Vaping is the inhaling of a vapor created by an electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) or other vaping device. E-cigarettes are battery-powered smoking devices. They have cartridges filled with a liquid that usually contains nicotine, flavorings, and chemicals. The liquid is heated into a vapor, which the person inhales. That's why using e-cigarettes is called "vaping."
Vaping hasn't been around long enough for us to know how it affects the body over time. But health experts are reporting serious lung damage in people who vape, including some deaths.
Vaping puts nicotine into the body. Nicotine is highly addictive and can:
slow brain development in kids and teens and affect memory, concentration, learning, self-control, attention, and mood
increase the risk of other types of addiction as adults
E-cigarettes also:
irritate the lungs
may cause serious lung damage and even death
can lead to smoking cigarettes and other forms of tobacco use
Some people use e-cigarettes to vape marijuana, THC oil, and other dangerous chemicals. Besides irritating the lungs, these drugs also affect how someone thinks, acts, and feels.
Do You Have to Vape Every Day to Get Addicted?
Even if someone doesn't vape every day, they can still get addicted. How quickly someone gets addicted varies. Some people get addicted even if they don't vape every day.
What About E-cigarettes That Don't Have Nicotine?
Most e-cigarettes do have nicotine. Even e-cigarettes that don't have nicotine have chemicals in them. These chemicals can irritate and damage the lungs. The long-term effects of e-cigarettes that don't have nicotine are not known.
Addiction: Addiction in the growing brain may set up pathways for later addiction to other substances.
Brain risks: Nicotine affects brain development in kids and teens. This can make it harder to learn and concentrate. Some of the brain changes are permanent and can affect mood and impulse control later in life.
Toxins (poisons): The vapor made from e-cigarettes is not made of water. The vapor contains harmful chemicals and very fine particles that are inhaled into the lungs and exhaled into the environment.
Sports:To do their best in sports. Vaping may lead to lung inflammation
Many of the lung injuries reported by federal health officials have been associated with people who were consuming THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. But you note in your editorial that traditional marijuana has not caused any of these injuries. Is the problem in the way THC is consumed?
Possibly. I think some of the things that are now being reviewed are the pirated THC products that probably have contaminants like vitamin E and some other oils and even pesticides. Then, all this highlights the major problem: none of this is rigorously regulated.
It is unfortunate that a crisis had to arise to highlight the problem, but it is accelerating studies and, hopefully, some regulation. It is not going to be a single chemical that causes all these hospitalizations. It will not be so simple.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAfkTeCbryk&feature=share
