Vapers suck - literally
Thursday, April 3, 2025 at 10:54 
The image above was posted on social media by a pro-vaping campaigner.
I won't mention their name because I don't want this to be a personal attack on someone I think is well-intentioned, but it begs the question, if 'smoking sucks' what does it say about the millions of people who enjoy smoking and don't want to quit?
At the very least it reveals a belligerent intolerance of someone’s else habit. That would be bad enough coming from a never smoker, but the person concerned is a former smoker. Naturally.
I'm going to control my language, but I genuinely don’t understand why ex-smokers feel the need to disparage and denigrate their old habit, impervious to the potential impact their comments may have on those who continue to smoke.
‘Smoking sucks’ is the sort of childish taunt you might hear in the playground and is arguably, in modern parlance, a form of bullying.
Why should current smokers have to put up with it, especially from former smokers?
If you have chosen to stop smoking and have found an alternative nicotine product that reduces the risk to your health and makes you happy, good luck to you.
But stop trying to make those who enjoy smoking (and don't want to quit) feel bad about something you previously engaged in, and probably once enjoyed.
Oh, and before anyone else claims that ‘smoking sucks’, there’s something they ought to know. Vapers suck too. Literally.
PS. Since we’re on the subject of smoking and vaping, this article - published yesterday on the BBC Science Focus website - is worth reading:
Reader Comments (1)
It's all subjective. I think vaping sucks. I cannot stand the awful sickly stench and unlike smoke, which immediately dissipates in the air, clouds of sticky vapour linger as a cloud after the vaper has walked on.
I also much prefer the organic smell of fresh tobacco than the chemical concoction of powdered fruit that feels like I am passively inhaling perfumed talcum powder as I walk past.
Dose makes poison in all things and that includes vaping which, I have found, is much worse for me than moderate smoking. I tried vaping for a while but was left feeling so breathless that I decided to just stick to smoking. I haven't had the same breathlessness since.
I am not saying smoking is safer because if I was to smoke 100 a day instead of less than 10, I'd probably be left as breathless as I was when I vaped.