f13.net

This thread assumes states/countries magically stop being shitheels and the FDA gets its head right outta its ass (they won't and it won't but whatever).

We are now in an age of integrated batteries, regulated voltage/wattage, temp control (if you like that horseshit) and a world of different atomizer options. Things are not what they were 2 years ago or even a year ago. On the chip front you have several viable choices: SX (Yihiecigar products - sx350j, sx350, sx130h, sx350 mini, etc), DNA (Evolv - DNA200, DNA40, DNA30, DNA25), some italian weirdness (the AULUS), the US-Based Mosaic from Mankos, the dicodes out of Germany, and finally the Starplat from Russia.

I'm going to keep my opinion on this simple: I use SX devices and prefer them - specifically the SX350. It's power curve and delivery shames nearly everything else on the market. The DNA200 is an excellent chip, but the forced requirement of LIPOs or 2x 18650s to get anything about it really hampers it in the short term. "But lipos are safer!" Bah. Fuckoff, you don't know shit about batteries or the small batch modders or Chinese kids handling this crap, and neither do I. Especially when it comes to burst firing 200 watts on some absurd 22 gauge Kanthal coil on some sort of cloud chucker nonsense.

As far as atties go - China has a lock on the market. There's a handful of tanks (Hurricane, Ubertoot) that are decent, mostly just a hybrid of the Kayfun and Taifun GT of yore. But they're mostly just pretending to be worthwhile. There are some great drippers on the market, especially the M-Atty from MEB Mods and the upcoming dripper from Matthew Eaton. But for the most part (and to most of the public), there's the unwashed Chinese 3-post garbage that's being pumped out in infinite quantities every week.

In terms of Chinese tanks - I still stand by the Aspire Atlantis. The original design with either the Playboy coils or the Atlantis .5 coils (again, the OCC variant of the originals). They really knocked it out of the park the first time out. Otherwise, I'm a fan of the Kanger Subtank.

Anyway, I'm starting this thread so you can ask me questions. Juice, atties, mods, whatever, I can probably answer it. I live in this culture now, often to my chagrin, so I'm intimately familiar with fucking everything about it. Hell, if you want something weird, I can probably find it for you, and if not, one of my stores or distributors almost certainly can.

So, I guess, ask me anything.

Where were you with this thread a week ago? I just shelled out for a new set of rigs, a Ola X Hero 30 (stainless) and a E-LVT 2.0 (solid hunk of zinc you can run over with a truck, literally, with an integrated silicone outer body). Went with a couple of Subtanks on your recommendation (and a grab bag of different coils, as well as a pack of RBA's). Subtank Plus/V2, I know it's freaking huge (25mm) but so are both of those rigs.

Still have a bunch of iClear30 cores to work my way through, I'll probably use the Subtanks with the Ola, and use up the iClears with the E-LVT at home (for some reason, I can not train myself to keep track of where I put my rig when I'm at home, constantly having it hit the floor). I thought about a couple of the LiPo based models (LiPo is just a better chemistry, safer and much more tolerant of high-C applications), may still pick up a mini-iStick for stealth use. But in general I dislike integrated, unchangeable batteries in any device that I might want to use a few years down the line. I had to fire up the old Vamo V5 the other day, when I couldn't find my ZNA50 or V6, it's almost three years old and would have been in brick mode with an integrated battery.

Now, tell me how I wasted my money.

--Dave (spoilering images for bigness)

I was at Vape Summit in Houston protecting my crown. I'll read through this in bed. I didn't expect a response til morning.

Any subtank is fine. The mods are whatever. If I was buying a "cheap" mod today right now it would be the IPV D2. Unfortunately China has yet to discover the 26650 form factor.

Looks like there are a few 26650-based regulated models on FastTech, ignoring the tube models (which are mostly just a standard 18650 tube mod with a bigger battery tube grafted on) there's the the Athena Smart 60 (https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10013629/2353900-athena-smart-60pb-vw-variable-wattage-apv-box-mod), which looks like an over-stuffed version of a fistpack mod, and the Vippo 70 (https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10017297/3527600-authentic-vippo-70w-tc-vw-variable-wattage-apv), which is your basic brick.

But I don't do sub-ohm, even when setting up dual coils on an RBA I start with 2.4ohm welded wires. If you don't need to draw more than 3-4 amps, a single 18650 is plenty.

--Dave

EDIT: One thing I do like is that usb-cable charging is becoming standard, so you only need to change the battery if you let it drain all the way, or it wears out.

Unfortunately, with something like a 26650 battery, you want something that has fantastic power delivery, which would wreck the battery life in most cases, but you can abuse the battery life of something like this: https://www.imrbatteries.com/efest-imr-26650-4200mah-40a-60a-3-7v-rechargeable-flat-top-battery/

Here's a readily available mod, which while a bit on the pricey side and not exactly small, is exactly the chip you want paired with a 26650: http://www.thefridaymorning.com/mustang-j2-60w/

The big issue with China isn't the construction these days, but rather their lack of access to the official SX350J and DNA200. Also they have absolutely no access to the AULUS or Dicodes. Hell, I don't even have access to those yet, but I will soon ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All of that aside, I remember you saying you vaped pretty high MG. That's an option. But then, vaping low mg low ohms in something that basically huffs liquid is also an option. Below is one of my mods. It is a DNA40 single 18650 that I run a subtank on (Kanger) and get about 4-5 hours battery life at 28.0 watts. This is roughly the size of an IPV D2, except the D2 has a different chip (who knows what chip). Anyway, I can't recommend this sort of setup enough.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39720/VAPOR/MISC/gemwood_size.png)

Also, don't buy tanks and coils from Fasttech. I know you're trying to be budget or whatthefuckever, but China is still not to be trusted when it comes to putting things in your mouthhole.

I'd rather buy 'Authentic' cores from FastTech (which does a pretty good job of verifying their sources on those) than buy from a US vendor that may be doubling up their profits by passing off knockoffs (as far as I know, nobody in the US is manufacturing cores for anything). But I get your concerns, it's an issue for the same reasons I buy my juice from US vendors, and why I'm going to go ahead and trying my hand at winding my own with a set of RBA cores for the Subtank.

And yeah, I'm still running at 25 mg (about 20 after flavors). I would probably die of a heart attack at 30 watts.

--Dave

You're insane.

(http://i.imgur.com/Y3fb1bI.jpg)

Seriously, it works for me. Makes it a lot easier to vape in places that technically have policies against it (like my classes), if I am not blowing a cloud that immerses the entire row in a fog bank the instructors generally just ignore it. Being able to go most of a day on 3ml and a day and a half on a battery doesn't hurt my feelings, either. At 8-9.5 watts, I'm probably getting about the same nicotine per puff as you are.

--Dave

There's no part of 25mg that isn't crazy to me. And oh god the taste. Like huffing black pepper.

Says the man who is still licking ashtrays with tobacco flavors. I kind of like that 'zing!', the way that coffee drinkers find that just the taste of of coffee makes them perk up. I'm not taking direct lung hits huffer style, I go mouth to lung like I am dragging on a real cig. So it's not an issue.

--Dave

ಠ_ಠ

I hate tobacco, Screwbacco is just special and was sitting next to me. It's absurdly good. Possibly one of the best juices I've ever had. And given I don't pay for juice, from anybody, that's pretty high praise.

Given that I derailed this thread into me and you sniping over flavor vs. function, how about I play interlocutor properly and ask a question: What's up with the chip variants? I know 'rattle' from low-hertz PWM is an issue, but I really have no idea beyond that.

--Dave

You know, the biggest difference between chips only really reveals itself (in practical application) through coil longevity, flavor, and battery life. The SX350 had/has marginally less battery life than a DNA40, due to how it ramps up to the wattage you've set, for example. Of course, by nuking that ramp up time, the SX350 also plain old makes shit taste better, because it's not slowly boiling your juice.

I don't have enough experience with the weird new chips (yet), but I've got about 35 mods all with various forms of Evolv and Yihiecigar product in them. While the Yihi are all using inferior pretty garbage Chinese parts, their means of delivering power and software behind them is simply better. Well, better than everything other than the DNA200 which gives you control over all this shit - and has a whole new set of problems (like really requiring a 3 cell Lipo to be useful at all).

I started vaping in July, and based on your recommendation went with the Kanger Subox Mini. I was a pack-pack and a half a day smoker for 20 years. I bought my subox at 11am that day, had one more smoke, and haven't been tempted one time since to smoke again. I vape 1 tank of 2-3mg 70/80 vg juice on a .5 vertical coil a day. After 4 months my kanger is showing some signs of heavy use. The finish is chipping off around the bottom, but this is cosmetic and not a problem for me. The tank glass has a tiny chip in it near the seal, that doesn't leak. I know this can be fixed with a $4-5 new piece of plastic. However the big problem I have is that the front usb port has become loose and frequently the  cable will pop out and stop charging if it is bumped at all and passthru mode is no longer viable.

I've started looking at the various mod boxes, but there's a ton of them to go through. I'm happy with the kanger atomizers and will likely go with another subtank, but have no idea what mod I should go for. I don't mind spending $200 bucks for something more industrial that will last a long time. The other option I guess is just buying a kbox every 6 months. (oh and I vape mostly fruity flavors if it matters, who would of thought that after 20 years of smoking what I really wanted to do was smoke jolly ranchers)

I like this post and will respond to it tomorrow.

And yea, vaping candy is the shit. *huffs lemonbar*

Kanger is kind of the current standard for tanks. There are other options out there I like more, but they require absurd power to drive. The CCI Triforce is a shockingly good tank, but even on the .5 coil you have to shove 80 watts into it, which requires both specific gear and sucks the shit out of a battery.

My personal favorite is still the original Aspire Atlantis but it's all but impossible to find these days, which is weird since it came out less than a year ago ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The upcoming Kanger Nebox looks swank, but honestly, the Subox is still a pretty good box. The IPV D2 uses a slightly better chip than the Subox is you're looking for a sort of parallel upgrade in the same price range. Another option would be the eSquare DNA200. You'd probably get a solid 2 days out of a single battery charge on it, but then it needs actual charging, as it uses a LiPO.

