Prevention and Recovery: Vaping

Over the past several years, we've shared numerous messages about the dangers of vaping.  Primarily, because there are no regulations controlling what is in the vaping juices.  Which means that users have no idea what they're breathing into their lungs. This week's Opinion article shares a different spin on vaping.  Nearly 29 million Americans regularly smoke cigarettes, a drastic decline from 1964, when more than 40 percent of adults smoked and the Surgeon General first linked tobacco to cancer.  Slashing nicotine levels in cigarettes could save millions of lives.  Regulators are worried that if they make cigarettes less satisfying without offering appealing alternatives, smokers who can’t quit may turn to illicit markets.  At the same time, regulators fear that the very products that may help smokers quit, like vapes or oral nicotine pouches, also attract young people. The F. D.A. has imposed strict regulations on vaping products, banning flavors and slowing the approval of new e-cigarettes. Most vapes sold in the U.S. are unauthorized, posing safety risks to users.  What Americans really need is access to safer products. This will require approving more vapes and oral nicotine products and making them more affordable than cigarettes.  It will also mean communicating to the public that what kills smokers is primarily the smoke and tar in regular cigarettes, not nicotine.  Studies have shown that e-cigarette vapor contains far fewer cancer-causing chemicals than cigarette smoke.  More than half of all long-term smokers will die a smoking-related death. Regulators may need to accept that wider access to vaping could mean more young people use these products. But if vaping continues to displace smoking rather than fuel it, that trade-off could ultimately be a public health win.  We don’t have long-term data on vaping because it was invented in 2003. The studies do not fully account for risks from unauthorized products that may contain unknown toxic ingredients — underscoring the need for more effective regulation.  The F.D.A. should devote much-needed resources to tackling the backlog of vaping products awaiting approval and actively let smokers know that vapes and oral pouches are genuinely less risky to their health.  Public health authorities have made enormous progress in driving down cigarette-related deaths. It may seem counterintuitive that elevating other nicotine products can save lives.  But that may be what we need to finally end the harms caused by smoking.  Here's the link: Opinion | Embracing Vaping Will Save Lives Lost from Smoking - The New York Times