You can get Propylene Glycol or vegetable glycerin and vape that.

It's apparently a thing, "nicotine free" vaping

Thanks for the confirmation!

That’s how I did it and what I recommend to my friends (who vape constantly). It’s two habits you have to beat, why not do them one at a time?

...vaping is fucking obnoxious for non smokers...

As a former smoker and non-smoker for a long time now, I disagree.

...clouds of awful smelling residue...

IME, most of the time it smells far better than cigarette smoke.

...and plastic shit everywhere.

Litterbugs are gonna litter, man. I know this because I live in a place with a very high concentration of them. Is the litterbug done with his drink, takeout, or other item that came in some disposable packaging? Is the trash can that's clearly visible from his current location more than two feet away? Then that packaging ends up directly on the sidewalk or tossed into the street.

Worse than that are litterbugs who are also dog owners. Their creed is "Pick up my dog's dogshit and put it in a trashcan? Hell no, fuck that, and fuck you!".

...it still felt as bad because of the smoke you're inhaling.

Unless you have an incredibly defective vaporizer, that "smoke" you're talking about is as much smoke as the "steam" in a hot shower is. If your vaporizer is producing smoke, you need to dispose of it and get one that doesn't set things on fire.

Our lungs are extremely sensitive receptors and are pretty much supposed to interact with absolutely nothing else other than the air we breathe.

You might be astounded at how much junk is in the air we breathe, even in "clean" natural locations. Because the natural environment is so incredibly filthy and because the natural environment contains so many things that want to eat us (because -as it turns out- we're made of food!) our bodies are built to interact with and neutralize all sorts of contaminants.

Here's a company with a product meant specifically for this. [0]

[0]: https://tryfum.com

Indeed they are, and you should also minimize exposure to the fumes from cars/trucks/powerplants and try to improve indoor ventilation.

I don't generally suck on the tailpipe of my car like a cigarette or vape.

This has effectively been a product for many years, 22nd Century Group sells very low nicotine tobacco smoking cessation products.

The unhealthy part of smoking is the smoke, not the nicotine.

That has already been a thing that has existed.

I once successfully quit smoking by buying a pack of cigarettes made with tobacco that had been cleansed of its nicotine. I bought them one evening on the way home from work.

That first night was rough because nicotine withdraw be like that. The second day was still not great, but it was easier. By the third day, I'd had enough. On about the fourth day, I threw the rest away because they were just tiresome.

They were lousy. They tasted terrible compared to my usual brand. And smoking them did nothing to quench my addiction-driven craving for nicotine -- the reward for my brain and my body simply wasn't being delivered.

And it worked.

---

My theory for the method of operation goes something like this:

My brain was used to pushing the button and receiving candy, and it needed that candy (or at least it thought that it did).

But this was disruptive of that: The button was still there and I could push it freely. But no matter how many times I pushed it, no candy was received. This went on just long enough that I no longer felt compelled to need candy (because nicotine addiction had enough time to fade out).

We used to smoke clove cigarettes. They would crackle with oil when you inhaled.

That was hilarious but I hate how hard The Onion has to compete with reality now.

Heroin is even less accepted, offers less tastes and is more serious about correct dose.

You're missing the very basic point that taking up cigarettes is just as bad and likely considerably worse.

while tobacco is indeed more viscerally addictive than vaporized nicotine, i still believe it is wrong to label the act of switching from vapes to cigs as blanket stupidity. a cigarette has a defined start and end point around which the brain may optimize, while vapes have no off switch. from the outside in, it may be difficult to see that this factor may weigh in significantly ... so ill bolster my point by suggesting tobacco is a valid method to control schizophrenia symptoms, i dont believe that high dose nic vapes have the same effect.

It literally is The Onion, from their print paper last year: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1gz53b0/the_easiest_...

What is?

And carcinogenic

it also stops being unpleasant once your brain has associated it deeply with the dopamine

if anything, the strong smell and taste sensations makes it even more addictive

There was a rumour/some basic statistics that smokers were at more risk in bad cases of Covid but nevertheless were proportionally less likely to have heavy Covid.

