Don’t Believe the Fake News: Vaping Is Not To Blame For Lung Illnesses
Are you considering vaping and wondering if it is a safer alternative to cigarettes? After all, we know that cigarettes cause lung, mouth and throat cancer as well as damage to teeth and COPD, which includes emphysema. We also know that cigarettes contain thousands of harmful chemicals, including carbon monoxide, acetone and ammonia, but is vaping really safer than smoking when it comes to getting your nicotine fix?
If you’ve read the recent fake news articles about vaping, you may be inclined to think that, yes, vaping is incredibly harmful to your health. The truth is that the fake news about vaping is designed to scare you, not actually provide you with real information that you can use to make a decision as to whether vaping is right for you.
Like any food, drug or product made for human consumption, care should be taken to ensure it comes from a trustworthy, verified source. In the recent cases of reported vaping-related illnesses, black market vaping products are largely to blame and should be considered the major risk factor and what to avoid, rather than established mainstream brand vape products.
The 2019 Vape Flavor Ban
The Food and Drug Administration has been trying to regulate vaping since at least 2014 when vape products first became widely available and used by adults. The proposed bans and limitations for vaping products would make the regulations on vaping some of the most restrictive for tobacco products.Specifically in 2019, there’s been a push to ban flavored vape products in the interest of saving the children and protecting them against the harms of tobacco. Michigan has proposed a vape ban on flavors, and New York passed a vape ban on flavored vape products starting September 17, 2019. However, New York has been sued to halt the implementation of the vape flavor ban, and it is currently working its way through the NY court system. For now, vapers in New York can still enjoy their favorite flavors without having the flavored vape juice ban limit their choices.
What Is Banned And Where
On August 8, 2016, the FDA mandated that vaping products must be regulated like all other types of tobacco products, and vaping pens (also called e-cigarettes) were further classified as drug delivery systems and subject to various regulations under the FDCA.
Most recently in September of 2019, there has been a push by the Trump Administration to ban flavored vaping liquids, which would reduce the flavored options that vapers have to regular tobacco, and maybe menthol.
States are free to enact their own bans and restrictions on where people can vape, and currently, California, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Maine, New York, Vermont and Rhode Island have completely banned vaping in public indoor spaces. Conversely, Nevada, Tennessee, Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Nebraska have not banned vaping and localities are not allowed to ban indoor vaping. The 37 states in the United States have not banned vaping yet, but individual locations are allowed to ban indoor vaping.
Considering this is a relatively recent move to affect not just the major vape brand manufacturers but all vaping companies, it will not only take time to enact, but is also bound to encourage the growth of black market vaping dealers who attempt to fly under the FDA’s radar to sell products with even more questionable, unregulated ingredients.
Vape Juice Ingredients: What We Know
Vaping pens, pod systems, and devices are comprised of a juice canister or tank, a battery and a small heating element that is designed to warm the juice and turn it into an inhalable vapor. While the exact mix of vape juice ingredients depends on the brand and manufacturer (much less known with black market vape manufacturers), vapers can reasonably assume their vape e-liquid contains:
- Water
- Vegetable Glycerin – used as a thickening agent and sweetener
-
Propylene Glycol – used in addition to or as a replacement to vegetable glycerin
- Flavoring (Usually Artificial) – examples include cherry, vanilla, mint, watermelon, cotton candy and chocolate
- Nicotine – e-juices can have varying amounts of nicotine from 0mg to 48mg
- Vitamin E Acetate – recently discovered in black market vape juices, in particular marijuana e-liquids
Vaping Facts: Is It Bad For You?
With the increased bans and limitations put on smokers and where they can smoke, vaping has become incredibly popular. It is estimated that as many as 35 million adults vape. By 2121, it is estimated that there will be as many as 55 million vapers, but what are the harms of vaping? Is vaping bad for you? According to most research, vaping is up to 95 less harmful than smoking, but it’s not completely without risks.
Recently, according to a Time article dated September 19, 2019, more than 500 people have become sick after vaping and seven of those individuals have died due to the lung illnesses reportedly caused by vaping THC. This sudden increase in vaping related illnesses and deaths is what has prompted the recent push for vaping bans. Unfortunately, no single cause has been pinpointed, though it’s believed to be caused almost entirely by black market THC cartridges.
The General Dangers of Vaping
The truth is that no one knows the long-term health effects of vaping, although the NHS reported that a long-term study on vaping found that vaping can dramatically reduce harm and exposure to toxic chemicals when compared to smoking . While electronic cigarettes and inhalation devices for liquid nicotine have been developed and used since the 1930s, it didn’t become widely popular or available in the United States until 2006. This means that individuals in the US have only been widely vaping for the last 13 years. By contrast, smoked cigarettes and other types of tobacco products, including snuff and chew, have been available for hundreds of years, and the short and long-term health effects of using tobacco products are well-documented.
