The Vaping Gun

Vaping. What does the word bring to mind? Is it parties, sex, and music videos, or lung disease, nicotine and heavy metals? Probably the former, right? With little resistance, the silent danger of vaping has integrated itself into everyday life, and it isn’t hard to understand why. Rappers, moguls and influencers all blatantly flaunt their use of e-cigarettes. Social media assaults us from all angles with advertisements of gorgeous women, successful men, and the elite all linked together by one seemingly harmless hobby. It’s not like they’re smoking cigarettes, right? But here’s the thing—e-cigarettes are more dangerous than they seem. With the prevalence of vaping on UM’s campus alone, it is important that this message hits home: vaping is not safe. 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not regulate e-cigarettes. At first glance, this might not seem abnormal, since e-cigs are not drugs and thus can’t fall into the same category as narcotics or prescription medications. However, this really means that e-cig distributors are not required to put warning labels on their products. This makes it easy for the public to believe that there is no health threat, especially since cigarettes, a known evil, actually do have these warnings. But don’t be fooled! It is a lack of regulation that causes this, not a lack of danger. Still, the public remains largely uninformed and this failure to communicate has monumental effects. In 2016, the US Surgeon General found that American teens use e-cigarettes more than any other form of tobacco product. That’s right, tobacco products, a category which includes conventional cigarettes. Since e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which comes from tobacco, they are still considered tobacco products. And it's not just trace amounts of nicotine either. One popular e-cigarette manufacturer notes on their website that using a pod of their product is like smoking 20 cigarettes, the equivalent of one pack in the United States. The similarities don’t stop there, either. Just like their predecessor, vapes can cause mood disorders like depression and anxiety as well as impulse control issues and nicotine addictions, according to the US Surgeon General.

If, knowing this, you decide that vaping is worth the health risks, you might be thinking that it is a personal choice that only affects yourself. After all, there is no danger of secondhand smoke like there is with plain cigarettes, right? Wrong. The vapor from e-cigarettes is actually similarly harmful. Compounds like benzene (think car exhaust) accompany nicotine, and heavy metals like lead and tin infuse the sweet-smelling clouds that are released. Continued exposure to these chemicals can have serious repercussions in the lungs and brain. Even worse, according to the CDC, these compounds are released in small quantities from products that claim to only release water vapor. 

You may ask, if vaping is so bad for us, how did it become so popular? We can thank skillful (and expensive) marketing for that. Data from 2014 show that the vaping industry spent over $125 million on advertisements for their products. In that same year, 18 million teens and young adults had seen some form of this advertising. Even now, 5 years later, it seems almost impossible to watch a hip-hop or rap music video without someone using a vape product. Big artists like Bad Bunny, Migos, and DJ Khaled, can all be seen in their music videos casually vaping and using other popular tobacco products. It’s no secret that vape companies love this publicity. A simple Google search of “celebrities who vape” reveals links to pages of “celebrities who give vaping a good name” and “celebrity vapers who make us proud.” The flagrant use of fame to promote this habit is just a modern day version of what cigarette companies used to do. Stars like James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, and John Travolta all made smoking look chic and cool. The subliminal promotion of such products in films attracted a younger audience, making it seem like smoking was a way for them to relate to their famous idols. Whether we want to admit it or not, the youth of today is falling prey to the same bag of tricks. 

But not everything can be pinned on celebrities, of course. One of the main ways vape companies target our age demographic is through flavors. Of course kids wouldn't want to smoke cigarettes, that’s disgusting! But puffing on a candy or alcohol flavored vape doesn’t sound nearly as bad. Sweet, tantalizing smells make vaping seem more like a kid-friendly treat and less like a toxic habit. Targeting youthful consumers is not the only danger that lurks behind these flavors, especially considering that many contain a particularly dangerous chemical: diacetyl. According to the American Lung Association, the inhalation of diacetyl causes a condition called “popcorn lung.” This is a cute nickname for a horrible, incurable condition called bronchiolitis obliterans, which is characterized by the scarring of the tiny sacs in lung tissue. This compound was once commonly used in buttery flavorings of microwave popcorn, but was removed by leading popcorn manufacturers due to the health risks. Needless to say, it has yet to be removed from vapes. In 2015, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found diacetyl in 39 of 51 tested vape flavors sold by leading brands. This is especially concerning because, according to the US Surgeon General, 90% of young adult and 80% of teen (ages 12-17) e-cigarette users consume flavored products.  What does it say about the vape industry that such a dangerous chemical can consistently be found in their products, and for no other reason than to make it taste better? They are willing to sacrifice the health of their consumers to make a hazardous product more marketable and appealing. 

Even with all of this information, it is all too easy to distance ourselves from the problem. Yes, those are the statistics, but what about our campus and our student body? From everyday observations it is clear that e-cigs and other vaping paraphernalia are constantly used by our peers, but did you know that this behavior is in direct violation of the non-smoking policy enforced by the University of Miami? That’s right, a quote straight from page 55 of the 2018-2019 Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook states the following: “The Coral Gables Campus and the Miller School of Medicine are smoke free environments; smoking is prohibited. “Smoking” includes inhaling, exhaling, burning, or carrying any lighted cigarette or electronic cigarette, cigar, pipe or other such device which contains tobacco or other smoke producing products.” Whether students do not know about this stipulation or simply choose to ignore it, the use of e-cigs and nicotine vapes on campus is not only dangerous—it is prohibited. Future work will be done to quantify and analyze just how prevalent this illicit habit is on our UM campus in spite of the regulations put in place to control it. 

The bottom line is this: the use of vapes and e-cigarette products is a harmful hobby sponsored by an industry whose only goal is to make money. As college students, we are a target demographic for these companies and, far too often, we fall into their traps. As role models for younger siblings, family members, and generations to come, we must do our part to end the vaping craze once and for all.