Highest Rated Comments


Pelowtz5 karma

Vaping has been proven anecdotally and scientifically to be an effective smoking cessation option. It has a higher success rate than pharmaceutical NRT’s. FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said “If every smoker switched to vaping there would be a net public health boost.”

Unfortunately, big money interests have altered public perception of vaping as a dangerous ploy by big tobacco to hook kids on nicotine. Most adults don’t know that vaping is less toxic than cigarettes.

Now, states that depend on tax revenue from the master settlement agreement are banning and taxing vaping due to the fear mongering, yet still allowing cigarettes to be sold, effectively driving smokers back to cigarettes.

Meanwhile, in the UK, they are actively encouraging smokers to vape. Many argue that because they have socialized medicine that is not profit driven, there is more incentive for them to tell the truth about what is actually healthier.

  1. What is your opinion of vaping in terms of public health. Should we encourage smokers to vape?

  2. Do you think socialized medicine helps bring more truth to the discussion by eliminating profit incentives?

  3. How do we create policies that build public health, but don’t have unintended consequences like the skewed incentives of the master settlement agreement?

Hope this isn’t too long! Thanks for any info.

Pelowtz3 karma

On the topic of mass shootings and mental health... I am wondering if you have any insight into an issue I came across today.

For those like myself that believe the mass shooting epidemic is more of a mental health problem than a gun access problem, how do you respond to this statement:

“Most mass shooting perpetrators were not mentally ill so the problem is not mental illness”

However, I discovered that sociopathy and psychopathy are not technically mental illnesses, so they wouldn’t be “counted”. This seems silly and very much a hair-splitting argument. which made me think how often the causality of a problem is skewed by a technicality like this.

Do you think that mental illness diagnoses are applied too specifically to something like video game addiction in so far as to skew the real problem towards behavior and too far away from being understood as a legitimate mental illness problem?

LMK if that’s clear enough or if it’s out of your wheelhouse. 🙏🏻

Pelowtz3 karma

I would contribute.

Pelowtz1 karma

Western medicine is demonstrably bad at treating chronic illness, bet exceptional at acute issues like broken arms and surgeries.

Eastern philosophy and medicine teach lifestyle and wellness practices that are inline with what your philosophy is on the habitual and cultural factors of health. Meditation, mindfulness, yoga, Plant medicines - all combined are excellent at preventing chronic diseases. But Eastern medicine is terrible at acute issues.

How can we combine these two approaches in medicine and in our culture to get “the best of both worlds”? Do you recommend that?

Pelowtz1 karma

Do you study psychedelics at all in your work? What connection or benefit can they provide in relieving the effects (or perhaps the sources) of chronic stress?