Vaping is a rising trend these days and many smokers have switched to vaping from smoking.
It is actually an act of inhaling and exhaling of the vapor produced by an Electronic Cigarette, these e-cigarettes are powered by a battery that converts liquid e-juice into the vapor that the user inhales.
There is no ash, fire or bad smokey smell produced. E-cigarettes are said to be a safer alternative for smoking as it does not contain harmful chemicals like tobacco, tar and carbon monoxide. However, many skeptics and health conscious people seem to be asking the question ‘Is Vaping Really Safe?’ But is this even the right question to ask?
There is no product available that ensures 100% consumer safety. Take cars for example, Are they safe? Many accidents happen due to common failures aside from user error. Similarly vaping is not completely safe, it is just tobacco harm reduction.
Each year smoking kills nearly 6 million people across the globe and 450,000 alone in America. People also suffer from various diseases due to smoking that creates a negative impact on their daily life. Vaping reduces these harms to a great extent without completely eliminating the risk.
The Dr. Jed Rose, Director at Center for Smoking Cessation, Duke University Medical Center said:
“Based on available evidence, e-cigarettes are almost certainly far less harmful than combustible cigarettes. The U.S. Surgeon General and other experts have linked the vast majority of smoking-related disease to the combustion products of smoke, not to the nicotine per se.”
E-cigarettes provide nicotine addicts or users a way to get nicotine without the dangers of tobacco or smoking. Sweden has the lowest rate of diseases caused by smoking as they use moist oral tobacco known as snus instead of smoking. This shows the fact that nothing compares the risk of setting a dead plant on fire and smoking it. So if you’re addicted to smoking then it will be a good idea to switch to vaping.
Down below we have summarized the potential safety risks of vaping :
• Exploding Batteries:
The exploding batteries are one of the things that many people are afraid of because there have been several incidents related to it. The people must know that it is not the fault of the device but it is the fault of the user who abuses the device or uses faulty or worn out batteries on unregulated mods. If you use good quality batteries and handle them with care then the batteries are unlikely to explode. Our other daily use gadgets such as Smartphones also use batteries and they can also explode if you use cheap batteries, there have been many cases about Samsung Note 7 exploding because of faulty batteries.
• Flavorings:
The flavorings used in the e-juice are commonly used food flavorings that are not supposed to be inhaled. They are approved by FDA but only for ingestion. Since vaping is a new phenomenon that is why there is not much information about how our lungs handle or react to these flavorings.
These flavorings may cause minor irritation or in flaming in the lungs and upper airway but we do not know that it won’t cause some serious issues in the long term. The allergic effect has been noticed due to vaping but it is actually because the person is allergic to the specific flavor.
Although there were some serious lung damages caused in early days of vaping as some companies used diacetyl which is also present in cigarettes but now it is not being used in the e-juices after knowing the risk.
• Toxins in Vapor:
Dry hits or dry puffs as the vapers call it happens when the wicking material goes dry means that it can’t keep up with the vapor being produced. These toxins only get inhaled for only a microsecond as it tastes gross and burned which is not tolerated by the vaper so it doesn’t do any such harm.
In our daily life we breathe and ingest toxins daily at low levels from our surroundings but they don’t accumulate or cause any health problems. There are no health harms reported up till now due to vaping.
• Nicotine:
Nicotine has a bad reputation due to smoking although it is a mild stimulant similar to caffeine and does not cause cancer. Nicotine is safe to use for most people, it just causes an increase in blood pressure and heart rate so it must not be used Pregnant women or people with heart problems. However, there are e-juice available that do not have nicotine at all. These e-juices still must be kept in child resistance bottle out of children’s reach as they are not at all safe to drink.
This all summarizes the risk of vaping and shows that it is definitely 100 times safer than smoking. However, we recommend you to do not vape if you’re not a smoker and stay out of all this as nothing is as safe as breathing the clean air.