A new $50 box every 6 months isn't the worst thing ever though, if normal wear and tear is fucking it up. That's gonna happen with almost any Chinese box. If you upped your price range to $300, I could get you into a Psyclone Evo in a few months, which is going to be a seriously nice DNA200 with a fat ass battery in it. But I don't see a major reason for doing that.

The only upside to a DNA200 is you can fire literally any atty you pick up.

In short, no reason to change what you're doing, but there are options out there.

For a counterpoint, since I switched to "stainless or stfu", durability of my FastTech  knockoffs hasn't been an issue. Stainless is heavy, but it is also effectively indestructible.  And when I buy tanks, they are either polycarb and aluminum (disposable), or stainless and glass (and I buy spare glass and o-rings). I bought two Subtank V2's ($56) and 5 spare sets of rings and glass (added another $4-5).

You should always have a spare rig, even if it is just your old rig (and you upgraded while it still worked). Having to lick ashtrays because you broke or lost your only rig sucks.

--Dave

Thanks for the responses. If i get great vapes out of my subox between 28-32w, what do you think about me looking for a DNA 40 with an all metal case? Would I be correct in assuming that there are going to be deals on them now that the DNA 200 is out? Also, is the Psyclone Evo better in any way than the Lavabox 200 or the Efusion DNA 200, or is it just $130 worth of bling? (300 vs 170ish) What box mod is that in your picture that has Wap Wide labeled on it? I like the wood and metal look (if that's what it is). I tried googling wap wide and couldn't figure out what that was. I'm leaning towards getting something above the $50 china box, but mostly like you said, just because I want to.


Starting a different question. is there anyone that does video reviews that's not a raving douche-bag?

Oh. You don't want to fuck with a Wap Wide. Mostly because it's exorbitantly priced and nearly impossible to actually buy (from Wapari in Finland, like $850?). Anyway, Psyclone is a dude out of uhhhh I don't remember where, making an expensive (all things considered) but mass market DNA200 device using a pretty good battery and far better design than the eSquare or Lavabox. It's also going to be insanely rugged (all Stainless steel chassis, top to bottom, relatively seamless).

There's a bunch of photos here: https://www.facebook.com/PsycloneEvo

Honestly, I struggle with the idea of a "high end" vaping market, especially since the FDA/Left is about to kick us in the literal babymaker.

But once you get past the $99-$299 range, you move into the "high end." Just to give you a more wide picture of what's out there, I've pictured some mods below with their "retail price" in parentheses. And no, you don't need to point out how insane this market is, I am intimately aware.

In a world where the FDA fucks up literally everything, shortly before the SERIOUS shit goes into effect I will make a post here about where to buy good nicotine, flavoring, etc despite the fact it would fully undermine my business.

Wizard Labs is my go-to for nicotine base liquid, either Lor Ann or Capellas for flavorings (most e-juice makers use Capellas, as they use a PG base and Lor Ann uses water). Avoid anything that is buttery flavored (makes various forms of chemical nastiness when vaporized), and skip actual natural oils unless you both know what you're doing and don't mind having to dispose of cores/coils early.

I have no clue about tobacco extracts, don't like to lick ashtrays. Anyway, the shape of the way the FDA has approached this makes it clear they're going to go after anything with sweet flavors, which apparently only children are supposed to like. We're probably going to see a framework oriented around disposable cartomizers that can be distributed and taxed like traditional cigarettes, and the only open question is just how hard they're going to clamp down on the various bits of the legacy supply chain.

My bet is that they're going to fuck all of the e-juice makers sideways, with rules that nobody but the tobacco majors can afford to comply with, that basically mean that if your juice doesn't taste like a mix of ass sweat and tobacco, you're trying to recruit children and must be punished. There will probably be a push to force it into the same tax structure as every normal 'tobacco product' (which will mean too much compliance cost for the existing suppliers). They may also put controls on nicotine base fluids, which is why I stockpiled a lifetime supply of 10%.  Unlikely they will actually prohibit importation or manufacture of all the various forms of gear, although they may push to have it classed and treated the same as drug paraphernalia.

--Dave

There are gonna be so many loopholes that exist and lawsuits that get thrown at them before anything goes into effect that I'm not particularly concerned myself, it'll just be weird for a bit.

In my four years of vaping I've found like three juices I like. Vapor train Choo Choo crunch, andromeda from spacejam, and I just found milkman churrios. Almost everything else tastes like soap or ass to me. I need to grab a aspire but love my kanger vertical coils. They last forever.

As for the high mg at 6.5w or so. I totally get it. I used to go through a ton less juice when I did that. My body regulates my intake.

I love Choo Choo Crunch. Was the first juice I loved, actually.

But I love Crunch (from me) more.

I go through less than a liter per year, I mix up a new pair of 30ml bottles every 3 weeks or so. I started back in the stone ages of vaping when there were literally no options for buying juice, for the first few weeks I had to use that nasty brown Chinese shit, then I got a little 25% from Nerf and that lasted until I could snag a big batch when Johnson Creek was dumping their 6%. Went 3 years on the 2.5 liters I made from that. Now I have literally a lifetime supply of 10% set aside, and it cost me less than 1 year of cigarettes.

I like mixing my own, playing around with different combinations, adding drops of stuff like wintergreen, clove, or amaretto. Sometimes the results are nasty, I learned the hard way that clove plus banana cream is a passible imitation of dirty gym shorts, for example.

--Dave

I thought you got the straight 75mg/ml from me way back when?
I'm too lazy to make my own juice these days, hell I think I still have ~2l of 75mg/ml base in one of my cabinets.

How long does nicotine juice last in the raw state? Can I buy myself a 30 year supply and never have to worry again?

Depends on how it is stored, what it is suspended in, and exposure to light and oxygen. I keep my bulk base (10% Nic in Propylene Glycol) in the freezer (the -10 Fahrenheit freezer otherwise used for long term food stores, not the 20-25 degree regular freezer), and wrapped in paper as well as being sealed in heavy plastic and having been delivered in brown 500mm Boston Rounds I've never opened. My current liter or two "mix base" (unflavored 2.5% in about 30-35% vegetable glycerin) is kept in 1 liter double-sealed plastic bottles (labware rated for mild acids and solvents) and also kept in the freezer. And a 250mm squeeze bottle is kept refrigerated, although it wouldn't probably degrade much in the 3-4 months it is in use for.

I once used up a liter over the course of a year with no refrigeration without noticing any significant changes, but I didn't have the equipment for testing it. Chemists I've talked to have told me that under worst case conditions (exposure to light, vegetable glycerin, room temperature storage, constant replacement of fresh air) that nicotine could degrade by half over the course of a year, but stored the way I do they would be surprised if it lost more than a tenth of its potency over 20 years.

Vegetable glycerin at room temperature has potential bacterial issues, PG is more stable and biologically inactive. Nicotine itself is vulnerable to light and oxygen. Lower temperatures stop the bacterial factors and slow the chemical ones. If I were being super cautious I might repack the base liquid to eliminate all air in the bottles, but I think I am better off leaving it sealed.

--Dave

Edit: I also have big "POISON" labels on all of this, with the relevant concentration and dates noted. In addition to having three layers of plastic sealing, the kids old enough to find their way to the bottom of the meat freezer have had it explained to them exactly why they should leave it alone. But access by children, especially to high-strength liquid (lethal dose of nicotine for an adult is around 120mg) is definitely something you need to watch out for.

So it sounds like the solution is to have you store my potential 30 year supply... :P

So, worse case deeming regs go through the way they were proposed.

It'll still be possible to buy all the disparate parts and make it yourself. They can't regulate that. And with a few laboratories beginning to get it from eggplant and tomato, you're pretty much peachy.

It's gonna be more important - assuming again, FDA regs stay the same - to stock up on coils and coil building supplies if that's your jam.

I've been ordering hundreds on hundreds of coils lately. But not because of the FDA regs, rather - if I like an atty and that company freaks the fuck out and closes down, I want to have my coils.

Am I reading the deeming regulation (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-04-25/pdf/2014-09491.pdf) wrong? Because as written, it seems to exclude 'accessories' unless those accessories specifically include a 'tobacco product', IOW they would only apply to products that are pre-loaded with juice (such as disposable cartomizers) and to the juice itself. All of the various bits, including cores and resistance wire, would be beyond their purview as not being food or drug items (nor being explicitly manufactured or marketed as 'medical devices').

--Dave

EDIT: I mean, I got the RBA cores for the subtanks as a hedge against exactly that scenario, but I considered it a low-probability outcome, and something that would happen way down the line, if at all.

There's some legal mumbo jumbo in there that gives them domain over not only accessories but also various weed accessories because they can be used in vaping.

The original deeming regs are absolutely fucking insane and must be stopped. It gives them authority over 0mg juice also.

Mahrin, given how you vape you may want to look into the Pax Juul.

5% is a little strong even for me, and getting locked into a disposable cartomizer system is the opposite of what I want.

--Dave

You can refill them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7o-Sm5zuTc

Edit: Please don't get 50mg all over your hands, k.

So, my wife asked about what I was doing to prevent popcorn lung from vaping, as she got some scare email from someone at her school....I told her I wasn't smoking vegetable oil instead of vegetable glycerin. Gotta love people who are idiots and decide to DIY..

Did you ask her what she was doing to promote truth in media? /snarl

Edit: Also, wait, what? Vegetable oil? What horseshit got sent around now?

It's diacetyl, which is used to make flavorings taste 'buttery'. The reason I tell everyone to stay away from anything butter flavored, we've known it was a bad thing to use for flavors since 2009. Apparently some juice makers didn't get the word, as they were able to find 51 butter flavored juices to test, 49 turned out to have diacetyl in them.