Smoking was so huge in Britain. People think smoking was big in America, but the UK it's like a culture in and of itself

I went to a Black Keys concert in 2007 or so that was sponsored by Camel cigarettes and they were giving out free packs of their newest variety at the door.

A lifelong chain smoker will smoke a cigarette in 1-2 minutes and light up another. 3-5 minutes is a relaxed casual smoke. Cigarettes were modified a decade or so ago to ensure that they go out quickly if not actively smoked. It's not even possible anymore to keep a cigarette burning for long enough for it to take 10 minutes.

This is all pedantic. The point is that you can chain smoke quite a lot if you're dedicated. I've never met anyone who smoked more than two packs a day regularly or maybe three on a crazy night out of drinking and smoking. 4-5 is crazy.

had one lung removed, and the other was probably close to worthless from smoking

Mid to late 70s? Their last years were nothing but medical issues (from the smoking, plus excessive drinking) and poor health. Certainly kept me from starting to smoke.

There is no human on earth that can smoke continuously the entire day for very long

Out of curiosity how old are you? I remember plenty of places in my younger days where it was commonplace for people to light up their next cig off of their current one pretty much nonstop

It's just lighting and inhaling. It does not take any extra time

as a medication alternative there's saffron, which also helps (not as good)

Did you read gwerns post on it by any chance?

https://gwern.net/nicotine

I've come to a similar conclusion.

On one hand, yes, nicotine in many ways does deserve the reputation it's received. Then again, a lot of the blame should go more towards smoking rather than nicotine the substance.

Nicotine is highly addictive, but as you mentioned, the delivery method plays a huge role in its addictive potential, and most people don't realize this. The chances that you'll become addicted to patches is incredibly low. If they were that addictive, then they'd likely be way more effective in helping people quit smoking; in reality, it's somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of patch users who successfully end up quitting smoking that way. Even with the highest dose patches, the addiction potential is still relatively low because the patches release the nicotine over a very long period of time and make it difficult or impossible to associate the use of the substance with a ritualistic activity like lighting and puffing on a cigarette.

And yeah, it's not a subject you can really bring up with anyone besides recreational drug users. Very few will be receptive to the idea that nicotine has legitimate uses and can be used without getting addicted.

You:

  Only about 6% nicotine users manage to quit every year.

Your linked article:

  Yet, only about 6 percent of smokers are able to quit in a given year.

Other than when it talks about prescription smoking cessation tools, the article does not mention anything other than tobacco smokers. The last paragraph of the article actually discusses the observation that the ritual of smoking often provides substantial behavioral reinforcement to the smoker who is attempting to quit smoking.

I also note that I was able to quit nicotine cold-turkey after smoking cigarettes for two years. I've never been able to quit caffeine... and -although it is notably shorter in duration- caffeine withdrawal is WAY worse than nicotine withdrawal.

Nicotine isn't just 'extra effective caffeine.'

The research seems to indicate it's a cancer accelerant -- it doesn't cause cancer directly, but it promotes the growth and spread of existing tumors.

Studies suggest it does this through several pathways including:

(a) preventing cancer cells from self-destructing (b) making tumor cells divide more quickly (c) stimulating the growth of new blood vessels in and around tumors, helping them grow; and (d) helping cancer cells metastasize more easily by increasing mobility via epithelial-mesenchymal transition.

It also lowers the effectiveness of chemo and radiotherapy.

Admittedly, most of these are animal/lab studies, in part because it's hard to design a good study in humans since so many patients also use/used cigarettes and vapes, which confounds the results. Still, there's enough evidence out there to be cautious.

How did you taper off patches? Are you still on them?

I smoked for roughly 30 years and was not in very good shape when I gave up eight years ago - that improved rather a lot.

The problem is that nicotine is not the only addictive substance involved. If it was then you could chew gum, wear patches or whatever and off you go. There is an extremely complicated set of chemicals involved in fag smoke. There is also the habit effect and other complications.

In the end I think that boring old will power is the only way and any trick or tool or whatever that you can deploy to bolster that is how you give up.

