Vaping, it’s fair to say, has attracted a lot of commentary across the world, with some people hailing it as a brilliant solution for helping cigarette smokers to quit, and others expressing fears that it could actually have the opposite effect, serving as a ‘gateway’ to smoking for young people.
Many of the more negative claims made about e-cigarette use, though, have turned out to be pretty ridiculous when compared to the facts. Indeed, below, we’ve listed five examples of fear-mongering about vaping being emphatically debunked.
The British health authorities disapprove of vaping
Alas for those seeking to cultivate unwarranted negativity about e-cigarettes, this simply isn’t true. Public Health England (PHE) has actually declared vaping to be 95% less harmful than smoking, while – as reported by The Telegraph – a National Health Service (NHS) trust even recently made the decision to allow vaping shops to open on its hospital premises, as it seeks to discourage smokers.
Vaping gives you ‘popcorn lung’
This one ‘popped’ up due to some e-liquid flavourings intended to provide a buttery flavour containing the chemical diacetyl, which – at very high exposure levels – is indeed linked to the serious lung disease bronchiolitis obliterans.
However, as PHE has explained, diacetyl isn’t even allowed to be used in e-liquids in the UK – and the low levels at which it has been previously detected in some e-liquid flavourings should give you even less concern that you could be at any real risk of developing this rare disease.
E-cigarette use is a ‘gateway’ to smoking
Fears have often been voiced that the fast-rising popularity of vaping could help to effectively renormalize smoking – the idea being that impressionable and curious youngsters could easily try vaping, and then give smoking a go as well.
However, writing in The Mirror, Dr Miriam Stoppard shared a series of statistics indicating that smoking among the young has continued its historical decline in recent years, even as e-cigarette use has sharply gone up.
While the percentage of 13 and 15 year olds who had ever smoked was 60% in 1998, this had fallen to 19% by 2015; there was a stark drop in the proportion of regular smokers, too.
E-cigarette vapour is harmful to bystanders
You can stop worrying about ‘passive vaping’ now; according to PHE’s 2018 evidence review, there are yet to be any identified health risks associated with inhaling someone else’s e-cigarette vapour.
This helps to explain why, while UK law prohibits smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces, this legislation does not cover vaping. Organisations are therefore free to devise their own policies as to whether e-cigarette use is allowed on their premises.
Vaping doesn’t even help you to quit smoking
Finally, you can cross this one off the list of things to be concerned about as well. Only earlier this year, it emerged from a study focusing on almost 900 long-term smokers attempting to quit, that they were much likelier to achieve this goal if they vaped than if they depended on nicotine replacement patches or gum.
So, there you have it – if you’re still second-guessing whether you should just go ahead and purchase those VSAVI CBD vape pen kits or the quirky flavoured e-liquids on offer from various other online stores, we suggest that you just go for it. The highest of health authorities are happy to recommend vaping as an alternative to smoking – which is why we’re confident in doing so, too.
To read more on topics like this, check out the health category.