Don't think anyone has actually reported getting popcorn lung from vaping yet, but it was good for some really scary FUD.

--Dave

Edit: Wikipedia article on the disease (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans). Actually named "Popcorn Workers Lung" because it first showed up in workers that were making microwave popcorn, appears they (whoever is actually behind this bit of black PR) altered the name to make it even scarier. As you'd expect, it appears that it takes extremely high levels of exposure to create the condition, something they don't mention in the articles.

No one likely to get broncholitis obliterans from vaping. Shit shows up in cigarettes at hundreds of times the levels of vaping. There's a piss poor strawman argument saying COPD covered popcorn lung, but it doesn't. It's a different thing altogether. Not to mention a total of eight workers, working with both the powdered substance and liquid substance, developed it. ON TOP OF THAT, we don't know if those workers smoked or what other conditions they worked under.

The worst thing you can do for vaping is promote fear. Fear based on awful reporting from Harvard, whoever. It's horseshit. Top to bottom.

Telling people to stay away from diacetyl because some horseshit happened with the equivalent to flavor coal miners is absurd at best.

Everyone needs to stop being an asshole.

Diacetyl has some nasty carcinogenic breakdown products, at temperatures in the normal range for vaping. Not as bad as the formadehydes you get from scorched VG, but still not good and almost certain to be prohibited by the FDA even if they merely do their job (instead of being Big Tobaccos bagmen).

--Dave

And with this, I'm leaving this line of conversation.

What? It's not pure FUD, it does happen, just at temperatures far higher than anyone would actually run a rig at (because that shit rips your throat raw).

You've been too immersed in the FUD storm, dude. There's a thin thread of actual truth being misrepresented, you can't just dismiss it out of hand or it looks like you're as careless about consumer safety as they are trying to paint.

These guys are the original masters of FUD science, turned to black PR.

--Dave

So, after about a year of trying to quit smoking (my GF hates the smell/taste) I decided to try out the VUSE e-cig stuff from RJ Reynolds. It just happened to be in a gas station, I did no real research on anything...just went for it. I like it well enough that I will probably never go back to smoking, but I'm sure I'm getting raped on the cost of them. Any advice on a more cost effective beginning vaper setup? Long ago Nerf sent me some stuff in a trade for some Eve online shit, I think.... but that's lost and would have been very old anyway. I remember it being pretty harsh on my throat, though.

This
http://www.kangeronline.com/products/kanger-subox-mini-starter-kit?variant=1902068484 (http://www.kangeronline.com/products/kanger-subox-mini-starter-kit?variant=1902068484) Where ever you can get it for the best price.
Add
http://www.kangeronline.com/products/kanger-stainless-steel-organic-cotton-coil?variant=9185586373 (http://www.kangeronline.com/products/kanger-stainless-steel-organic-cotton-coil?variant=9185586373) Also where ever the price is cheapest.

Then buy which ever flavor juice interests you, I suggest starting around 6mg nicotine. Move up or down on nicotine based on harshness or desired feeling. Although I really think 6mg in that rig is perfect.

Set the power on the subbox to 25w, then adjust up or down in small increments till you get the right throat feel, although you probably wont need to adjust it.

Edit: If somebody talks you into the usual starter pen style tanks and cheap batteries you will end up upgrading to something like I listed over time anyways, so might as well start with the decent stuff and save yourself the money on the cheap crap most people start with.

That's a great setup Pennilenko posted and is what I am currently using. There are a few things I would point out that a newcomer to vaping probably needs to hear with using this kit though. First off make sure you are buying and using the 0.5 ohm coils if you're vaping at 25w. The starter kit comes with one 0.5 ohm coil and one higher, I believe it is 1.5, but it might be a 2 ohm coil. You will hate life if you pop a high ohm coil in at 25w. I would also strongly suggest saturating the coil with juice and then letting it sit for five minutes or so any time you put a new coil in. I find if I don't do this I get really dry hits at first and sometimes burn out the coil very quickly.

Also the kit doesn't come with batteries. You'll need 18650 rechargeable batteries and a charger for them, I'd recommend something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Intsun%C2%AE-4000mah-Rechargeable-Flashlight-Headlamps/dp/B00MTFEBCW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1455725629&sr=8-4&keywords=18650+rechargeable+batteries
The higher the mAh, the longer the battery lasts between charges.

I have a Subbox mini and 25 watts seems excessive. I use mine at 14 watts on a .5 ohm coil. I don't like hot vapor, tho, which I hear is rare. My only caveat with the subbox mini is that the RBA (rebuildable atomizer), while moderately easy to work with for RBAs, is a bit of a fiddly for someone just starting out. If you don't get the cotton in there right it piddles all over the place like a newborn puppy.

I would also suggest an Ego One http://www.joyetech.com/product/ego-one/ Its not as expensive and is highly portable, which I find is a must for a new 'quitter'. The coils are fairly cheap and easy to find.

The power ratings on the Subox are really iffy at best - at 14 watts it SHOULD barely be firing the .5 ohm vertical coils. I recommend a Kanger Top Tank (which is just an easier to refill Subtank), SSOCC Kanger .5 ohm coils, and a Vape Forward Stout (26650 batteries are best batteries - eFest Dark Purple 4200 mah are a good place to start - imrbatteries.com).

Schild, now often do you have to replace these SSOCC Kanger .5 ohm coils? Maybe I should switch to these prebuilt coils rather than doing the cotton RBA thing that often leaks. I take it that they are compatible with a 'regular' subbox mini)

Depends on the juice (amount of sweetener or ethyl maltol, etc), how much you vape, and what wattage. I run .5s at between 28.5 and 30.5 on DNA devices, around 29w on SX350/330/350j devices. I get between 2 and about 7 days.

I never build my own coils on chinese atties. They're basically universally garbage. Prebuilt is 100% worth it if you don't mind spending the coin.

So basically we have two years to enjoy ecigs now?

2 years, 2 months, 29 days. But yeah. It's a bit of a mess at the moment.

And everything after the first 89 days is frozen, there won't be new product.

Nows the time for "Opps All Berries!"

I don't know any of what's been said around the vaping scene regarding health risks since I don't care, but as more and more data becomes available vaping appears to be only marginally better for your health than smoking, and even then pretty much only your lungs since you're not inhaling actual smoke.

Oh fuck off. All you know is the tiny bit of shit that leaked into your general vicinity.

You're being very cranky the last day. You're welcome to be as angry and snappy at me as you want but that doesn't change any part of the reality.

Did you open up a vaping shop or something?

He's been making a living off of vaping for the last 3-4 years. According to some other stuff he's said, he's "the guy" when it comes to some segment or another. I don't follow enough to know details.

I imagine he's ultra cranky after the FDA announced they'll be legislating Vaping and Cigars the same as cigarettes yesterday afternoon. I half expected to hear him on NPR during the piece.

Based on real-world observations, vaping is far less unhealthy than smoke inhalation.  I don't have any further comments on this that are not already obvious to most people.

I saw the reports and immediately thought about schild. It was also a matter of time, because the government always steps in on stuff like this. Or daily fantasy, or liquor, or anything they think is fun.

Yep. Fun = profit.

Profit = more lines of tax revenue.

If we were a bit saner as a nation we'd just pay via a lump sum from wages & investment incomes vs. the million papercuts of the current system. But that's wayyy off topic.

I'm curious what those are. I'm only going by my monthly meeting with the county public health department, weekly meetings with the ADM board, and peer reviewed journal articles.

With the increase over the past decade in alternate nicotine delivery systems more studies have been being done on the effects of nicotine by itself. Previous belief was that nicotine alone was addictive, but it was the byproducts of cigarette combustion and the crap in tobacco that caused the actual health problems. Advances in medicine, science, and increased research are indicating that the nicotine itself has significant effects on acetylcholine receptors and activating genes that can cause cancer and suppressing ones that can prevent it. I'm sure I don't have a perfect understanding of some of the high level studies, maybe Nebu can add something is what I've said is incorrect.

Is it less unhealthy than smoking? Sure. By how much? No one actually knows yet. this hasn't been studied for very long yet, and cancers aren't like studying a bacterial disease. But that's not saying a whole lot that something is less unhealthy than one of most unhealthy things you can do that doesn't outright kill you.

As far as this making his living off of vaping, sorry that he's being effected.

Bob, given the complete lack of meaningful peer reviewed studies without a political or financial agenda, I imagine what you know could fit in the dimple of a thimble.

I'm not gonna sit hear and pretend it's safer than breathing air, unless we're in Shanghai or Mexico City or Alberta, but what's happening is the FDA has decided that any product on the market post 02/15/2007 needs to go through a process to determine its as safe if not safer than cigarettes.

Think about that. I have to prove that my products are safer than what is likely the most unsafe recreationally legal thing EVER CREATED.

So yea, I'm fucking sour. So fuck off with your layman fucking worthless knowledge of the market you little monkey.

If the observations are what was requested, it basically amounts to obvious health improvements of close friends who were able to quit the cancer sticks via nicotine vaporizers.  In less than a month, even.

Studies on the safety of nicotine are as likely to be objective as studies on the safety of corn products.  So, I'll ignore that shit while I sit content in what I've observed with my own eyes.  Also my own lungs.

This is a little old, but it's a place to start the discussion.  Vaping and Health (http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a244/?utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=122-a244)


There are actually quite a solid number of peer reviewed studies.  They're just in journals that most people don't have access to.  Go to pub med (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) and search for yourself.  Keep in mind that research takes time to conduct and publish.  We're still in the infancy of this research.

Here is a good quote to express how scientists and physicians currently feel as a consensus

Yeah, of course you're going to see and feel almost immediate health improvements switching from cigarettes to vaping, you're not inhaling smoke anymore. So you're not going to have the effects of inhaling smoke anymore. But you're still getting the nicotine. I'm not even factoring in whatever the fluid is or if any part of it is made in China or not. But not having the short term effects of smoke inhalation is not the same as not having long term effects from the nicotine. I don't know what else to tell you. Less unhealthy than smoking? Sure. By how much? Who knows, and watching your friends or how you feel for the last year is no real indication. But at least you don't have the problems breathing smoke causes.