My initial plan was to vape but I soon found that unsatisfying and it looked to me like trying to substitute one habit with another.

Once I started stopping, I didn't want to stop! It was extremely hard but I always reminded myself that I had got so far and that that time would be wasted if I had to start again. I followed doubled up time periods - one day, two days, 1/2 a week, a week, a fortnight, a month, two months ("cripes, this might work") and so on.

A mental tool I developed was a couple of mantras: "I don't want to smell" and "I don't want to die". Whenever I felt the cravings I repeated those to myself and I have no idea why but it did work for a while at a time. Gradually the need tailed off (say around two years)

I remember having quite vivid dreams where I would "crack" and start smoking again. I had to do quite a lot of mental verification to prove to myself that it was just a dream. At one point I even smelt my clothes to prove to myself it was all a dream.

We are all different and there is no right or wrong way to quit. One thing we can all agree on is it is hard, very hard but not impossible. Pick a strategy that might work for you and be prepared to change it but please do have a go. It really is worth it.

Hey, another person with addiction-intolerant ADHD! I have run into so few people who encountered and noted it. Most people can’t just treat a compulsion by curtailing it through willpower, though I still don’t comprehend why. Ironic that the willpower disorder wins the day versus the baseline.

ADHD people get hooked to smoking quite easily. Nicotine's a stimulant after all.

That said, the patches are great for focus and anxiety when used in low doses in moderation

There is almost no good evidence of this. Effect sizes are tiny, if any. Just placebo and anecdotal. The effect is so small it's not even worth it from

Yeah, it’s almost like these vape companies have no motivation to help you wean yourself off their product.

Honestly, the mental aspect of addiction is what makes it difficult. Anyone can get through a couple of weeks feeling like shit, especially if you have support. But for years and years, you can be addicted to something that never even entered your body.

i know this sounds dumb on the surface, but assuming you have other restrictions in your life it works.

Vaping tastes great, can be done indoors, doesn’t need an ash tray, and others around you are mildly annoyed vs visibly upset. Cigarettes are the direct opposite of all of those. The added friction could put someone over the hump.

It's just because cigars (and presumably pipes?) are puffed, not inhaled. You absorb nicotine through the mucus membrane in your mouth (not as much), and otherwise enjoy the flavor. The practice with cigarettes is to inhale into your lungs. You could technically puff a cigarette I guess.

People make a big deal out additives and accelerants, but the carcinogens are 99% from smoke, burning plant matter. In that respect, pure tobacco isn't meaningfully safer. That said if you "puff", that's probably safer, though still risky (mouth cancer, and you're still going to inhale some amount of smoke).

BS, fake news, and dumb. Did a handful of humans actually post about this? I'm sure, and probably tried it for a day. But "people," as in a group of people large enough to be remotely news worthy? No. This is just bait. Also not hacker news.

I literally saw a meme image saying this last year. Crazy to see it become reality.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't entirely uncommon in Norway (and probably also Sweden) to quit cigarettes by switching to snus (tobacco between your lip/gum).

Try pipe tobacco in a corncob (beginner level, easy/forgiving) or briar (more advanced, takes packing & coal management technique) pipe. Way less costly than cigarettes, in more ways than the wallet!

In early 2025, a Dutch newspaper was also writing about young adults struggling with vaping addiction, and how some switch to smoking as a better alternative.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/volkskrant-magazine/als-deze-moede... (https://archive.ph/O7dpL)

A perfect, ouroboros of addiction

I quit smoking by using Swedish snus until I got used to not smoking and then just tapered off the snus. This was after smoking 2 packs a day for 10+ years.

no kidding . ppl have been trying to look for cig alternatives forever. If vaping worked as well, it would be everywhere. It's still a small niche.

I will second this, having enjoyed similar success. The idea is that you start taking it, smoke normally the first day or two, then stop (if I understand the mechanism correctly the drug uses the nicotine to guide it to the correct receptors at the outset and subsequently the molecules self-attach to each other). You take it 4 or 6 weeks - I think 4, but it was 16 years ago so I forget. Contrary to what some imagine, there's no long-term dose. Within the first few days your cravings evaporate, by the end of the course smelling someone else's cigarette evokes a mild feeling of nausea. It's the only approach that never resulted in a relapse of some kind for me.

