Is Vaping Safer Than Cigarettes?

In the past decade or so, vaping has seen an enormous increase in popularity. To illustrate this, there was an 11% increase in teenage vaping between 2018 and 2019. Even though there are age restrictions for buying vapes, they do little to stop teenagers from getting their hands on them.

However, there are arguments in favour of vaping, especially in the sense that they’re ultimately safer than smoking cigarettes. While there are still no FDA-approved vapes for helping cigarette smokers quit in the U.S., the U.K. has caught onto the potential of this and has started selling vapes that have this exact purpose.

But it’s hard to form your own opinion when there’s so much conflicting information. Fortunately, we’ve come armed with some facts both in favour and against this whole vaping business. That way, you can decide for yourself.

Vaping pros

As we mentioned earlier, other countries have already started using vapes as smoking cessation tools. Despite the lack of evidence surrounding the long-term effects of vaping, the U.K. is taking a more holistic approach by conceptualizing vaping as a harm-reduction smoking tool instead of a smoking tool to avoid outright. This simple change in mindset could be enough to turn the public tide in favour of vaping.

This medicinal potential is perhaps vaping’s most significant advantage. Public Health England, the British counterpart to the U.S.’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) claims that vaping is 95% safer than smoking cigarettes. This is good news, as it means even the most realistic tobacco flavoured e-cigarette may still be healthier for you than its “real” counterpart. While this doesn’t seem to match up with the evidence of annual vaping-related deaths, it’s still much too early to rule out the potential health benefits vaping could have for cigarette smokers.

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Vaping cons

While vaping likely releases much fewer chemicals in your body than cigarettes, they’re still not entirely safe for you. As of January 2020, there have been 60 vaping-related deaths in the United States, mostly as a result of lung damage. However, the silver lining in this is that most of these deaths result from the use of black market vapes or cartridges, meaning these products were not intended for the market anyway.

The culprit might be Vitamin E acetate, a thickening agent in THC vape cartridges. Seeing as THC vape cartridges are still widely illegal in the United States, chemicals in unregulated products should be a cause for concern.

Another downside is the fact that vapes may be just as addictive as traditional cigarettes. Some vapes may even have higher concentrations of nicotine to compensate for the lack of some chemicals found in conventional cigarettes. The higher the nicotine levels, the more likely you are to get addicted. Keep this in mind next time you head to the vape shop.

Not to mention, vapes may also damage your heart and lungs. The nicotine in vapes still has the same effect on you is it would in traditional cigarettes, meaning it raises your blood pressure and adrenaline, which could potentially lead to heart problems later.

The only way you can make an informed decision is to weigh both the good and bad of a particular subject. Hopefully, we’ve shed some light on the pros and cons of vaping that will help you decide whether it’s worth investing in one or not.

Next up, Smoking Weed During Self-Isolation