Is it Better to Smoke or Vape: A Detailed Comparison

Vaping has been considered as an escape from smoking, yet in reality, neither should be glorified. Smoking is mostly harmful when the tobacco is being burned. On the other hand, vapes create a vapor containing all the sweet flavors. This is why they're arbitrarily better in terms of evoking health issues.

In this blog post, we'll discuss if it's better to smoke or vape. However, always keep in mind both are ultimately harmful. So, stay tuned!

Why It’s Not Better to Smoke or Vape?

It's clear that vaping is the more reformed version of smoking. But that doesn't clear out the health effects they trigger. Here's some reasons:

Nicotine Keeps You Hooked

The intersection between smoking and vaping lies in nicotine. Nicotine from smoke is much stronger as it's produced from burning tobacco, which adds even more harmful toxins. But in vapes, nicotine depends on the strength of the e-liquid used.

Nicotine triggers the secretion of the "feel good" chemicals in your brain called dopamine. This can curb all your stress and anxiety within the very first hit. Hence it makes you gravitate towards it more and more which elevates your addiction in the long run.

Generally, nicotine enhances your mood, energies you, and lets you focus. As soon as it wears off, your brain will start craving it more. Now if you want to completely cut down on nicotine, you'll have withdrawal symptoms.

The nicotine in smoke is almost instantly absorbed by your blood but in vapes it's much slower. So, you're almost instantly alerted whenever you smoke. But due to the slow absorption in vapes, the nicotine hit is much milder. This causes a smoother vaping experience.

Check out the best daily vape deals and enjoy unbeatable savings on your favorite e-liquids and vaping accessories today!

Health Effects of Smoking and Vaping

From the very first puff, carcinogenic products from cigarette smoke enter your blood. So, inhaling this thick cloud of smoke can be deleterious for health. It poses a risk to every part of your body but mostly your heart and lungs.

Smoking frequently can block the air pockets in your lungs, developing bronchitis. Furthermore, nicotine shrinks down your blood vessels which creates pressure during blood flow. Carbon monoxide at the same time depletes oxygen from flowing in your heart. So your heart requires more aggressive pumping that leads to heart attack!

Although the effects of vaping are more lenient than smoking, it's still detrimental for prolonged users. Vitamin C is one of the chemicals in vape aerosol which causes irritation in the lungs.

Vaping severely impacts your cognitive functions by reducing your attention span. Moreover, it can trigger "popcorn lung" that causes never-ending coughing and chest pain. And lung cancer can be triggered from both smoking and vaping due to the formation of carcinogenic products in both the smoke and the vaporized aerosol.

Cost-efficiency

If you ask us, we'd say the cheapest option is to quit both smoking and vaping altogether. However, apart from the initial cost, vaping costs much less than having to buy packs of cigarettes frequently.  

Investing your spendings on a good quality vape can be your friend for a long run. This means you can spend a solid month or two without having to rebuy vapes unlike what you face in terms of smoking. Moreover, no external heating appliances like lighters are needed to be used.

However, smoking in general is quite cheap. You don't require a large investment for buying fancy devices. However, for regular smokers it can get very expensive. Therefore, buying a full pack of cigarettes every day for a year will likely cost you more than having to buy a few different flavored vapes.

Which One is Less Harmful?

It’s clear that neither smoking and vaping should be practiced religiously. However, vaping can be a tad bit less harmful than smoking as the vapors produced are less intense than inhaling smoke. As a result, it's safe for smokers to switch to vaping for an intermediary period when they're ready to give up on smoking.

Blindly smoking for an extensive period has the potential to damage every single organ of the body. The most common cases of intense smoking led to rapid heart malfunctions as well as frequent strokes. Other chronic health issues also arise because of this. Most terrifyingly, more than 90% of deaths from smoking is caused by lung cancer.

What people forget is that vapes also contain high doses of nicotine that causes brain impairments in fetuses as well as loss of cognitive functions in adults. However, a lot of these side effects can be avoided by removing vitamin E acetate which causes irritation. But a lot of deaths have been recorded due to lung conditions arising from prolonged vaping.

Bottom Line

Although vaping is the new alternative to smoking, that doesn't tone down all the lasting effects of nicotine. It keeps you hooked along with provoking countless health issues. So, if you've tagged along you've learnt neither smoking or vaping is better for you.

In short, smoking is definitely harmful, but vaping comes with a lot of side effects too. Nicotine attracts you like a magnet, no matter the method. But economically, vaping is more cost-efficient as spending on cigarettes can get expensive.

Related Blog Posts

Vaping Dry Herb vs Smoking Dry Herb

Reasons to Vape Instead of Smoke

Is it Okay to Vape and Smoke at the Same Time