All anyone can talk about now is vaping.

As a long-time smoker, the news that putting something into your lungs that isn’t oxygen is actually bad for you didn’t really come as a surprise.

For a lot of people, though, the recent vape-related deaths shook everything they believed to be true about inhaling flavoured steam.

Now young people (mostly in America) are all over the news, telling their stories and cautionary tales about using the vape brand Juul.

Last week we heard from a kid who vaped until his lungs gave out.

This week, let’s hear from those who kicked the habit, and those who refuse to kick the habit despite evidence that it’s not a good habit to have.

Over to CNN, who spoke with Sydney Kinsey.

Sydney Kinsey is a 21-year-old NYU student who started smoking cigarettes while abroad in London. To cut back on the smokes, she bought a Juul in June.

“I could tell that it was making me feel worse body-wise, head-wise. I was getting a lot more anxious, but then also my joints and my lungs hurt more,” she said. “I was using it way more than I ever used (cigarettes). Like instead of going out and smoking like a cigarette a day, I was like non-stop Juuling up a storm, which is not fun.”

CNN really could have edited the ‘likes’ out of that one.

Laura Kesnig

Laura was not surprised that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said all the cases of vape-related illnesses reported using e-cigarettes, and some have reported a history of vaping THC.

She began vaping black market THC cartridges while attending The New School in New York, and she knew those weren’t good for her.

“You’re buying them illegally, so who knows what’s being put in them,” she said. “It’s funny because when you hit it, you can feel that it’s hurting your lungs. It doesn’t feel like hitting a joint or hitting anything. It hurts you.

“But we just told ourselves for so long that it’s fine, it’ll be fine, it’s weed, it can’t hurt you. And then this stuff comes out and it’s like, we knew this all along.”

She has since gone back to the old faithful joints and says she feels better for it.

Brooklyn Johnson

Brooklyn really doesn’t want to stop vaping.

The 20-year-old NYU student bought a Juul this summer on a whim and now vapes about a pod a week.

“I just had the idea in the back of my head for like two years, and then this summer I was like, whatever man, I’m just gonna do it,” she said. “It wasn’t really like a big deal, I guess. I was just like, I know it’s bad, I probably shouldn’t, and then I just gave in.”

She sees vaping as “something to do” and has no desire to quit.

Ethan Uno

Ethan Uno tried a friend’s Juul at a party when he was 17, and got hooked after just one night.

“By the end of the night, I loved it, how it felt, the nicotine high,” he said. “I got one the next day and I got pretty into it.”

Uno, a 20-year-old from San Diego, California, knew it wasn’t good for him. But it was so accessible.

“You could literally do it at any point in the day, like while you’re doing homework. So it was so easy in that sense,” he said.

He has since quit vaping because he’s concerned about his health.

Stephen Cambor

Stephen started vaping when he was 14.

…he remembered his first time well because it “put me on my ass,” he said.

“I was like, ‘Oh I can get super f***** up for like 10 seconds and then go back to class,” he said. “Like a really strong head buzz to the point where, like, all your blood feels like it’s buzzing.”

Now a 20-year-old NYU student, he uses a little less than one Stig, a disposable e-cigarette, per day.

He said he’s “thinking about” stopping because he’s noticed that vaping seems to affect his immune system.

But he’s not convinced that regular e-cigarette use is causing this outbreak of serious lung illnesses.

“That’s why I’m ‘thinking about’ quitting instead of saying I’m quitting, because a lot of it seems like fear-mongering,” he said. “Simply because none of the news articles are really getting any specifics on how these kids died, and what was different about their cases from the millions of other people who knew what they were doing.”

For more tales of vaping in the city, go here.

Once again, if it isn’t oxygen, it probably isn’t good for you.

[source:cnn]