Do You Know What’s in Your E-Cig?

Hundreds of thousands of smokers are migrating across from the traditional deadly packets of tobacco to vaping. It might have been a ‘slow burner’ but the move towards e-cigarettes is certainly gathering pace, with an estimated half a million people deserting smoking to take on vaping in the last year alone.

But are they making the right decision? The EU has sought to curb or curtail the industry for some years, while Wales could ban indoor vaping completely in 2017.

The line of reasoning runs similar in both cases, concentrating on the possibility of vaping as a gateway to smoking and the potential that vaping could be regarded as ‘normalising’ the smoking process.

In reality an e-cig convert will tell you that the process of puffing a vapour trail is totally different from dragging on a cigarette for several reasons, not least the chemical composition.

It’s fairly common knowledge, as described here in Medical Discovery News, that there are more than 4,000 chemical compounds inside a cigarette. Many are carcinogenic, and this list should make uncomfortable reading for the heavy smoker: tar, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, ammonia and others are all found in regular cigarette smoke.

So far so bad, and none of these poisons should be present inside an average e-cigarette. Instead, one will find essentially four less dangerous chemicals:Propylene Glycol is a compound approved by the FDA as a solubilizing agent for different types of medication. Vegetable glycerine is widely used as a food sweetener and in cosmetic products, while food flavourings can be completely natural or artificial.

The last of the quartet is nicotine, which has a bad press, but there is a real debate over the chemical between various factions of psychologists and tobacco-addiction specialists. Those defending nicotine say that it is comparable to caffeine, that smoking is the real enemy, and that nicotine should not be bundled into the same category.

A vaper should not only know exactly what’s in their e-cigarette, but also be able to calculate how much money they’re saving.It’s taken a long time for both messages to get across, but it is at least finding the ear of those making the transition across.

A smoking addiction is prohibitively expensive, while the costs of vaping nosedive once the initial starter kit has been purchased. An analysis of how much someone might save will vary depending on frequency of smoking, type of cigarettes and other factors, but this American calculator puts the annual figure at almost $1,800  -around £1150.

Vaping has finally shed the tag of being uncool in a blur of different colours and flavours. But as the aforementioned Medical Discovery News states, the vaping market needs more regulation as there are still too many back-alley manufacturers putting e-cigarettes onto the market that range from unpleasant to downright dangerous. Consumers should buy only from reputable suppliers, those who have put their products through a rigorous process of checks, such as E Liquid testing by EL Science.

Research into the long-term effects of vaping needs to be fully understood, and until then the smoking industry will still exist. Time is running out for the big tobacco companies however, with at least one study predicting that vaping will be bigger than smoking by 2023. Interesting times lie ahead.