An Introduction to Vaping

This article will delve into safety issues and perceptions later on. First though, an introduction to vaping is necessary for those who are not familiar with the practice. The vaping concept was first developed back in the 1960s by an American engineer who came up with an electric replacement for combustible tobacco. His idea never took off due to the fact that tobacco cigarettes were still quite popular at the time.
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Fast forward to the early 2000s, when a Chinese pharmacist whose father died of lung cancer decided he no longer wanted to smoke. He set about creating a new electronic device that would still allow him to use nicotine without having to inhale toxic cigarette smoke. This pharmacist, a man named Hon Lik, developed the very first modern e-cigarette device.
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E-cigarettes do not use tobacco in any way, shape, or form. Instead, they utilise a liquid that includes nicotine suspended in a solution of propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine, or a combination of both. Vapers (people who vape rather than smoke) can even buy e-liquids without any nicotine in them or in different strengths.
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E-liquid comes in contact with a heating coil known as an atomiser. When electricity is sent through the atomiser, it heats the liquid to a temperature high enough to cause it to vaporise. The process is very similar to heating water in a pan. Once the water reaches a certain temperature, it vaporises and becomes steam. The e-liquid in an e-cigarette does the exact same thing.
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For the record, this is why the practice of using an e-cigarette is known as vaping. Whether a vaper uses a small vape pen or a large box mod, his or her device vaporises a liquid to create an inhalable vapour. It does not burn tobacco; it does not produce smoke.
 

Vaping's Relative Safety

Now that you know how vaping actually works, let us talk about its relative safety. The word 'relative' is important here because e-cigarettes have never been marketed by responsible manufacturers and distributors as being 100% safe. Even though the technology is now about 15 years old, there is still a lot we don't know about vaping from a physiological and biological standpoint.
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What we do know for certain is that vaping is magnitudes safer than smoking. In a relative sense, a smoker is a lot better off trading his/her tobacco for e-cigarettes in the long run. In fact, millions of people around the world have already done so. The question is, how can we be sure of the relative safety of vaping?
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Our first tool is common sense. Depending on who you ask, cigarette smoke contains anywhere between 4,000 and 7,000 toxic chemicals and up to 70 carcinogens. Furthermore, the volume of chemicals in cigarette smoke is rather high. By comparison, both the number and volume of dangerous chemicals in e-cigarette vapour is rather low. Common sense dictates that if you are not inhaling as high a volume of dangerous chemicals, you are not risking harm to the same extent.
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Think of it in terms of standing around a campfire versus trying to put out a chemical fire without wearing a gas mask. Which do you think is safer? The answer should be obvious.
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Beyond common sense is scientific study. Over the last 10 years, researchers from all over the world have looked closely at e-cigarette vapour and the potential harm it might cause. Most studies agree that vaping is many times safer than cigarette smoke. And in cases where studies have shown inherent dangers, the risks are almost always associated with malfunctioning e-cigarette devices, low-quality liquids, or users misusing their e-cigs.
 

The Public Perception of Safety

Despite common sense and a growing body of evidence in support of vaping safety, there are still those convinced that it is as unsafe as smoking. While such perceptions are incorrect, they are understandable. Most of us have grown up with the knowledge that smoking kills people. Anything associated with smoking is, therefore, automatically suspect.
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Negative perceptions of vaping safety come primarily from two influences. First is the visual influence. Simply put, vaping looks a lot like smoking to the untrained eye. It is hard for people to separate e-cigarette vapour from tobacco smoke because they look so much alike. Therefore, the assumption is that vaping is just as dangerous.
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This visual influence is primarily the result of ignorance. People just do not know how e-cigarettes work. Their lack of knowledge, combined with what they perceive visually, leads them to believe that vaping is unsafe.
The other influence is that of the mainstream media. An unfortunate truth is that modern media is a business. And like any other business, the goal is to make money. Major media outlets make money by attracting an audience. And one of the best ways to attract an audience is with sensational stories and headlines.
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Mainstream media outlets do a very good job of reporting on all the negatives they believe are associated with vaping and e-cigarettes. They don't give the positive aspects of vaping as much attention. They know readers would rather read stories that fill them with fear than stories that speak of the success of vaping in helping smokers quit, the idea of the media creating a moral panic is not new.
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Of course, the politics of smoking cannot be ignored either. The various players who intend on keeping the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries profiting from smoking – do not want vaping to replace it. They do their best to influence public perception by focusing only on the negatives.You probably won’t read the newspaper one morning and witness a well established tobacco company express how harmful their products really are.