give a person the nicotine that they need, but vapes also have a certain amount of nicotine in them. The amount of nicotine remains the same in all cigarettes, but it is different in vapes. You can get a refill of your choice with the amount of nicotine that you want. You can even have different flavors which include citrus and fruit flavors as well.

Benefits and Demerits of Smoking and Vaping

Like everything else in the world, smoking and vaping have their pros and cons. For smoking, the cons are known by almost everyone. It results in different kinds of cancer, such as mouth cancer, throat cancer, and even lung cancer. It is an addiction that not only affects you but affects those around you as well. This includes their vulnerability to passive smoking, which does the same damage to them as it does to you. Many people are socially irritated by people who tend to smoke, as smokers make the air unbreathable. For pros, people say it makes them feel rather relaxed and helps with their anxiety. Some people think they are “cool” as they do it. Smoking has a classic feel to it, you get to use a lighter and burn the tobacco, and taking each drag feels real.

Smoking or Vaping

It is safe to say that vaping is much safer than smoking. As surprising as it may sound, vaping costs a lot less than smoking. There is quite a visible difference in the cost of smoking and vaping, as vaping happens to be much more cost-effective. In cigarettes, you only get smoke and the most you could do is smoke a cigarette that has menthol in it. However, when it comes to vaping, there are a variety of flavors, which even include tobacco itself! With a lower cost, another benefit of vaping is that it helps people quit smoking if they are still smoking.

Even though vaping is slightly safer than cigarettes, that does not mean they are entirely safe. One may ask “what are the benefits of smoking vs vaping?” For vaping vs smoking, blood pressure is constant. Both of them elevate the blood pressure of the person, which can lead to many health issues. So it could be said there are no health benefits. Women who vape put their babies at risk as the nicotine that they consume slows down their development drastically, and, due to poor growth of the brain, the baby may even head towards retardation. Just like smoking, vaping has a lot of heavy metal compounds in it and has a lot of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are commonly known to damage the environment. The liquid that is vaporized in a vape is damaging to the skin if it leaks out or is released if someone takes a strong drag.

Is Vaping Safer than Smoking?

One question that everyone asks is what happens when you quit smoking and start vaping? Well, the changes are quite evident. First, you will see that vaping is quite lighter in your pocket as compared to smoking. There is just a one-time investment for the pod and there are different types of vape pods depending on their size. The only cost that you face repeatedly is for the refill of the flavor. There is no smoke or burning of tobacco involved, so vaping could be seen as slightly safer than smoking. However, the cancerous compounds and the environmentally harmful gases remain in both of them.

Vaping does not burn tobacco but instead heats up and vaporizes a liquid, making it much less harmful than an average cigarette. You have the option of having less nicotine content in your vape while it is a fixed amount in cigarettes that cannot be altered. While vaping, it is very less likely for you to develop health issues, but it is much easier in the case of cigarettes. According to Medical News Today, a person who smokes inhales about 7,000 chemicals while vaping has fewer chemicals than this. It is reported that the use of vapes has increased by 900% in the USA and 40% of these young students had never smoked a regular cigarette with tobacco in it. Of all the users that vape, 80% of these youngsters say that the first liquid they ever vaped was flavored.

Final Word

So what is the final verdict? Is it safer for one to use a vape or is it safer for them to continue smoking? First of all, if you do not smoke or vape at all, it would be best for you if you decided not to do it at all. However, if you are a smoker and you are struggling with letting it go, then that is where the vape kicks in. Smoking is an addiction that is hard to let go of. A vape helps you just do that, to quit smoking! You could reduce your levels of nicotine effectively until you do not feel a craving for it and lose your addiction to nicotine. A vape does not limit your taste and you can add a nice, fruity touch to your vapes which does not leave a bad after-taste.

Talking about health risks, both pose serious threats to human health. This not only includes the smoker but those around them as well. Those people fall prey to passive smoking and develop problems such as bronchitis and asthma as well. If both of them were to be compared, one could easily say that a vape is much safer to use than a cigarette and it creates many fewer health problems than smoking cigarettes. You could easily afford to vape as well, in contrast to smoking, which is slightly more expensive and makes it a guilty pleasure for most people.

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