E-Cigarettes: The Savior Delivering You From Smoking, Or A Wolf In Sheep's Clothes?

"As long as it keeps you from smoking, you're not vaping too much," replied one member of a forum dedicated to e-cigarettes to another, who was wondering whether their chain-vaping had gotten out of hand.

When I quit smoking, about two months ago, after a relapse of about four months, I inquired about vaping. The lady at the electronic cigarette sales point "explained", just so I would know, "because many don't", that "analogue cigarettes" contain over 4000 different chemicals that both serve to make the smoker more addicted and put them at great risk of cancer. The stuff in e-cigarettes, meanwhile, is basically just nicotine with a little something that helps deliver it to your body, and some extra flavoring to make it nice. Nicotine, the lady explained, "just gives you a little subtle high" and isn't actually addictive in itself, nor is it harmful to human health.

Are you considering using e-cigarettes to try to give up smoking? (And while we're at it, can you really call yourself a non-smoker if you are vaping?) Are you a young person who's never smoked but is thinking of taking up vaping, thinking it isn't bad for you? You may want to reconsider — vaping isn't all it's cracked up to be, or rather, vaping is more than it's cracked up to be.

What Are E-Cigarettes, And Who Uses Them?

The First World War killed up to 16.5 million people, while the Second World War killed up to 72 million, figures that encompass both military deaths and civilian victims. Cigarette smoking, an addition estimated to be harder to beat than even heroin, took the lives of, the World Health Organization estimates, around 100 million people in the 20th century. That means that smoking claimed more lives than the two great wars of the last century.

Notoriously hard to beat, one US survey found that 70 percent of smokers want to quit, and more than 50 percent try, but only a meagerly six percent actually make it out, and quit cigarettes for good. E-cigarettes, the first form of which were actually invented way back in the 1930s, made it onto the European and American markets in 2006 and 2007 in their modern form, giving nicotine addicts, ostensibly, a much safer delivery system, giving them access to the substance they are addicted to perhaps without killing them. Some go as far as to see e-cigarettes as a savior, something that will prevent them from becoming a scary statistic, a dead body on a pile so high it's hard to visualize.

READ Exposing Ten Little-Known Facts About E-Cigarettes

E-cigarettes are electronic devices that contain several parts that together deliver a liquid that contains nicotine to the user. They're made up of a reservoir that holds the e-liquid containing the nicotine and other chemicals, a source of power, and a vaporizer, which heats the liquid.

They're used by people seeking to quit smoking, people who use both e-cigarettes and analogue cigarettes at once, and, in increasing numbers, young people who have never smoked cigarettes — perhaps precisely because of their reputation as being less harmful, as well as potentially the variety of flavors offered.

E-Cigarettes: Really Less Dangerous Than Smoking?

The Truth About Nicotine

Though the lady selling e-cigarettes was all too keen to convince me that nicotine itself was neither addictive nor harmful, the truth is less rosy. Though the other chemicals offered in modern cigarettes are specifically placed there to promote the addictive potential of these tobacco products, nicotine itself is most certainly addictive. It also interferes with fetal development and impacts the development of the adolescent brain.

What's more, because e-liquids have not been regulated (though the Food and Drug Administration's process of doing so started in August 2016 in the US), you may not know exactly how much nicotine is in any e-liquids you may be using. Acute nicotine poisoning, which can result from using e-cigarettes containing much more nicotine than you knew (sometimes sold "under the table" in convenience stores) or ingesting e-liquids straight, is certainly very dangerous and can even be fatal.

Does Vaping Lead To Cancer? What Are It's Other Health Risks?

E-liquids vary in contents depending on their manufacturer and the product itself. The FDA, studying what was in these liquids, however, did find that a significant portion of them contained diacetyl, an ingredient leading to a dangerous lung disease commonly referred to simply as "popcorn lung", an ingredient also used in anti-freeze, and formaldehyde. E-liquids can also contain nitrosamines, carcinogenic ingredients found in tobacco, and benzene.

It currently certainly appears that e-cigarettes offer a less deadly alternative to traditional cigarettes. That is good news for people who have labeled themselves dyed-in-the-wool nicotine addicts with no intention of weaning themselves off their nicotine addiction.

Do they actually help you quit smoking? With one study finding that nearly 78 percent of e-cigarette users also still smoke traditional cigarettes, that's a very good question, the answer to which is ambiguous at best — and in addition, you have to ask yourself whether you're really a non-smoker if you've instead taken up chain vaping.

READ Teen Use of E-Cigarettes Doubles In US in Just One Year

The most worrying is the increase in e-cigarette use among youngsters. E-cigarettes are now the most popular nicotine product among high school students in the United States, perhaps providing a "gateway drug" towards taking up smoking down the line, and perhaps encouraged both by the flavors offered and by the notion that e-cigarettes aren't that bad for you.

The Bottom Line

If you're going to either be an avid smoker or an avid vaper, e-cigarettes are, current data suggests, almost certainly the safer (Or should we say "less damaging? Yes, we should!) choice. If your choice is between quitting nicotine altogether and vaping, however, we know what the best choice is, and that's all the more true for never-smokers who are considering taking up vaping. E-cigarettes may be less dangerous than traditional tobacco products, but the lady who told me that they were "nothing harmful" was either woefully uninformed or cleverly deceiving potential consumers.