Most people who vape used to be (or still are) smokers. It is said by some that quitting nicotine is comparable to ditching heroin, and vaporizers offer hope to smokers everywhere. Although nearly everyone knows that cigarettes are bad for your health, vaping is still fairly new to the world – and so the long term effects are not as widely known. However, this doesn’t mean that the effects are completely unknown, and in this article we will explore the science behind smoking and vaping in depth.
Smoking versus Vaping: What You Need To Know
If you’ve ever read the warning on a cigarette packet, you probably know that smoking tobacco damages the lungs. Inhaling ciggies long term leads to cancer and other fatal lung conditions that are often too awful to think about.
However, the reality is that your puffs of pleasure contain thousands of chemical compounds, of which there are more than 70 known carcinogens. With this in mind, and with the challenge of giving up entirely, smokers are looking for alternative solutions in various types of vapes.
Vapes don’t produce as many carcinogens, and are therefore considered to be a lower risk by many. Similarly, unlike ciggies (which are known to lodge pieces of tobacco and paper within lung tissue) vapes do not contain any solid particles.
Due to the fact that vaporizing doesn’t require combustion (burning) this eliminates the problem of tar and carbon monoxide found in cigarettes. However, although vaping scores higher than ciggies in this regard, there are other risks posed from modern inhalation.
The Risks of Vaping: Can Vaping Damage Your Lungs?
When it comes to e-cigarettes, concern has been raised about the ingredients of e-liquid (or vape juice). For starters, propylene glycol (PG) and vegetable glycerin (VG) are commonly used as bases.
You should know that among other things, some people have allergies to this substance which can cause hives! Be aware that the source of e-liquids might not even be relevant at the end of the day.
However, other than urticaria, there are some strange and modern concerns with the ingredients of e-cigs. Let it be known that the long term effects of these two base ingredients haven’t yet been studied on humans (but animal trials turned out safe).
Remember too, that asides from the base ingredients, vape flavours are made from chemicals that haven’t actually been tested on humans ever before.
There are many rumours when it comes to vaping e-cigs that are worth taking note of. “Popcorn lung” is probably the scariest. However, vaping is also linked to asthma and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
Can Vaping Kill You?
These days health is a hot topic, and with Google at our fingertips, there is the opportunity to really learn more than previous generations. To tell you the truth, vaping is not as healthy as it’s made out to be and has been proven to cause inflammation of the lungs.
It also has been linked to much more serious illnesses, like COPD and popcorn lung. These deadly illnesses are no joke, and there is quite a lot of documentation to show that vaping is bad for your health.
According to New York – Presbyterian “Dangerous chemicals found in e-cigarettes include acetaldehyde and formaldehyde, which have been associated with heart disease in addition to lung disease.”
As to whether or not vaping can ultimately kill you, the answer is yes it can. It might not be in the form of cancer (because vapes are considered to be low in carcinogens) but it can kill you in other ways.
The Bottom Line
It should go without saying that the best choice is to stop smoking and vaping entirely and to go cold turkey. However, that is easier said than done, so one other option is to go for a dry herb vaporizer instead. Dry herb vapes can be used not only for marijuana, but for other herbs and flowers like chamomile as well. So depending on how you handle weed, as well as how you handle your Self, you could transition away from e-cigs using any combination of hemp, MJ or deep breathing. At the end of the day, e-cigs are tempting AF, but they aren’t exactly healthy.