Look, I'm sorry that the market aspect of this is causing you grief. I don't know or care about the "market" and hobby side of it. If you're on the hardware side of things, I don't think the FDA should be involved in that part at all, though the FDA is in charge of regulating respiratory humidifiers as far as I know. The fluid side is a different matter. Nicotine is one of the most addictive things on the planet and the vapor is being drawn straight into the lungs, an organ that's super easy to fuck up. I don't know what testing processes your product has to go through, but they're probably way too expensive and comprehensive if the purpose is just to make sure it's safer than cigarettes. Honestly, just having paperwork that the ingredients are safe for human consumption should be enough.

But okay, I'll fuck right off with my layman fucking worthless knowledge of the market and my equally worthless license and education as an addictive substance detox nurse.

Nicotine aside, the worst thing would be the flavoring.  That's a varied landscape.  Don't get anything that is butter-flavored.

God, even the butter flavoring issue is up for debate, given that cigarettes had many, many times the amount of diacetyl etc.

But regardless, I don't care about having this debate here considering I'm having it everywhere else.

Embrace the debate.  Vaping is an improved drug-delivery vehicle.   :grin:

Claiming that it is better is correct.  By your own admission about the lack of available studies, we can't claim that it is 'safe' until more research data comes in.

The people I know are no longer burning any leaves for anything.  Which I feel is an improvement.

I never use butter flavoured anything... even those microwave popcorns and stuff.  Bleh.  In my e-cig I only use various coffee and tobacco flavours.  The only thing that could make me give up my vaping is constant more better free pot.

So they're dabbing too?

Not googling that.

It's not anything perverse or disgusting. It's the newest, most awesome weed concentrate thing. It's making THC concentrate wax.

You take a tube about 4-5 inches in diameter, preferably metal.
Rubber band a coffee filter over the bottom end.
Stuff it full of weed. Cap off the top end, Have a small hole in the cap.
Empty a big can of butane into the top of the tube through the whole.
Butane goes through the tube and pulls every tiny bit of thc out of every part of the weed.
Butane/THC solution collects into a glass baking pan under the coffee filter end.
Heat the baking pan to evaporate out butane without setting off the butane.
Low quality wax is cloudy and lumpy. heating the pan to evaporate the butane is the last step for this stuff. Some butane remains in the product. People around here call it "booger". Because it looks like boogers.
High quality wax has the the last remaining butane removed by continuing to heat the product in a vacuum. No butane remains and the product is smooth and clear. People here call it "glass" or sometimes "amber". Because it looks like glass or amber.

Fig. 1: "Glass" compared to "booger"

(http://animalnewyork.com/wp-content/uploads/cannabis_dabs_wax_animalny.jpg)

The final product has about 10 times the THC content of the equivalent weight of weed. People who've used it say that trying to get high off of regular weed is impossible afterward. Like trying to get drunk off of a beer after building up tolerance to bottles of hard liquor.

The post processing stipped weed is probably dried out, mixed with a small amount of unprocessed weed and sold to gradeschoolers who won't know it's shit.

And the best part is yes, you can smoke it in a "rig" or whatever the fuck those things are called.

Or you can just press wax out of weed with a hair iron and parchment paper.

It's also not that new.

It's also not impossible to get high on regular weed afterward.

Also it has varying levels of THC content.

Bob, for a addictive substance detox nurse you should really brush up on you know, addictive substances.

(http://i.imgur.com/clFsNg7.gif)

You could, it's supposed to even taste better. But BHO is easier, faster, and stronger. If you're making dab for yourself rosin works fine. I'f you're a dealer, supplier, or just want a ton of the the shit then BHO is better all the way around.

2003 isn't new, but it's the newest model of Ford Escort. As far as I know BHO is newer than any other process.

I'll take your word for it. I don't smoke anything, especially not illegal drugs that every company on the planet tests for. Impossible was a poor choice of words on my part. Like if you can drink a fifth of vodka and not get drunk you could probably still get drunk on enough beer.

Of course it does. lower content in, lower content out. It doesn't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. But the factor of concentration in the final products are constant if the process is.


Okay, will do. But we don't treat cannabis addiction here. Heroin and Alcohol only, stuff that's actually addictive. Because really, what sort of weak-minded degenerate gets addicted to weed to the point where they need hospitalization to stop. Seriously.

(http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201519/rs_500x281-150209094336-prince.gif)

Actually, I believe this is: http://herb.co/2016/04/29/dragon-balls/

But I could be wrong, all of my research is centered around dodging FDA overreach.


I think the same of alcohol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, but alcoholism became a disease in my lifetime.

Pretending your knowledge extends to vaping or nicotine is ridiculous at best though. Your job doesn't completely entrench you in that garbage. Mine does.

Okay, that's new to me. It's also super pretty. I wonder if it's something anyone can do at home though.


Are you a vampire? Alcoholism became an "official" AMA disease in the 50's but was known well before that. Dr. Bob founded AA in the 30's and even then it had been around a while. Alcohol is also one of the only addictive substances where the symptoms of withdrawal can kill you by themselves and not just make you wish you were dead.


I made it pretty clear that I know fuckall about vaping. But that doesn't nicotine. We had papers to do in just about every class on smoking and how it affected patients that particular discipline. My job doesn't entrench me vaping in general or vaping nicotine. But it doesn't really have too, inhaled nicotine is inhaled nicotine. One of the things my job does do is require is I keep up with 20 credits a year of education to keep my license. It also gives me access to all sorts of information that laymen don't have and be able to understand it. All I said is that Vaping is probably safer than smoking, but how much is unknown. It's still being studied and there's a lot more time required compared to how long vaping has become popular. You don't have the products of burning tobacco, which is good. But nicotine by itself is still a poisonous alkaloid that's entirely capable of killing a grown adult in pretty small doses. How damaging having that circulate through your body and then having it's metabolites sitting in your bladder is what's unknown.

I'm not presenting myself as an expert, but it's also not as if I'm saying anything that wasn't beat into our heads in college or some stuff I picked up googling some random website. The guys I game with at the LGS all vape now instead of smoking. Which is probably better than smoking. But they also seem to think that it's as risk free as drinking coffee. Which it probably isn't. Just trying to make people aware is all.

Bob, I'm wondering how you expect this pissing match to end well for you? Or is this just your way of forcing your exit, rather than just no longer posting here, like a normal person?

Because anybody who didn't like a good slapfight as much as Schild does would probably have already bounced you.

--Dave

I wasn't aware that we were having any sort of fight. I know he's pretty pissed about the situation, which is totally understandable. I didn't think I was writing anything that could be considered confrontational. Well, okay, the vampire thing sort of was but I thought it was funny enough to my self to write it. But otherwise? I haven't even used profanity. 

But if we're having a pissing contest it's been too low key for me to realize it. I figured if he was that cheezed about it he'd come right out and tell me to STFU. *shrugz*

Er, hate to interrupt Bob's daily affirmation time, but can we get back on to this new legislation?

I know Schild has probably researched this more than anyone, and I would like to hear from him as to how it'll impact us vapers and what we can do to prepare in advance for the great undoing.

Short version: We're fucked. Kinda. So is the government for not being more subtle.

Long Version: What the FDA is doing is a massive overreach. They're forcing us into a situation where every company has to spend $1,000,000+ on the same research (for juice) where the goal of the research is to prove that our product is as safe or more safe than traditional cigarettes. If you're scratching your head a that, it's OK, so are we. The concept is absolutely insane.

Much of the regulations are completely reasonable. Age requirements, CRC caps, labeling - all fair game. None of us want kids to vape. We've repeatedly told the government this. Alas, since this is really about recovering money lost from lack of cigarette sales, they don't give a shit.

The real insanity however comes with forcing 0mg and hardware through the same process. First of all, most atties are only as safe as you build them. Much like I could buy a RC car and turn it into a tiny mobile bomb, I can also make an atty or mod SUPER dangerous. But as an individual object, they pose no threat to anybody. As for 0mg and requiring something without nicotine to bear the warning "this is a tobacco product" well, that's a big spot where the government is totally fucked. Lawsuits out the ass are incoming.

So while there was a completely reasonable set of rules they could have put forth, they went for unreasonable, draconian, and prohibitive instead.

Right now, lawsuits (some of which are a slam dunk in front of a barely friendly-to-our-cause judge) are guaranteed. But the real silver bullet is Tom Cole's agricultural appropriation's amendment and HR 2058. The former of those two items completely nukes the deeming regulations from orbit and carves vapor products into its own category. Unfortunately, old people in congress (and the house) are giant fucking retards that are either bought or willfully ignorant. HR2058 will probably never get voted on. In the words of many lawyers, both are huge hail mary bills and things are pretty grim.

Much like a prisoner who learns to be a better criminal, they have turned the vape industry into big tobacco. Their mistake was not realizing that we're willing to spend just as much as BT in court.

Here is the full text of the amendment: https://cole.house.gov/sites/cole.house.gov/files/documents/COLE_AgApprops_amendment.pdf

Finally, Bob, if you weren't so fucking amazingly wrong on every level, your posts wouldn't be so bothersome. Inhaled nicotine isn't inhaled nicotine. It's not that black and white. Inhaled nicotine in the absence of ALL THE OTHER SHIT found in cigarettes is a wildly different animal. The regular lifespan of a vaper is limited compared to a smoker. Not to mention vapers decrease their nicotine intake at a rapid fucking rate pretty organically. As a company, for every bottle of 12 MG, we sell 4.3 bottles of 6mg. For every bottle of 6mg we sell 1.97 bottles of 3mg (numbers have increased towards lower nicotine content as technology improves and vapers decrease usage). Also we watch sales drop off in areas as people stop vaping, and increase in others as smokers pick it up.

