File under: Don’t believe everything you hear in the media.
There’s been a great deal of misinformation circulating of late about vaping. Some recent illnesses and deaths attributed to vaping have prompted knee-jerk proposals for vaping or flavor bans, which is most unfortunate inasmuch as vaping has been shown to be one of the most successful full-spectrum alternatives to help people quit (or avoid) smoking.
Upon deeper research, you will find that the recent spate of lung illnesses (and the very few deaths which have unfortunately occurred) have actually NOT been attributable to vaping good quality nicotine juices, but instead result from vaping THC and CBD-laced e-liquids of questionable derivation, most of which were sold on the black-market.
To my knowledge, all instances of what’s called “popcorn lung” involve the intake of cheap Chinese juices which can contain diacetyl, and are not formulated under the strict “clean room” standards of reputable American e-juice labs.
While nicotine does have a constrictive effect on the circulatory system (so we cannot assert it’s a totally benign substance for our use), there is little substantive evidence to suggest, much less prove, that the inhalation of high-quality vape juice (in moderation) has any generalized, significantly negative effects on otherwise healthy users… especially when compared to the plethora of negative effects associated with smoking.
Should We Discourage Teens From Vaping?
When it comes to minors using e-cigs, as with cigarettes and alcohol, it stands to reason that kids should not be allowed to walk into a store and buy an e-cig, and it’s appropriate that the use of them should be disallowed on public school grounds. Kids should always be taught and encouraged to avoid all addictive substances…that’s just good parenting and adult supervision. They’ll be adults soon enough.
That said — knowing that many teens will test the boundaries and look for ways around the restrictions and prohibitions foisted upon them by the grown-ups in their lives — and given the wide disparity between the known health effects of smoking versus vaping — if today’s crop of rebellious teens choose to vape instead of smoke, we should duly frown our disapproval — but privately consider it a win.
For a historical timeline on the creation and
development of e-cig technologies, click here.
Why Do Folks Like Vaping So Much?
First off — it’s way cheaper than smoking. As the infographic to the right shows, there’s roughly a 10 to 1 correlation between the costs of smoking versus vaping.
In all other approaches to smoking cessation, the focus is placed on the method of nicotine delivery only. The rationale seems to be that if a person addicted to nicotine is provided a less harmful way of getting their “nic fix”, then that person will quite readily give up the cigarettes, and be in a better position to eventually overcome their desire for nicotine entirely.
This rationale, in my view, is short-sighted, and for most folks eventually fails. The recidivism rate for all conventional smoking cessation products is around 95% after one year. IOW, even if a person manages to quit smoking entirely, and successfully weans themselves from nicotine, chances are they will light up again within a year or so.
Every smoker trying to quit has been there — either they have a great day and feel compelled to celebrate by lighting up, or else they have a horrible day and feel equally compelled to make their sorrows disappear in a cloud of smoke.
What nicotine-centric approaches to quitting cigarettes utterly fail to take into account, frankly, is the natural propensity of humans to indulge oral fixations. In the case of smokers, they dearly love the hand-to-mouth ritual of smoking. Not to put too fine a point on it — they like having something to do with their hands that gives them something to suck on, taking in the warm, comforting smoke deep into their lungs, exhaling with a flourish — perhaps even creating art in the air by blowing intricate smoke rings.
I contend that by not addressing the ritual of smoking itself, conventional cessation approaches like patches, gums and pharmaceuticals routinely fail by basically throwing the baby out with the bathwater, removing both the drug we crave AND the ritual associated with it. It’s widely known that the body’s physiological reactions to nicotine withdrawal are over and done within a few days… at that point it’s the psychological cravings that persist. Ex-smokers are not craving the nicotine itself nearly as much as they simply miss the comforting ritual of the habit.
We can be forgiven our oral fixations. Infants wean more easily when given a pacifier. Our hunger and thirst can only be sated by using our hands to put food and beverages into our mouths, and we feel good about ourselves by orally ingesting vitamins, minerals and other dietary supplements. Our deepest displays of affection involve the use of hands, mouth, lips and tongue. The list goes on and on — and I think you catch my drift here.
The efficacy of vapes, and their wide adoption in the marketplace, is a direct result of what they provide: all the tactile and oral pleasures of inhaling and expelling something closely resembling “smoke”, and strictly measured, controllable doses of the nicotine folks crave. For all intents and purposes, a user of e-cigs gets all the things they like about smoking, without all the nasty bits they don’t. How is this not a move in the right direction?
It’s worth interjecting that nicotine, while indeed highly addictive, is not itself carcinogenic. It’s classified as a stimulant, and people are attracted to it in the same way they are attracted to coffee, or the indigenous Andes mountain peoples of Peru to chewing coca leaves.
So… Why The Backlash?