There are side effects; it can cause stomach bleeding if you don't carefully take it with meals, so if your breakfast is just a cup of coffee you'll need to adjust to consuming food; and it's associated with intensely vivid dreams which can disrupt your sleep. I experienced both but did not find it that bad, I blame myself for playing a bit fast and loose with the mealtime warnings. idk what it costs now but I paid $400 for the full course out of pocket, probably like $750 today with inflation. So, less than 6 months of moderate cigarette use.

It doesn't fix the psychological desire for a 'smoke break'; for about 6 months I chewed gum (ordinary gum, not nicotine) to get past the mental habit of wanting to consume something. Some people reported using a fidget toy to give their hands something to do. My theory is that if you have a severe smoking addition it is probably because nicotine slotted neatly into some pre-existing somatic need, so once you get past the cravings stage it's worth exploring why smoking or vaping became such a big deal for you in the first place.

i remember a long time ago seeing the ads on TV with the turtle...the listed side effects were half the ad.

My father did the same thing. He used to smoke a pack a day and the day that I was born he quit and never touched it again, and then when I was old enough to understand cigarettes, he taught me to never start smoking and I never have.

Genetic lottery, I think. There are some "addictions" I've been able to give up incredibly easily, and others I still struggle with. Other people have the opposite problem, others still don't have any at all. The older I get, the more I think willpower is a made up concept.

How are you right now not drunk while munching on cake and playing an online slot machine?

What have you done to replace the receptor-clearing capability nicotine has that likely “addicted” you in the first place?

(Feeling okay is addictive.)

In my late 20s and early 30s I would frequently join my coworkers outside while they took a smoke break. I would generally try to stay at the periphery or upwind when possible. Over time, I found myself having inexplicable cravings for a cigarette despite never having smoked one. Presumably this was due second hand exposure. (Acknowledging it would have been smarter to simply stay indoors.)

That eventually faded after our careers took us in different directions, and landing remote roles or at places with fewer or no smokers.

I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to quit. Props to anyone who makes the attempt, successfully or otherwise.

It's an idea I've considered. Quitting cigarettes was much easier than quitting vaping has been. You can vape in your home, most places and at most times. You don't have any concept really of how much you're using. With cigarettes you have to take time, go outside, and you can literally count them making it easier to track your reduction.

Did a cigarette write this article?

Cigarettes are ridiculously more addictive. I know this from experience, but also from a study that found that MAOIs (in cigarettes, but not found in vapes) "dramatically increase the motivation to self-administer nicotine in rats."[1]

I had a wickedly difficult time quitting cigarettes, many failed attempts over the course of years. Vaping made quitting tobacco comically easy, and quitting vaping was also comically easy compared to cold turkey. To quit my all-day vaping habit I just...got rid of the vapes and stopped doing it. I thought about it a few times a day for the first few days, and that was it.

People saying to avoid vapes as a cessation tool are committing actual harm, imo. It's like the difference in difficulty between just jumping off a roof versus using a ladder to descend. Yes, ladders are risky, but not as risky as jumping off a roof.

[1] https://www.jneurosci.org/content/25/38/8593

switched to vaping in 2011, and finally quit that last month. I started on 1.5 “step 1” patches and have tapered down to .5 over the last 6 weeks. Hardest thing I’ve ever done.

How cool is COPD and lung cancer? Vaping at least does not kill you

yeah it's annoying when people overstate the efficacy of patches. if patches worked as well as cigs, everyone would just buy patches instead (huge market here..don't steal my idea).

I assume people must vary in how strong an addiction can be as I have smoked cigarettes but have not become addicted to them. I am able to abruptly stop, get mild cravings and be able to ignore them for a few days and the cravings completely subside. I have another friend who did similar. A regular smoker for years who switched between a few alternatives such as pipe, then vape, then just stopped completely and doesn't miss it. Another friend is still smoking into his 40's and is having a hard time stopping. He cut back but still smokes daily.