Like I said, you know fucking nothing. You may know a thing or two about cigarette addiction, which is the typical delivery of nicotine but diluted nicotine in a relatively harmless delivery method hasn't been looked at closely by people much, much smarter than you or anyone you know, so its likely none of that knowledge has or will trickle down for years.

The fact that almost none of the research out there has remotely mimicked real world usage just further shows that medical research is simply ill-equipped to keep up with an industry that for the most part is naturally gravitating towards equilibrium in response to every day usage by the general populace. The last 3 or 4 pieces of research I read was using equipment that you can't even buy in most vape shops anymore - and using it poorly I might add.

Thanks for the summary. I expected this shit from nanny state Dems, but this is co-authored by a GOP congressman from Oklahomer, who seems to by the typical jingoistic 'small gummint' dickwad that should, theoretically, not be touching this. Smells like bribery to me.

No, the republicans are firmly on the side of Cole. His amendment made it out of committee pretty easily. The real trick will be the house and senate. I am not worried about Obama. He will not veto the agricultural appropriations bill because of some random rider. Not this year.

Would I be correct in assuming that all of this FDA overreach is a protection for the tobacco growers?  Do you see any correlation between supporters of the legislation and states where tobacco is a dominant crop (i.e. carolinas)?

Personally, I think that vaping is a great thing for nicotine addicts.  It's an obvious improvement over tobacco and should be treated as such. 

I assume tobacco farmer protection plus support from those who benefit(ed) from tobacco taxation.

Nope. All this overreach is for states to not lose all the tobacco money they were getting from cigarettes and misusing as a crutch for their inability to budget.

Taxing ecigs is nigh impossible on a nationwide basis because there's just no reason to, so prohibition is the next best thing. That the FDA, a unit meant to provide a measure of transparency to its regulation, to be so opaque is simply absurd.

Tobacco farmers are fine and will always be fine. Besides, now all the cigarette manufacturers get two uses for tobacco.

I don't know how much tobacco is needed to manufacture nicotine, but I do see that people who vape are using less nicotine over time.  These people want to quit, and if you could have adjusted the nicotine in a cigarette then I think many people would have been doing that for decades.  So, maybe tobacco farmers are OK and maybe not.  They might just be Corn Jr.

Tobacco growth, as a crop, will grow with vaping.

That said, every juice company would prefer to use synthetic nicotine or alternatives when the price comes down.

That makes a lot of sense.  Tobacco settlement money is big in many states as is the tax revenue associated with tobacco.  

Thanks for that.

The real problem is states have been misusing the ever loving shit out of that money since they started getting it. Destroying an emerging market that could completely destroy smoking as we know it for a few bucks is beyond the pale.

(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4469966/bin/srep11269-f2.jpg)

Indeed, it appears that in the absence of having to use tar droplets as a carrier the nicotine is absorbed much faster/easier, maybe a change in the pH or the increased available surface area in alveoli. I'll have to find out why now.

That graph doesn't have nearly enough context and reveals nothing of the method of delivery other than the catchall "vaping."

It's from a pubmed article: Nicotine absorption from electronic cigarette use: comparison between experienced consumers (vapers) and naïve users (smokers) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4469966/). The article has methodology, material, and procedures used.

Here's a simple article (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2953858/) about nicotine metabolization that includes factors that can greatly influence how long it takes. I didn't read it all the way, it might have something about vapers being able to metabolize nicotine faster because there's no competition for the use of enzymes that metabolize nicotine from other things that would be in tobacco smoke that use those same enzymes. If vapers do metabolize nicotine faster there has to be something that explains it. Once it's in a person't body it's going to be metabolized at the same rate regardless of it's source if all other factors are equal.

I don't believe they are considering vaping.  They are looking at NRT, which is nebulized in a pH corrected solution rather than vaporized.

Is anyone else seeing this in the article?

Yes, I don't think it's directly related to vaping. I posted the second article more as a basic information source than anything else. I thought it had a good general overview and also explained the effect pH has on absorption. It just seemed easier to do that than gas on about it for half a dozen more posts where people are going to think I made up basic chemistry and physiology to more effectively shitpost. So now everyone can read all this stuff themselves, plus they have a solid source for medical articles. Anyway, the stuff that juices seem to be made from are on the alkaline side. I don't know if manufacturers lower the pH after mixing or not, it's probably on an company by company basis.

This may have already been answered somewhere else, but has anyone looked to see where the people pushing this are from? There's quite a few States with a vested interest in keeping big tobacco happy. It wouldn't surprise me if they let a grass roots cottage industry do all the legwork in building the market and then push regulations that individuals and smaller companies could never afford, but to RJR, Phillip Morris, and Lorillard are a day's worth of national expense claims.

I don't think any state actually wants big tobacco destroyed, they do want to pretend they do while they get their beaks wet. And it's so much easier when you're collecting taxes from 3 entities instead of 30,000. From that point of view it makes a lot more sense to push out the 30,000 and let the 3 move into the vacuum.

The real problem now is pharma, not the tobacco companies. None of their prescription and NRT stuff works for shit, and vaping is a direct threat to an incredibly profitable niche they've carved out for themselves.

Big Tobacco would find a way to make the new model work for them (they have a rather huge lead on how to distribute and market nicotine delivery systems), but Big Pharma wants it dead.

--Dave

Big pharma already lost their chance at Vaping years back. BT will crush them.

I understand your arguments except this one. Why is taxing ecigs impossible?

Seems like taxing juice would be similar to taxing alcohol.  I don't see the complication either.

Because they'd have to carve out 0mg juice, as well as juice with additives that aren't nicotine. They'd have to consider non-tobacco-derived nicotine.

They'd have to do research.

The FDA has clearly not done research.

That seems impossible for them.

Oh you mean functional government institutions!  :why_so_serious:

It's more than that. There's a fundamental misunderstanding in the FDA of what vaping is and what it isn't. The associations with big tobacco are just positively absurd. Yes BT has products on the market, and yes, they may be the first step for most vapers due to advertising, but their actual pickup and retention rate is awful. This legislation ONLY hurts small businesses and nobody else. It's maddening.

It's not designed to hurt, it's designed to kill.  I'm wondering how many business are getting ready to move to Canada or Mexico.

None. Lawsuits started today. The FDA is literally not going to have the manpower to deal with the size of the vaping industry. When they made it halfway-barely-reasonable for BT to function, they forgot there's 5000+ other businesses, at least 500 of which have a bankroll to severely fuck up their day.

I thought this was an interesting read,

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/e-cigarettes-an-evidence-update (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/e-cigarettes-an-evidence-update)

The 95% safer than cigarettes in a government study is pretty damning evidence....And the no second hand nicotine makes me feel better about smoking around others.

Oh, they absolutely had to ignore every last shred of evidence that's been put forward to come up with this shit.

Schild, are you talking about Katiri's publication or something else? Cuz the UK one seems to close to what I thought was the case.

One manufacturer just filed the first lawsuit: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39720/vapor/FDA/Halo%20E-liquids%20challenge%20to%20CTP%20Deeming.pdf

I mean literally any of the studies. There's been a handful that were done under faulty usage, but otherwise, none of them lend credibility or an insight into the reason to how the FDA is currently treating the industry (which is wholly an economic and tax related issue).

They have "The Vape Attorney"(r)......

It's supposed to, I would imagine. The US Government has never shown a favorable position to small businesses operating in what they would dub "sin taxes" and they likely never will. It's also part of why the general tax burden is heavier on small business than big business, because they don't have the resources to avoid it.

BT can't really avoid it either in this case though. The PMTA process is a bureaucratic nightmare and it takes YEARS for them to process applications. I believe the backlog right now is 3000+ items. It's a great money-making scheme but a terrible pathway to putting a product on the market.

So while BT can afford it, that doesn't solve the actual problem - which is the FDA is a black hole of suck.

Now might be a good time to invest in fog machine manufacturers that are still making their 2007 models.

While close, unfortunately not quite the same technology :/

If only a club out there had put nicotine into one of the strawberry fog machines once.

Some of the mini ones are the exact same technology. I'm not sure they are pre-2007 though.  http://looksolutionsusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/TinyF07C07Vaporizer.pdf (http://looksolutionsusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/TinyF07C07Vaporizer.pdf)

And the product...http://looksolutionsusa.com/products/tiny-fx/ (http://looksolutionsusa.com/products/tiny-fx/)

I will poke around this, but I suspect "intention" is where this falls apart.

These were intended to chuck clouds at a group, but not necessarily intended to be inhaled by any of the spectators.

We're talking about an agency that wants to regulate 18650 batteries as a tobacco product. I can't stress enough that the FDA has lost their fucking mind.

Is this because some of the battries or rigs blew up? What caused the move towards this regulation that they are spouting? Not the real reason, I get that part, I'm just wondering what emotional "think of the children" ploy they are using to sell it to the stupid.

Oh. Kids like flavored things, adults don't. They just want to vape tobacco and sandalwood. Get rid of flavors.

Not kidding. They GENUINELY believe that we make kids flavors to attract kids.

Just kidding, it's because they're losing tobacco money so they'll say whatever the fuck they can to fuck us.

On a positive note, I just picked up a Vanilla Chai flavor that is quite nice.

But seriously, 18650 batteries were used for flashlights and all sorts of other stuff before vaping was even invented.

I also just picked up an Ego AIO and I think its a rather nice starter kit. Pretty cheap too for 27 bucks. Also, I forgot my kit at home so needed an at-work fix, and this was it.

The price is right on the AIO. Only problem I have is with the coils. They're prone to dry hits due to the size of the wick holes on the coil with juice that's higher than 75% PG. Otherwise it's a rad little setup. I have a bunch of the tanks and coils, and they're basically the most no-nonsense tank that has come out.

The obvious solution is to get approval for (unflavored) nicotine base, then disclaim all knowledge and responsibility for what it gets mixed with after that. Then sell 'candy flavor blends' that just happen to be in the right quantities for adding to 30ml of...whatever.