- Nicotine is an addictive substance, no matter how it is delivered.
- E-juice once often contained diacetyl, which is believed may cause lung diseases, although no cases have ever been diagnosed and many manufacturers no longer use it.
- Vaping e-liquids may contain fine particles that can be inhaled into the lungs.
- Vaping e-liquids may contain harmful chemicals, like lead, nickel and tin, although a study from 2018 shows that it would require an unrealistic consumption of e-liquid to cause harm.
- Vaping liquids may contain VOCs.
- Vaping devices have been known to explode, causing injuries to the mouth, teeth and face. This is mainly believed to be caused by improper battery storage and use, rather than as the result of the device itself.
Addiction Risk: Vaping vs Smoking
It’s important to understand that while vaping is widely considered to be a safer alternative to smoking and traditional smokers often switch to vaping in order to quit their nicotine habits, it is not completely risk-free when it comes to developing an addiction. This is because nicotine is a highly addictive substance, and the brain’s reward system can be rewired to accept nicotine as a reward. Some studies report that vapers are four times more likely to start smoking traditional cigarettes when compared to individuals who do not use any tobacco products, while other studies show that vaping is more likely to prevent smoking. Nonetheless, quitting the habit of vaping can be just as difficult as stopping the smoking of traditional cigarettes in some people.
Lung Cancer & Lung Disease
Vaping has come under fire recently for causing lung illnesses and infections, however, it has come to light that the culprit is black market cartridges, or “dank vapes,” which contain unregulated and suspect ingredients.
While vaping may not be as cancerous or as harmful to an individual’s health as smoking traditional cigarettes, it’s not free of cancer-causing chemicals, and high-voltage devices may release more toxic chemicals than lower-voltage devices, like formaldehyde (though research shows the original studies may have been flawed). Some of the worst chemicals found in the atomized vapor include formaldehyde, diacetyl and pentanedione, which are all known to be cancer-causing agents. However, it is generally believed that the risk of getting cancer from vaping is significantly lower than from smoking traditional cigarettes.
Popcorn Lung
Popcorn lung is believed to be caused by diacetyl, and its official medical name is bronchitis obliterans. The reason bronchitis obliterans is called popcorn lung is because there were eight workers in a microwave popcorn factory who were diagnosed with occupational lung disease. Diacetyl is believed to be the cause of their lung disease since the chemical exposure to diacetyl was extremely high in the areas where these employees worked, although the true cause was never proven. Diacetyl was used by popcorn manufacturers to create a rich, buttery flavor.
Since e-juice also contains diacetyl, there may be an increased risk of frequent vapers developing popcorn lung. However, as Snopes points out, this has never actually happened to anyone.
Is Juul Bad for You?
One popular and heavily advertised brand of vaping pens is Juul, but is Juuling bad for you? A Juul vaping pen looks a lot like a thumb drive, which means children and teenagers can hide it from their parents, but that doesn't necessarily make it any worse for your health than other types of vaping pens. It just means parents should increase their child’s awareness of vaping and discourage underage Juuling.
In regards to the vaping related lung illness scare, a 2019 press release from Juul to its customers said:
“JUUL customers should know that JUUL Labs does not manufacture products with THC, any compound derived from cannabis, or vitamin E compounds like those found in some cannabis-related products.”
So, what DO Juul products contain? The primary difference between Juul and other types of e-cigarettes is that Juul uses high-nicotine e-liquid made with nicotine salts. Nicotine salt is naturally occurring in the leaves of the tobacco plant. This may lead some individuals to suspect that Juul contains tobacco. This is a misnomer. Juul sources its nicotine from the leaves of the tobacco plant, but the product does not contain tobacco.
Like other e-cigs, Juul also contains propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin and flavoring, which is probably artificial. If you are worried about whether Juul is more or less harmful than other types of vaping pens, it is considered to have the same risk.
Juul went on to say:
“In order to ensure consistent experience, we take product quality seriously, which is why we have implemented robust quality controls. We label our products with ingredient disclosures and health warnings. Our device and manufacturing facilities are subject to numerous quality and certification standards, and we conduct extensive testing of JUUL e-liquids and aerosols.”
Vape Products To Use & Avoid
When it comes to choosing the right vaping products for your needs, it is best to choose one from a well-known manufacturer versus one of a lesser-known manufacturer or a generic brand that may contain additional additives or may not have strict quality control protocols. Lab tests of some cheaper and especially generic brands that come from certain overseas countries have been known to contain high levels of pesticides.As the FDA recently recommended, consumers should only buy vaping products from reputable vendors and vaping stores, as they are the least likely to sell fake oil, fake vapes, and black market THC cartridges (the real culprit behind what is making people sick) - such products may not have been manufactured with the strictest quality control protocols and may contain extremely harmful substances or fake ingredients that could lead to immediate illness.