Ever since the publication of the Surgeon General’s report on cigarettes in the 1960s, America has been fighting a protracted war for the hearts and minds of millions of smokers to turn them away from tobacco use.
The adverse health effects of smoking cigarettes are now unquestionable and the government’s efforts to curb the smoking population have been a resounding success.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of adults that smoke cigarettes daily has declined from around 42 percent in 1965 to around 17 percent in 2014, with the current estimates being much lower, representing around a 100 percent reduction in the smoking population over 50 years.
Now, some activists and health experts fear that decades of progress are being undone by the arrival of “vaping” or “e-cigarettes,” the use of devices that carry nicotine in a cloud of vapor rather than smoke.
By the time vaping had arrived on the scene as a major competitor to traditional cigarettes, millions of people used them every day and they were widely touted as the safe alternative to smoking precisely because vape-pens and other similar devices do not carry the and tar found in traditional cigarettes.
Despite a perception by a large section of the public that vaping is a safe alternative to smoking, there has been little evidence as of late to corroborate this and some study data to the contrary. As the technology itself is fairly young, it is impossible to collect any long-term data on its effects, but there is some evidence that vaping does not lead to smoking cessation and may have negative effects on the heart, blood vessels and lungs. Citing specifically a 2018 population study led by Scott Weaver in the United States, which found that smoking cessation did not occur more frequently among e-cigarette users compared to regular smokers.
Furthermore, studies published in the American Heart Association’s journal have suggested that flavorings used in vaping may contain some aldehydes, like formaldehyde, or trace amounts of heavy metals that can damage the heart or blood vessels. Additionally, some research from the National Institutes of Health suggests that e-cigarette vapor often works as an inflammatory agent in the lungs, which may lead to a wide array of pulmonary diseases.
There is, of course, the issue of nicotine which most e-cigarettes employ in their concoctions with the express purpose of weening smokers off of cigarettes. The problem here, of course, is that nicotine is the addictive chemical in cigarettes which may lead some to swap their dependency on smoking for a dependency on vaping which is scarcely cheaper and may carry a new set of adverse health risks.
If you are someone who enjoys vaping, I don’t think you’ll drop dead tomorrow, and there is a good chance that vaping is a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes. Be that as it may, it is worth considering that there may be other health costs that we cannot foresee given the relative novelty of e-cigarettes. In this instance, the prudential thing might be to take up a more productive, and less costly, habit instead.
