When Vaping Goes Wrong

Dangers of vape pens on your lungs! Vapor is inhaled as a nicotine alternative, which can be harmful for your health. Here’s everything you need to know about vaping, e-cigarettes, JUUL, etc.

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Voiceover by Carl Mason: [email protected]

Vaping refers to the act of using an electronic cigarette as a way of simulating conventional smoking. It doesn’t involve burning tobacco but still maintains some of the behavioral aspects of smoking, such as inhalation and the hand-to-mouth action. Instead of smoke, e-cigarette users inhale aerosol, which is commonly called vapor. E-cigarette designs will typically include a mouthpiece, a battery and a liquid storage area as well as a heating element and a microprocessor. Unlike the traditional combustion of tobacco, the battery-powered vaporizer has a heating element that atomizes the liquid solution. The mixture most often contains nicotine in liquid form as well as glycerin, propylene glycol, flavorings and other ingredients. Most people who start vaping are motivated by a desire to give up smoking, believing it to be a safer alternative to cigarettes. Others do it for recreational purposes or as a way to circumvent smoke-free laws. There have been numerous studies on the dangers and benefits of vaping, but an overall conclusion hasn’t been reached. Vaping devices as a whole still have dangerous aspects to them. There’ve been several incidents of malfunctioning and exploding e-cigarettes as well as health complications that have been linked to vaping.

The earliest e-cigarette patent can be traced to American Herbert A. Gilbert. In 1963, he designed a “smokeless non-tobacco cigarette”. It didn’t involve the use of nicotine and produced flavored steam. Although similar in design to today’s devices, it didn’t receive much attention since smoking was still widely popular at the time. It was Chinese pharmacist and inventor Hon Lik, who designed the first commercially successful e-cigarette, in 2003. Since the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes, in the mid-2000s, vaping across the globe has risen exponentially. There are hundreds of brands and the global sales figure in 2014 alone was around $7 billion. Approximately 95% of all e-cigarettes are made in China. As of the making of this video, China also has the highest number of e-cigarette users. When compared to the rest of the world, vaping is more common in the US and Europe. As of 2018, more than 10 million people worldwide vape daily. Vaping among adolescents has steadily increased since e-cigarettes were first introduced. Regulating and legislating e-cigarettes around the world has been challenging and that’s mainly because they overlap with existing policies and tobacco laws. As such, some countries have no regulation whatsoever, while others have chosen to ban e-cigarettes completely. Brazil, Singapore, India and Uruguay fall into the latter category. In Japan, these devices are illegal so the market uses heat-not-burn tobacco products as an alternative to smoking. In the EU, there’s been tighter regulation in recent years which limits advertising and also reduces the amount of nicotine and flavors used in liquids. As of the making of this video, in most EU states, the purchaser of an e-cigarette needs to be 18 or older. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration federal agency has extended its power to include e-cigarettes, the liquid they use and all other associated products. In countries where vaping is legal, it’s typically prohibited on public transportation but allowed in other public places.

There are numerous aspects to consider when it comes to the potentially harmful effects of e-cigarettes. It’s already well-established that tobacco smoking wreaks havoc on overall health. While there is some indication that vaping helps smokers quit, it’s still not proven to be more or less effective than conventional cessation methods such as nicotine patches. Dual use is a frequent occurrence, where people start vaping but still continue to smoke traditional cigarettes. This may enhance the negative effects from both practices. Although generally viewed as safer than smoking, the risks associated with vaping are also plentiful. Even in the absence of such incidents, second-hand inhalation may still affect the health of children. There are still many unknowns about vaping and the long-term effect it has on health. Harmful chemicals such as formaldehyde or carbonyl compounds can be inadvertently produced when the heating elements reacts with the liquid. Vapor, in some cases, has been found to contain heavy metals, toxicants and carcinogens. The ubiquitous issue is that the full contents of e-liquid are rarely disclosed and therefore its cytotoxic potential is unknown. Therefore, vapor can contain toxic chemicals not found in tobacco smoke.