If you have a father who smokes, there’s a good chance that you spend a good amount of time worrying about his present and future health. After all, being a smoker triples a person’s chance of dying early.
If your father continues to smoke, in other words, it’s almost certainly going to shorten the remaining time that you have to enjoy with him. So, if a holiday is coming up – or just because you happen to be thinking about your old man – it’s never a bad time to remind your dad that you care about him and want his golden years to be as long and healthy as they can be.
You might have a passing familiarity with vapes even if you’re not a smoker or former smoker yourself. Depending on where you live, though, you might not be fully versed on the potential benefits because partisan politics and lobbying forces have helped to create a wide range of opinions on vaping around the world – not all of which are entirely positive or grounded in reality.
Does your father still smoke? It’s time to get him a vape – and in this article, we’re going to explain why. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, let’s talk about what vapes actually are in case you’re not familiar with them.
What Is a Vape?
A vape – also known as an e-cigarette or a vaping device – is an electronic device that’s designed to work with a flavored, nicotine-infused liquid called e-liquid or vape juice. The device heats the e-liquid until it turns to vapor, and the user inhales the vapor through the device’s mouthpiece. Vaping simulates smoking in four ways.
- The nicotine is absorbed through the lungs, so vaping feels as satisfying as smoking.
- The flavor of the e-liquid provides the same sense of enjoyment as smoking.
- Vaping replaces the physical habits associated with smoking by providing a similar hand-to-mouth ritual.
- Vaping creates a visible cloud, which further increases the physical resemblance to smoking.
Why Should You Encourage Your Dad to Switch to Vaping?
Not consuming nicotine at all is always the best choice. If that’s not an option, using an FDA-approved smoking cessation product is the next best choice. If your father has been a smoker for a while, though, there’s a good chance that he’s already tried to quit using one or more traditional products and was unable to do so. For someone who can’t or won’t quit smoking, switching to vaping is ideal because vaping is better than smoking in four ways.
- People are more likely to quit smoking successfully by switching to vaping than by using traditional smoking cessation aids. In 2019, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a study in which 886 volunteers who wanted to quit smoking were assigned either vapes or traditional nicotine replacement products. The volunteers who received vapes were almost twice as likely to quit smoking successfully. This result was further corroborated by another study published in the same journal in 2024.
- Vaping produces no tar. For this and other reasons, some medical experts believe that vaping could be as much as 95 percent less risky than smoking.
- Vaping is incredibly inexpensive compared to smoking. The average price of cigarettes in the United States is a whopping $8.39 per pack in 2024. Vaping, on the other hand, can cost as little as a dollar or two per day.
- Vaping doesn’t smell bad like smoking does. It doesn’t make people’s clothes smell, and it doesn’t reduce the resale values of homes and cars.
With all of these benefits in mind, the choice is obvious – for anyone who can’t or won’t quit by other means, vaping is clearly superior to smoking in every way.
What’s the Best Vape for an Older Parent?
If you’ve made the decision to buy a vape for your dad, the next step is to choose which type of device you’re going to get. In this case, you have two options: You can buy a disposable vape, or you can buy a refillable device and a bottle of vape juice. If your father is a serious gadget lover from back in the day, he might get a kick out of a refillable device that offers some accessory choices and configuration options because a refillable vape can have a high level of customizability.
Most older smokers, however, will probably prefer a device that’s simpler and more straightforward. In this case, a disposable vape will be the best choice. A disposable vape is charged and filled at the factory, and it’s ready to use as soon as it’s removed from the package. Recharging the device when the battery dies is the only maintenance that’s necessary. The vape can be used until it runs out of e-liquid. At that point, it’ll either stop generating vapor, or it’ll taste burnt. It can then be disposed of in accordance with your city’s procedure for hazardous waste.
How to Buy the Right Disposable Vape for Your Dad
When you shop for a disposable vape for your father, there are three things that you’ll need to consider: the brand, the nicotine strength and the flavor. To ensure that you’ll get an authentic device and not a clone or knockoff, buy from a vape shop and not from a convenience store or gas station. If you have a question, don’t be afraid to ask an attendant for help if you’re shopping locally or send an email if you’re buying online. In addition, here are a few final pointers to help ensure that the first purchase will go well.
- You can rarely go wrong by just buying what’s popular. Three of the most popular disposable vape brands in 2024 are Lost Mary, Geek Bar and Funky Lands.
- In most cases, a disposable vape will have a nicotine strength of 50 mg/ml or 5%. This strength is usually appropriate for most smokers. If your father happens to be a very infrequent smoker, though, it’s worthwhile to look for a device with a lower nicotine strength. They’re not common, but they do exist.
- It’s a good idea to buy a few different flavors. Vapes taste nothing like cigarettes. Using various combinations of food-grade flavors, though, they can taste like almost any fruit, candy or beverage that exists. Buying a few flavors helps to ensure that your father will like at least one of them.