Seriously, there are so many reasons the FDA regs can't work in practice it defies description. Not to mention my deep and abiding interest in organic gardening.

--Dave

I think you are the 1% in the equation. For most people getting a RBA and a mechanical mod for the simplicity once their VW/VV/TC mod dies and having to do actual math to figure out what type of coil to make, and then making their own juice and not having it taste like ass is going to be a big hurdle for most people.

That being said, if the FDA regs come to fruition I'm sure there will be an interesting period of open source mods. Lots of vendors releasing their recipes, or relocating to more favorable locations.  I will say this is the first time I've ever written an elected official in a personal matter, be interesting to see how much difference there is with the speed I got as a member of the press.

They're trying to claim regulatory authority for batteries. That are not only used in flashlights, but in most laptops. For metal wire that can be used for coils. For bits of silica wick you can buy at any craft or hardware store and freaking cotton you can buy by the bag at any drugstore. For voltage/current regulatory circuitry. Never mind that it's way outside of their statutory remit, and almost certainly won't survive challenge. They simply can't possibly apply controls on all of the stuff we can use for hardware, especially if there's even the thinnest fig-leaf of 'alternative use' for it (witness the variety of 'water pipes' for 'herbal blends' in your typical head shop, or the fake roses in glass tubes of a certain size in any urban convenience store).

Back in the old days, we built rigs out of bits of pipe straight out of Home Depot. Compared to the variety of ways we found to turn virtually anything with a battery into a rig, pot-heads and their bongs look outright uncreative.

They can *maybe* put a hammerlock on nicotine fluids, and put the costs of regulatory compliance out of reach for juice makers like Schild. But they have literally zero chance of locking down the whole eco-system the way they are trying to.

The thing is, it's a very thin legal reed they are building all of this on, they have literally zero authority to regulate nicotine as a drug (it would take an act of Congress, and trying to do so without buggering Big Tobacco would be impossible). It's all predicated on their authority to regulate tobacco and its derivatives as agricultural products, and although synthetic nicotine has not been cost-effective to date, that could change. The rest of it? They have no more authority to control that stuff than they have to require the manufacturers of stoves and cookware to get licenses for their products before they can be used to cook food.

--Dave

EDIT: All of this is of largely academic interest to me. I have backup rigs (mechanical and regulated). I have extra Kick modules. I have a few full-on 3rd generation regulatory chipsets. I know how to build a rig with AA batteries, duct-tape, and a soldering iron. I have spare cores and tanks galore, stainless RBA's that need nothing but wire and o-rings to last forever, and a good stock of organic pesticide in the freezer. They could ban everything tomorrow and actually make it stick, and I wouldn't have to go back to cigarettes. But I did all that out of an abundance of caution, not because I actually thought they could make a prohibition stick.

Doomsday Prep for the Vaper.  Write a book, get money.

Fo shizzles. I think schild Mahrin and others may want to provide advice on a set of tank/mod combos that are particularly resilient to wear and easy to build with. Not for drippers but for filthy casual tankers like myself. I've got myself a kanger subbox mini but I don't expect it to last another year of accidental dings and drops, so if you guys know of good, solid pieces that are fairly easy to rebuild coils on, now's the time to proffer that advice. Also, mods that have fewer electronics but stop short of being purely mechanical would probably be good. Survival vaping, so to speak.

You should be able to find a metal tube the same dimensions as the Subtank glass, but the nice thing about the Subtanks is that the glass is just a straight tube, easy to replace and not specific to vaping. The O-rings are also pretty easily replaced (in a pinch an oiled rubber band could do the trick). So the thing to do if you haven't already is to get some RBA cores, the most fiddly bit of the Subtank is that the threads on the RBA core are fairly easy to crossthread and thereby strip. If you ever wanted to drop a few hundred dollars on direct importing, now is the time.

For pure RBA's, I will have to defer to Schild, the ones I have work well enough for me, but they're outdated and probably not even available anymore. And I have no idea how you sub-ohm on mechanicals, although it used to be the only way so it can obviously be done.

As far as rigs go, you can't go too far wrong just ordering a few spares of something like this: 60W Zero Clone, $25-26 (https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10017734/3746701-authentic-sxk-nebula-zero-mini-60w-tc-vw-apv-box). And if you know your way around a soldering iron (or know people who do) a few $10 control boards (https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10010021/3811500-subox-mini-50w-styled-vw-apv-box-mod-control) wouldn't be a bad idea (in addition to repair, you can turn any three NiMH cells or single LiPo cell and an appropriately sized box into a fully regulated rig). And they're no good for sub-ohm, but at $5-6, having a few 15W Kick modules (https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10011166/1670801-authentic-sigelei-variable-wattage-kick-module) is cheap insurance against the Vapocalypse.

They may not be pretty or elegant, but if you're trying to maximize the life of a rig (or a tank), 510 extensions (https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10003955/1563302-510-to-510-adapter-for-e-cigarette) will save the threads a lot of wear and tear.

For your organic gardening needs, roughly $100/liter gets you this awesome all-natural pesticide (https://www.nudenicotine.com/products-page/unflavored-nicotine-base/). The math on how much to get can be a little involved, and of course the high concentration requires getting up close and personal to a potent neuro-stimulant with a LDL50 of about 1 milliliter (10-12 drops). If you want to simplify your life in exchange for lower, ready-to-use concentrations that won't kill you if you rub your eyes, you can order them that way up front (but it will cost you more than doing your own kitchen chemistry, and take up considerably more freezer space). Myself, I get 10% (100mg/ml) in 500ml bottles (100% PG base) that will go directly into the freezer.

--Dave

You don't want a Subox mini. Look, in the short term, I expect the FDA to block all shipments of vape hardware from China. I expect that to start happening regularly this August when the 90 day period is up. If I were buying a shitload of tanks and coils (that obviously don't "go bad"), I would buy a 5-10 Kanger Toptank Minis (22mm Subtank with Top Fill) and hundreds and hundreds of coils. The .5 ohm OCC ones.

For a mod that's just short of mechanical, much to my chagrin, I would recommend a series box with a mosfet. But fuck that. Just buy a case of IPV D4s or some shit. Or an Aspire CF Subohm. Or 50 of them.

The thing to remember though, is this law doesn't hurt people like me in regards to actually vaping. I will always have an endless supply of everything. It really fucks with people like Engels.

Vapers should be up in fucking arms but they are not and it's really aggravating.

Oh, and stainless steel is the ticket for rigs, aluminum if you really have to but it's usually not much cheaper than steel. Don't even think about plastic. Brass is...okay, but it corrodes and you want those threads to last as long as possible, and nothing else comes close to SS for that (so look carefully at those threads on any rig you get, make sure they aren't chromed brass). Fixed central contacts or screws, nothing with a spring in it (any kind of floating pin). The Zero I linked above is all SS exterior, with a fixed pin. The 510-510 extensions can deal with any tanks that don't want to reach the pin, and extend the life of threads if it turns out they weren't steel. Cylinder batteries all the way, unless you feel really confident about your soldering skills a couple of years down the line to replace Li-Po flatpacks (IOW, don't depend on anything that has a fixed battery).

No tanks that need custom glass (if it's not a simple cylinder, it's no good). You can get a Toptank Mini clone (https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10020546/4393102-toptank-mini-styled-sub-ohm-tank-clearomizer) for $15, or the authentic for $24 (https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10004861/4086101-authentic-kangertech-toptank-mini-sub-ohm-tank), you might want 3 or 4. Get a 5-pack or two of mini-RBA cores (https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10020951/4507000-replacement-mini-rba-plus-coil-head-for) as Vapocalypse insurance, and as many cores as you can justify buying (https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10020951/4506800-replacement-coil-head-for-kangertech-toptank-mini).

In the longer run, we'll probably find dodges on how to import this stuff (like the way that people get 2 watt lasers now), and as I said, I really don't see prohibition working out. But for a year or two, it could get harder to get any of this stuff, and it's possible that the FDA will somehow inspire Customs to do a better job of blocking vape bits than they do intercepting weapons-grade lasers. You don't have to go as overboard as I have, especially not if it would create a financial hardship (I've been squirreling this stuff away for years).

--Dave

FDA already has people inspecting vape shipments from China. I have stores that have reported every single one of their shipments in 2016 has been inspected by them :/

So, a small update. There's this company named Johnson Creek ( https://www.johnsoncreeksmokejuice.com/ ). I remember them having some pretty heavy hitters involved and at least ONE previous BT exec. Anyway, about two week ago, in part from prodding by Johnson Creek, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, penned a pretty cute letter to the FDA ( https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/majority-media/johnson-seeks-answers-from-fda-on-burdensome-e-cigarette-regulations ) that can basically be summed up as:

"You asked the vape industry to show their work, now you have to show your work."

They had a deadline of 5:30PM EST YESTERDAY to answer his request. Now, the thing that's REALLY cute, is the Governmental Affairs Committee can really fuck with a budget. The FDA had two options:

A) Answer his request with a series of ramblings that make them look like assholes - but at least they respond to the request - though their illegitimate claims of danger would be made public.
B) Not answer, making them look like bigger answers.

They went with option B. This was a stupid decision. The website that first got news of the lack of answering from Ron Johnson is currently being wrecked by views ( http://smokymountainvapes.com/fda-snubs-senate-inquiry-as-expected-committee-will-pursue/ ) , but here's a tldr:


Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. While the post goes on to say direct action may not be necessary, that comment comes at the assumption that the FDA breaks down and complies. Which they won't.

Girlfriend almost got duped into buying this, but schild was there to the rescue to stop that nonsense. https://monq.com/ (https://monq.com/)

Wow.  That's a pricey way to spend a couple of hours. 

I just started vaping the other day and picked up one of these:

http://www.kangeronline.com/products/kanger-evod-pro-starter-kit?variant=17811303173

It seems to hit ok, but I get almost no vapor out of it.  Do I need something bigger to get more vapor?

