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A recent study shows that vaping is 95% less harmful than traditional cigarette smoking; British health services push to re-educate the public in light of rising skepticism, in sharp contrast to the response of American health professionals and lawmakers
While American media and lawmakers seek to demonize and outlaw vaping, our British counterparts are taking an entirely different approach to the matter. Not only are they conducting studies to help educate the population, but they’re also actively campaigning to promote vaping as a healthy alternative to cigarettes.
Public Health England (PHE) is a leading advocate in the UK for healthy alternatives to smoking. As they spearhead the latest campaign to educate smokers and the public at large regarding vaping, they’ve created a video demonstrating the sheer volume of black tar found in the lungs of a heavy smoker. This latest video is only one part of their comprehensive approach to assuaging rising concerns about vaping in light of media hysteria.
Debunking myths and making the rounds is another important part of this education and information campaign. For instance, most people familiar with this subject have heard the myth of “popcorn lung”. This rumor began due to the inclusion of diacetyl in e-cigarette juices. This chemical is also used to flavor popcorn and is said to create a condition whereby people find it difficult to breathe and suffer uncontrollable fits of coughing. While this chemical is found in e-cigarettes, it is found at concentrations up to 100 times higher in traditional cigarettes.
It is precisely this contrast that programs like the PHE and the NHS are striving to highlight in the UK. While there is a good deal of studies out there that clearly show the health impact of e-cigarettes, they are often provided without context. While vaping may be slightly more dangerous than neither vaping nor smoking, every single study shows that vaping is massively less dangerous than smoking cigarettes. When information is circulated stating, for instance, that vaping “could harm cells in the lungs” without contrasting it against the fact that cigarette smoking kills 50% of those who take it up and don’t quit, that information is biased, useless, and skewed towards garnering a particular response: the backlash against e-cigarettes.
In the United States, we could take a page out of the UK playbook and begin to educate our population accurately and honestly, without spurious motives and bad faith arguments.
As Professor John Newton of the PHE says, “It would be tragic if thousands of smokers who could quit with the help of an e-cigarette are being put off due to false fears about safety.”
American Hysteria
Unfortunately, these fears are precisely what are taking root in American society. As UK professionals respond to facts, studies, and now widely available information, American “experts” are caught up in an unfounded panic.
“Teens are… attracted to the marketable technology and flavorings seen in vaping devices”, says a spokesperson for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). In light of this baffling idea, NIDA has taken a particularly aggressive tack with e-cigarettes, pushing the entirely baseless myth that vaping might somehow lead teens to smoke cigarettes.
As of 2019, not a single one of the dozens of studies conducted to date even hint at the veracity of such a claim.
In fact, it’s worth diving into the source of a lot of anti-vaping propaganda, which stems, in part, from a 2018 survey of high school students. In this survey, it was found that nearly 40% of high school seniors said they vaped in the past year. This number is 10x greater than the number of seniors reporting a cigarette habit and a 10% increase from years previous.
What the detractors of vaping tend to ignore, however, is some other vital information uncovered by this study. Most notably, cigarette smoking among middle and high school students has now fallen to 3.6%. This is the lowest it’s ever been in the history of the study, which began in 1975.
As clearly evidenced by these numbers, teenagers are simply not, by any measure or standard, picking up vaping and then switching to cigarettes. If anything, vaping has largely replaced cigarette use among teenagers. To draw the comparison once again, smoking cigarettes carries a 50% mortality rate, while the health risks of vaping are negligible. Any rational understanding of the situation would recognize that teenagers are in no way threatened by the rising proliferation of products like Juul.