- So if vaping is so much safer than smoking (watch the video below if I haven’t convinced you)
- and if nicotine itself, while addicting, isn’t carcinogenic and when taken in moderation functions as a natural stimulant (BTW, there are specific neurons in the brain that respond only to nicotine… one might even construe this to suggest that God may have created nicotine expressly for our enjoyment)
- and if vaping has been shown (anecdotally at the very least) to be a vastly superior method of quitting cigarettes, one by which millions of people have successfully (and in most cases, permanently) quit the nasty habit of combusting and inhaling tobacco leaves
- then why this giant media push against vaping, and why does the government seek to discourage vaping — if not ban it outright?
Oh, let’s see…
- Mainstream Media has long been known to broadcast only the information controlled and approved of by their corporate owners, and their cronies
- Among the richest and most powerful of these industries are Big Pharma and Big Tobacco
- One of Big Pharma’s fattest cash-cows is smoking cessation products
- Big Tobacco’s entire business model is predicated on people buying, burning and inhaling their product
- And all of these corporate entities have direct access to elected government officials whose number one priority is to keep their corporate overlords fat and happy in exchange for lavish contributions to their respective campaign coffers
- IOW — vaping is being demonized because of political corruption (and a complete disregard for the common good) at the highest levels of the corporate/government complex.
More simply put — we are being lied to about vaping on a daily basis.
My advice: Wake up already! The disinformation you’re being fed regarding vaping is just the tip of the iceberg.
“I think you’re full of it, Foster!”
A case could be made for that… but not in this instance, I’m happy to say.
This video interview with a renowned heart surgeon, who has studied vaping in-depth (and had the courage to embrace the vaping alternative to smoking to the extent of actually investing his money a vape shop), is one of the most accurate and compelling I’ve seen. If you won’t believe me, try this on for size:
Ingredients of Vape Juice
The primary ingredient in vape juice, the one that actually produces the exhaled clouds of vapor, is propylene glycol (PG), one of the most studied substances in history. You’ll find it listed among the ingredients of many foods and products you consume and use every day (everything from candy bars and bread to baby wipes and concert fog machines). In foods it is primarily used to maintain moistness.
“Generally considered safe” to be consumed in foods by the FDA, a 1942 government study conducted near Chicago sought to determine the effects of inhaling copious quantities of PG. In its infinite wisdom, the government conducted its experiment in a children’s convalescent center, splitting the center’s forced-air heating system into two separate streams of heated air, one heavily dosed with PG, and the other untreated as a control.
After three years of data collection, the results were tabulated, and the only discernible difference between the two groups was that the children receiving the PG had fewer instances of colds and flu. Turns out PG is an effective germicide, and believe it or not there are many doctors today who extoll informed and responsible vaping as actually beneficial to our health. Many hospitals lace their climate control systems with PG to help minimize air-borne infections, and no one is worried about any ill effects as a result of gargantuan fog machines being used as a visual effect at concerts.
Vaping pharma-grade propylene glycol and/or vegetable glycerine with controlled amounts of nicotine and food-grade flavorings has gotten millions of people off cigarettes (myself included), and after ten years of growing popularity vaping shows no signs of posing ANY significant health threat to the public.
A vape device in and of itself is not particularly dangerous. It’s simply an electro-mechanical delivery system consisting of a juice-soaked cotton wick wrapped around a heater coil, powered by a battery similar to the one that’s powering your cell phone. With due diligence to battery maintenance and coil replacement, vapes are just as safe as any other electronic device we carry around in our pockets these days.
WHAT you chose to put in the device is something else altogether. Garbage in, garbage out. For this reason I strongly support appropriate advances on the regulatory front to ensure the quality and safety of the devices themselves, as well as the composition and manufacturing standards adhered to by the e-juice industry.
My Experience With Vaping
I’ve been enjoying vaping since 2009, ending a 22-year smoking habit I had thought I’d never shake. I studied the e-cig literature then available in-depth before making the decision to switch, and continue to keep up with the research and case studies.
Within two days of quitting cigarettes, the nagging cough I had had for years started to go away, my chronic nasal congestion eased, and I began breathing easier. Since then, in over ten years of vaping, I have not experienced any particular health negatives I could attribute to vaping. In fact, thanks to the anti-microbial attributes of PG, I have had fewer and milder colds and flu ever since taking up vaping. I admit this is anecdotal evidence, but still worth noting.
I’m constantly looking for credible information that could change my mind on its relative safety… so far I’ve found nothing. Most reports and so-called ‘studies’ lambasting vaping turn out to be productions of organizations with a vested interest in squelching the vape industry. Fake news… imagine that!
There are relatively few topics (besides music) which I feel better qualified to comment upon than the vaping phenomenon, so if you have a question, fire away, and I’ll be happy to respond. Keep chucking the clouds!
ADDITIONAL PERSPECTIVES AND INFO
For more information, visit the CASAA website:
