But, and this is a big one: you can do it inside. My clothes don’t reek of tobacco when I duck outside for a hit. My girlfriend is all too happy to kiss me if I’ve been inhaling vanilla fumes. It had become apparent that there were problems with my vape-saves-the-day habit.Īs the National Academies of Sciences put it in an extensive report published this year, “Ultimately, the potential health benefit of e-cigarette use for cigarette smokers will depend on the characteristics of the smoker, the product, and how the device is used.” As it stood, I had the characteristics of someone with a pretty addictive personality and making nicotine easier to consume was not the right move for me. A 2018 study of e-cig smokers’ urine found at least five of the same carcinogens found in cigarettes. Some studies have found it to contain lead, nickel, tin, and silver from the machinery inside the devices along with formaldehyde, manganese, tolulene, and other ingredients linked to cancer, central nervous system problems, and other possible health issues. Indeed, the “vapor” may have a lot more than those five ingredients listed above. And evidence the effects on the cardiovascular system approach that of a cigarette is also piling up.” “In one disease they seem worse than cigarettes: they seem to turn on more inflammatory and depressed immune function in lungs than cigarettes. ![]() Stanton Glantz, Director of UCSF’s Center for Tobacco Research, Control & Education. “As time passes, the evidence that these are a lot more dangerous than people thought keeps piling up,” says Dr. (Duh.) Vaping also seems to trigger potentially harmful immune responses in the lungs. In other words, just because something is safe to eat doesn’t mean it’s safe to be inhaled. It’s actually FDA-approved for use in food (believe it or not it’s common in pre-made cake mix) but when heated to vaping temperature it can produce the carcinogen formaldehyde. I never kidded myself into thinking that this habit was harmless, but my conviction that they were less harmful than cigarettes made the endeavor seem worthwhile, even praiseworthy.Īfter all, the average cigarette has some 4,000 chemical compounds, including dozens of confirmed carcinogens, while my e-cig cartridges contained just five: distilled water, nicotine, glycerin, propylene glycol, and some flavoring.That’s a flimsy argument: “something with lots of scary chemicals is less dangerous than something with just a few scary chemicals.”įirstly that propylene glycol, largely responsible for making your breath look like a cloud of mist, is also found in fog machines used in concerts and has been linked to chronic lung problems among stagehands. ![]() Juul’s sales increased over 600 percent each year to become the best selling device on the market while I inhaled an atmosphere’s worth of vanilla vapor into my lungs. Over the next few years, the optimism over e-cigarettes waned as their popularity skyrocketed. A Greek study had found 81 percent of people in a group of over 19,000 had successfully used e-cigs to quit. In fact, the U.K.’s Public Health England had published a review concluding vaping was 95 percent less harmful than smoking. If you’re going to smoke it’s clearly better to go with e-cigarettes. When people voiced health concerns, I came to my Juul’s defense. I never kidded myself into thinking that this habit was harmless, but less harmful than cigarettes. While saturated fat and alcohol still have their supporters, nobody is rushing to cigarettes’ defense. They cause cancer, emphysema, heart disease, even impotence. But, as we’ve pulled the flavored smoke from our Juuls and similar vaporizers, we’ve blindly assumed one thing: they have to be a better idea than smoking cigarettes.Ĭigarettes might be the least controversial enemies of your health. ![]() At the same social events where I once belched noxious, girlfriend-repelling, shirt-stinking tobacco fumes, I was now puffing crème brûlée-scented fog clouds.Į-cigarettes have been around since 2003 and we still don’t know much about their health effects or safety. ![]() The smell, the cost, the surprisingly strong amount of nicotine it delivered per hit. Everything about the e-cigarette seemed, and felt, better than my old cancer sticks. Before I knew it, I’d ordered one for myself and fallen in love at first hit. From the window outside my cubicle, I was face to face with video billboard playing the painfully hip new commercial from the e-cigarette company Juul. I was working in Times Square at the time. After one tobacco-laden weekend resulted in a full week of phlegm and coughing, I felt like I had to do something. In 2015, my now-and-then smoking habit had crept up to two or three cigarettes per day, and a lot more when I was drinking.
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