A recent study from researchers at the University of California, Davis (UCD) took four vaping devices, representing three out of “nearly 100 disposable e-cigarette brands on the market,” and found an elevated presence of certain toxic substances in them. Notably, none of these products were legally approved for sale. Still, an article summarizing the study’s results was posted on UCD’s website, titled “Disposable E-Cigarettes More Toxic Than Traditional Cigarettes.” This is a travesty. In fact, vapes are 95% safer.
The real upshot of the study is that black-market products are less safe than legal, regulated ones. The illegality of the products the researchers studied did not prevent them from being easily accessible, but they did make them more dangerous—the opposite of what public health advocates intended. Clearly, prohibition does not work.
Exposure to toxic chemicals is not a problem inherent to vaping. Instead, it’s a problem of reckless rule making and lousy oversight. Calls to ban or severely limit nicotine, flavors, or delivery mechanisms only exacerbate the problem. Pushing safer, non-tobacco nicotine products into black markets, causes what little oversight existed to vanish. This is how vapes become compromised by unintended substances, distributed in unsafe environments, and even sold to minors. Prohibition makes people less safe, not more.
It’s crucial that policymakers understand what is at stake. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic killed 7 million people in total. Meanwhile, they estimate that combustible tobacco kills 7 million people every year. If enough American smokers switched to vaping, 6.6 million deaths could be avoided over a decade. Yet, nearly half of Americans incorrectly believe that nicotine causes most smoking-related cancers. With public trust in scientists slipping, people need faith and transparency now more than ever. This will not only afford consumers greater dignity and agency but also make health officials appear more credible to the public. Repairing this relationship is essential. Come the next public health crisis, it will already be too late.