That would be because Kanger completely screwed the fucking pooch on the design of that. It's actually lifted from the Joyetech Cubis, and the weird thing about that atty is - besides wicking incredibly poorly - you need to fire it for about a second before taking a drag. If it gets too cool too fast, it just does nothing.

http://www.myvaporstore.com/Kangertech-SUBOX-Mini-Starter-Kit-Black-p/krsbk1.htm

That is vastly superior. The subtank is still probably the best tank out there.

I do feel a little bad that you bought a terrible kit to start. Whatever store sold you that should be ashamed. I wish I had the patience to go through and post about every shitty kit/atty/box out there, but the list would be 400 pages long.

If you want something tube shaped, I can make a few recommendations there also. I prefer boxes as they stand up better and all these tanks have glass now. Don't want them falling over.

It seems like Kanger has stopped making these.  They're sold out in a lot of places (including direct from Kanger).  Should I still try to snag one?  I can probably find one local, but I'm definitely not going back to the first store where they sold me that shit stick.  You're exactly right, it does nothing when you first try to use it cold.

Edit:  I don't care about the tube shape, it just seemed like a good noob device.

One of the oldest vape stores on the planet, also carries my shit, has them in stock. Owners name is Shawn. He's awesome. One of the few I would call awesome anyway.

http://www.litecigusa.net/Kanger-TOPBOX-Nano-Starter-Kit-Black-p/kanger-topbox-nano-kit-black.htm

I would recommend the TopBox over the Subox. I forgot they renamed them. Top fill is super easy. Also, I'd run those coils between 27.5 and 28.5 watts. Well, the 0.5 ohm coils rather.

Working on getting a coupon for f13.

I have a coupon for f13 for 10% off Litecig. If you want it just shoot me a message. EWSpider, I'm messaging you right now.

Just in case you don't like hot vapor, you can use a 1.0 ohm coil on the subox/topbox and keep the vapor cooler. I could not stand running a .5 even at low voltages. Also, beware that the thing is a bit of a juice hog. Not awful, but its not for the frugal.

Hmmmmm, I've never found the .5s to be hot. The Atlantis runs a fair bit cooler but at ~27-28 watts I find it to be a pretty cool vape. But my perspective could be fucked since I also run drippers at 150 and shit to test juice.

I  :heart: :heart: :heart: my Atlantis and all my Aspire bits and bobs.  It's the nicest set up I've had and a very cool vape but gives enough to satisfy.  I mix some American tobacco e-juice with a coffee one and it's loverly.  I haven't used Schild's e-juices yet, but it's on my list to try. 

I just noticed the Telos juices were picked up by https://www.shopmvg.com/ (https://www.shopmvg.com/) which is where I have gotten my choo choo crunch for years. So I get to keep all my points. They also offer freebies of stuff all the time.

I picked up a cleito as well since it was under 20 bucks. Hopefully I don't end up hating it.

Cleitos are fine if you have something that can drive them where they need to be driven, which is pretty high on their recommended scale.

I hate that I can't put my own driptip on them. Stupid design.

I thought with the Cleito you could just shows the o-ring, I hate the metal tip on the atlantis, I worry about driving with it and getting rear-ended while taking a drag and losing all my teeth.

So, we just announced a product that's a pretty big deal (though we have one more getting announced I think tomorrow). I don't know how many people know much about juice in general, but we partnered with Suicide Bunny for our last full juice release. It's pretty fucking exciting.

Hopefully that gets you into some of my local shops. Happy 8/8 everyone!

Fucking idiots on Facebook on the west coast announcing shit after 12:01 EST.

Federal law does not work like TV listings.  :oh_i_see:

Been playing around with the KBox Nano that I bought with the F13 discount (thanks for that!).  My sweet spot seems to be the 1.5 at around 16-18w.  I don't like the throat burn of the .5, but maybe once I'm used to it a bit more I'll give it another try.  I've been using custom juice from a local shop (it's always cheaper than the name brand stuff), but I was curious what other people recommend for premium juices.  My favorite flavor so far has been a Caramel Candy flavor.  I'd probably prefer a higher VG juice since I don't care for the throat hit, but willing to try just about anything!

I bought an Aspire Clleito, I love the clouds it puts out. Flavor comes through nice and strong and it's my least leaky tank. Only thing I dislike about it is it's a top filling tank so if they coil goes wonky you have a tank full of juice and you can't take it out easily.

I hate that thing solely because of the fucking non-removable driptip.

Really? Mine allows you to remove the default one and put a normal drip tip in.

Yea with a metal bit and an o-ring jutting out.

that's what electrical tape is for Schild.  :why_so_serious:

Sigelei Fuchai 213W Box Mod ?

Gesundheit.

I've been very disappointed with e-juice lately.  I want a really good coffee flavour (no sugar) and a strong tobacco flavour but haven't had much luck.  I also bought some more Aspire kit.  I like using the pen style and Aspire is great for that.  And cheap, especially right now.  I love sales.

Please help me with my juice.

There are no good coffee flavors. I can't help much on the tobacco front. The only one I like is Screwbacco (by Steam Factory). It's very, very light.

Have you tried various RY4 juices out there? Some de-emphasize the vanilla flavoring and have a stronger tobacco flavor. My partner uses this brand's version of RY4 exclusively https://ecignvape.com and has been happy with it for well over a year now. As for coffee, not my bag so no recommendations for that.

RY4 isn't really tobacco, that's the struggle there. There are some good NETs out there (naturally extracted tobacco) used for flavoring, but like, who knows what you're getting with that shit in terms of Things That Can Kill You.

The RY4s seem to have a bit too much caramel or something.  I don't like my tobacco too sweet.  I used to use 0mg nicotine and thought that was why they didn't taste right but now I use 6mg nicotine (I need that bite!) and they still don't taste right.  I like the taste of dry American tobacco.  As for coffee... I enjoy strong espresso and black coffee, not sweet or too creamy.  I also enjoy booze flavour even though I don't drink alcohol very much.  Someone made me a bourbon one that was awesome.

BTW, VapeShop.com is have a decent sale on bits and bobs.  I bought some Aspire kit fairly cheaper than usual.  Juice, I usually buy from Giant.

Epic juice has a decent vanilla frappuccino.

I just picked up a Uwell crown 3 and it takes some serious wattage, but I like it a lot. I'm really noticing with all my sub-ohm stuff how I'm chewing through juice and wondering if I should just go back to using kayfuns again.

I don't want to shite up this thread, but didn't see anywhere else to post...

Any F13'ers into pipe smoking?  I got a new briar pipe as a gift last year and decided to dive in.  I smoked a pipe a bit in college 20+ years ago, mostly for the room note, but now that we've moved and have a real backyard I wanted to take it up again.

Any recommendations for some good aromatics or English-style blends?  The old dudes at the local head shop were less than helpful, and only wanted to push their own blends over everything else.

Is this just a new way to feed an existing nicotine habit? Because I just can't imagine someone taking up pipe smoking if they aren't already addicted.

Recommendations:
1. don't smoke?
2. if you do smoke, McClelland - Dark Star?

Don't smoke cigarettes, never have (if that's what you meant).

I used to have a few bowls on the weekends for relaxation.  Haven't for many years.  Loved the smell, never smoked enough to even get a nic hit.  Used to get the tobacco from the local drug store but it was cheap, and I think there is much better to be had.

I always enjoyed the underlying AAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH noise that went with Uncle Ralph's voice while he was alive, that funny pipe smoker.

For God's sake Miguel. Why would you even consider this?

Have you read the news lately?

Christ, I thought this (of all threads) would be where the enablers hung out!

I support vaping one hundred percent for being a safer alternative to cigarettes. But picking up a nicotine addiction just for fun? That's crazy.

But I'll shut up about it now. I don't want to shit up the thread or come off like one of those self-righteous ex-smokers.

How is the guy that actively sells vape stuff the only guy to give this dude a pipe tobacco recommendation?

ya'll are dweebs

I read a news bit yesterday that said 1/3 of UK smokers have given up tobacco due to vaping.  Wowsers. 

Also, I love the smell of pipe tobacco although I've never had the urge to smoke a pipe with tobacco in it.  All my great uncles smoked either pipes or cigars... I definitely preferred the pipe smell.  And even though my pipe has never had tobacco in it, I love my pipe, too.  And I love my Aspire Atlantis. 

And I love horror films.

Thanks for the suggestion of the McClelland:  the local place doesn't have Dark Star, but had some others from them that were supposed to be similar.  I picked up a tin of McClelland English blend and one of a vanilla Cavendish from a company called Lane.  It smells amazing.

I too have a pipe dedicated to...non tobacco use, but obviously don't want to mix the two. ;)

McClelland stuff is good, but none of it is Dark Star. It stands above almost everything I ever smoked.

I wish I could replicate the flavor in vaping.

My wife gave me a pipe a few years ago and I loved it.  A little too much, actually, and I got rid of it.  Another thirty years and I'll probably pick it up again.

At the time I lived a block away from a great smoke shop so I sampled a hell of a lot of aromatics.  Schild is right about McClelland Dark Star.  Their vanalla black cavendish and Mellow Mack are also good.  Other noteworthy aromatics: anything by Boswell (Christmas Cookie, Hunter's Choice, Cupcake), Lane Limited BCA and my favorite Dan Tobacco Blue Note.

So what's the current rig that's reasonable in cost and use for vaping? Looking around, everything seems totally changed from a year ago.

I'm still using a Kanger subtank on whatever. I ignore the market for the most part.

And I'm still using my Aspire Atlantis kit.  I loves it.

Using the Aspire Cleito which is the 'just before you go full geek' tank by Aspire, and it works well. It eats through battery & juice rather fast tho, so if that's a concern I'd go with a non sub ohm tank. A middle ground between the Cleito and the Nautilus would be the Atlantis, the tank Signe references.

