Vaping debate hots up
HAZY: E-CIGARETTES CONTAIN NICOTINE BUT NOT CARCINOGENS
May lead youngsters to traditional cigarettes, according to data.
Is vaping a useful tool for quitting smoking, or just a new way of harming your health? Countries around the world are beginning to consider this question and India on Wednesday announced a total ban on the sale of e-cigarettes.
However, such legislation is running ahead of scientific research.
Vaping consists of inhaling the vapour of a heated liquid inside e-cigarettes. That liquid normally contains nicotine, the highly addictive substance in regular tobacco. Nicotine can affect brain development in the under-25s, according to some studies, and have a detrimental effect on adult brains.
But the liquids vaped do not include a number of dangerous substances found in cigarettes, such as carcinogenic tar and carbon monoxide, which can be a factor in cardiovascular diseases. What e-cigarettes do contain are tiny particles which enter the lungs. There are “numerous potentially toxic substances”, according to a report published by the US National Academies of Sciences. Among these are metals such as nickel and lead, probably from the coil used to heat the liquid.
There are also additives considered safe in the agri-food industry, but linked to pulmonary problems in their vaporised form or not studied at all with regard to vaping. The different flavours of e-cigarettes have led to accusations they are aimed at youngsters. Researchers have little long-term perspective on the health issues of a product which has only been on the market since the mid-2000s. For those who move from cigarettes to vaping, the scientific consensus is that they have chosen a less toxic alternative.
They still get their nicotine fix but without the carcinogens in cigarettes. “Even if it is difficult to quantify precisely the long-term toxicity of e-cigarettes, there is evidence it is significantly lower than traditional cigarettes,” the French Academy of Medicine opined in 2015.
The World Health Organisation
Insufficient evidence one way or the other
(WHO) is more cautious, saying that vaping is “probably less toxic” but there is insufficient information to quantify the risks.
A British study published in February in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested e-cigarettes are more efficient than patches, gum or other products in helping people to stop smoking cigarettes.
But, again, the WHO says there is insufficient proof of this effect.
E-cigarette manufactures complain of “misinformation” being disseminated about their products, as do some antismoking specialists. One of the concerns often raised is that vaping attracts young people who have never smoked cigarettes by aggressive marketing and the flavours available. Studies show vaping can, in fact, lead them to more traditional cigarettes.
The protection of young people is one of the reasons cited by India for its ban on e-cigarettes.
In the US, there is talk of a vaping epidemic in high schools and on Tuesday, New York became the second US state, after Michigan, to ban the sale of flavoured e-cigarettes. President Donald Trump’s administration announced last week it would soon ban flavoured e-cigarette products.