I used the Atlantis non-stop for a year or so. I didn't like the change to the coils in early 2016 though. It was probably imperceptible to most people, but since I only vape like the same 3 flavors (and have been for almost 3 years), I noticed immediately.

I don't mess with flavours much anymore, either.  I mostly use a strong tobacco flavour mixed with a bit of Catch Ya Latte from VaporFi.  Anyone else use a tobacco flavour?  I'm always looking for a good one. 

I'm still using Ola X Heroes, need to buy a few more before they go off the market completely. Essentially, the tech plateaued about 3 years ago, and since then it's just been stylistic shifts (and the Ola X Hero was just a very nice design, technically and aesthetically, IMO, although being steel it is quite heavy). I did switch from Innokin iClear30 tanks to the Innokin T22, which is essentially the same thing in glass and stainless steel rather than aluminum and polycarbonate, it can even use the same cores.

Still mixing my own, shifted to Carellas flavorings instead of Lor-Ann, but still fruit flavors with drops of something else to add complexity.

--Dave

I bought a Uwell Crown III a month ago or so. It's pretty amazing. The coils seem to last forever, I like it more than my cleitos and aspire.

I need to hop onto the vape train.

Goal is to quit smoking this year.  My allergies can't take it  :uhrr:

I was at the grocery store and noticed packs were $8.20 today. So yes, it's most likely better for you and much more affordable. I'd say the hardest part is finding a juice you can tolerate.

Wait, packs of smokes were $8 EACH?  1) Where do you live and 2) who the hell can afford that?

Addiction is a bitch. You sacrifice a lot without realizing it to keep the nicotine dragon at bay.

Looks like it might be Arizona and that's not even the highest price; there's 8 states higher.  Illinois is $11.50 per pack and New York is $12.85.
https://fairreporters.net/health/prices-of-cigarettes-by-state/

And I don't feel bad about that. At all.

Come visit Australia :)

Very happy to say that smoking here feels on the way out. Quite a shock these days to travel anywhere else in the world and see so much of it.

Wake up!!!  I had a coupon for a run of the mill pen so I decided to use it and get one for emergencies and keep it in the car.  I thought I'd try a diff juice, something other than tobacco or coffee... suggestions?  Also, anyone find new bits and/or bobs to fiddle around with?

I've learned to stop worrying and love the fruit flavors.

My wife doesn't vape much, but 6 months later and half the bottle gone, she's still into the Teleos Crunch.


This is not a paid endorsement.

Lol

Can you guys recommend a decent quality, low maintenance system?  My GF vapes, but is having problems with cheaper systems breaking down quite often.  If you have any suggestions on tanks/systems for CBD use, that would be great as well.

Thanks.
 

Don't buy her one that blows up!  I love my Aspire kit, any of them really.  I wish I was richer so I could experiment more.

Concur on the endorsement of the Aspire brand.

Thanks to both of you.  Any advice on coil wattage or any other specifics?  I know nothing about vaping and my girlfriend has gotten conned by the local shops.

I think the thing to look at is resistance in the coils. I favor lower resistance coils since they tend to run a bit cooler. I think if you picked this one up it would work great as a starter kit:

https://www.aspirecig.com/aspire-kits/aspire-kits414.html

Larger kits don't improve performance as so much as hold a bit more juice and of course, you can fiddle with the wattage/voltage to get different vapor volume/temperature/air intake, etc, but that's for when your wife's willing to invest in a nicer kit and is 'committed' to the habit.

So, apparently stupid kids are getting sick from black market THC vape cartridges. Not clear if it is synthetic cannibinoids, or Vitamin E being used to cut or replace THC oil, but apparently putting random chemicals from street connections and 'pop up stores' into your body is a bad idea. The usual sources of FUD (which now includes the CDC) are not being clear about what is actually happening, so if any of you have kids that are vaping questionable substances, try to impress upon them that their connection may be padding their profit margin with dangerous shit.

--Dave

It's vitamin E based on all the vape lobbyists in private groups. There's been a not small number of people buying and having shit tested to see what the fuck.

Also, vaping weed.

*snore*

My minor does not vape but I do. Not sure how to go into a store and ask "give me the plain old good nicotine". I don't research. It's a problem. Perhaps. I don't buy things on playgrounds.

Actual vape shops and dispensaries are not the problem. If I had to guess, it's entrepreneurs who see that they can buy CBD oil and the cartridges and packaging for real-looking THC vapes, put them together and sell them to high school kids for ridiculous amounts of cash. Probably figuring that if they get caught, they can prove there's nothing illegal in what they were selling.

Except whoops, most CBD oil is 50-90% Vitamin E. Because yet another set of entrepreneurs realized that as long as it tastes and smells vaguely like it should, there's no regulator to tell them how much actual CBD to put in there.

--Dave

According to the CDC it's not just Vitamin E:

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0906-vaping-related-illness.html
Some people who have gotten lipoid pneumonia from vaping claimed to have only used nicotine in glycerol. If that's true you may want to avoid VG as a base. Glycerol, while it is not a fat itself, is used as part of fat synthesis in the body. I.e. it may be that the glycerol is getting into the lungs and by some yet unknown mechanism is used to create fats in the lungs leading to lipoid pneumonia.

I understand them not wanting to say brands but at this point if they don't start naming sources, this is all for nought. The CDC is not a vape company and I'm not sure why, in the name of public health, they haven't identified any of the folks involved in this shit.

The amount of media "catching the vapors" over this thing while being as vague as possible about what the people who were sick were vaping is just ridiculous. They are literally just trying to go out and say that "vaping is more dangerous than cigarettes" without giving any context for any of this shit.

Meanwhile, Juul is in trouble with the FDA for telling kids that vaping is good for you. (https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/health/fda-juul-warning-bn/index.html)

Well-timed as they're currently running a political campaign in San Francisco with the general thrust that vaping saves lives so if you want to regulate it in any way that might make Juul pods harder to buy you're basically a murderer.

Who could have foreseen that unregulated products could have issues?!

This has to be vanishingly rare, if it happens at all. If it was a common or likely outcome, it would have shown up long before this. Lipoid pneumonia is really rare under ordinary circumstances, that's why these clusters stood out so much. Glycerol fog is also used for laser displays at music events, so we would expect similar cases for that.

And the fact that they are clusters, very similar to what is seen when a bad batch of meth or opioids is on the street, also argues strongly for the bootleg THC vapes explanation. If it was glycerol, it would have been found through statistical epidemiology, not because 50 teenagers turned up in Michigan ER's.

--Dave

I've never seen a JUUL ad before despite being in the vaping industry, but it's not a hard leap to make despite being totally hyperbolic. Cigarettes kill X00,000 people a year. Traditional vaping kills zero. It's been this way since like 2009. The shit this year ain't vaping.

I'm all for regulation but hey, fuck right the fuck off. This isn't guns we're talking about and yet it's getting the full aggravated force of every "Can I See The Manager" mom in the goddamn country.

Juul ads are all over radio, and fairly common on basic cable. Personally, I think Juul is only slightly less crappy gear than Blu, but it ain't killing anybody (driving people to black market fruity flavored pods might be).

For crying out loud, I've been vaping for 11 years. Cigarettes were literally killing me, but I wasn't going to give up nicotine. Unregulated markets are bad, but black markets are far worse.

--Dave

let's just say what this is

some places legalized weed

experimentation went through the roof and spread to places without legal weed

now people are dying

there's no real experimentation with ecigarettes - we got freebase nic and then salt nic and that's it

that's all that has changed. In fact, the industry self-regulated anything CLOSE to harmful over a long term on its own without anyone else.

I don't think non smokers should vape. I don't think kids should vape. I don't think teenagers should vape. But nobody thinks they should fuck with anything other than pg/vg/nic/specific flavorings.

This here. Because of the patchwork stupidity of laws regarding legal and illegal weed, as well as legalizing CBD products without any real sense of what regulation for that substance is about, means it's the Wild Wild fucking West. Both weed and CBD products REALLY need like a metric fuckton of research into benefits and downsides. What information that is out there is spotty and inconsistent, and what research has been done is sparse and inadequate. I'm all for legalizing and regulating weed and any vaping products, as well as significant, independent research into the harmful effects of all of them. And I mean independent research, not studies funded by the tobacco industry (which has a vested interest in vaping being found to be harmful) or by the vaping industry.

I post on one of those "Answers" sites, have some moderately popular answers, and have "Vaping" as one of my topics of interest, so I get a lot of vaping questions in my feed. About a year ago, they went from being general questions about vaping, trolling about why vaping is just smokers cheating the law, or questions about very particular bits of gear to things like "What household chemicals can be used to make vape juice?" (None, don't be retarded, buy USP grade from a reliable vendor), "How can I vape Adderall?", "What should I use for a solvent when mixing fentanyl with e liquid?"

Basically, at the intersection of weed culture "I can turn anything into a bong" and the amateur chemistry associated with soda-bottle meth cooking. So when a teenager shows up in the ER claiming he's been vaping a lot and is now bleeding from his eye sockets, the "vaping" he's doing probably has nothing to do with nicotine,

--Dave

not probably

it has nothing to do with nicotine

there's no world where any legitimate vape product resulted in any of this

You aren't putting Rosco fog directly into your lungs on purpose.

And there have been a lot of studies linking the Rosco fog to various illnesses, so saying it is "safe" because the glycerol based fog haven't shown similar cases is not really a good comparison.

There were a number of places I knew of when I was in the theatre business where you couldn't use the glycerol fog at all and had to use LN2 or Dry Ice fog instead (at the added expense).

If it's legitimate vape, the body has ways of shutting it down.

Another THC-related suspect identified: myclobutanil, a fungicide which when burned turns into hydrogen cyanide:

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/vaping/tests-show-bootleg-marijuana-vapes-tainted-hydrogen-cyanide-n1059356

rad

You never played on a backline, have you?  :why_so_serious:

People have been knocked the fuck out because of zealous fog fingers.