How Vaping-Related Deaths Put Cloud Over E-Cigarettes

Is vaping a useful way for smokers to quit cigarettes or a new health menace? That question has provoked one of the most robust debates among public-health specialists in years. The early evidence suggests e-cigarettes are much less harmful than regular ones. But an epidemic of teen vaping in the U.S. followed by an outbreak of sometimes fatal respiratory ailments linked to e-cigarettes in late 2019 has complicated the discussion. The developments have led to new restrictions on the devices in the U.S. and turmoil in the tobacco industry, which has looked to vaping products to make up for lost revenue as cigarette smoking declines worldwide.

E-cigarettes, first popularized in China in 2003, contain a battery-powered element that heats a liquid spiked with either nicotine, the addictive stimulant present in tobacco, or THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, producing a vapor the user inhales. Vaping is a way to ingest those substances without the smoke and tar that comes from a burning cigarette or joint. In some cases, a vaping device, such as the popular Juul, is small enough that an underage vaper, say, can palm it, discreetly take a hit when a teacher or parent isn’t looking, and breathe the resulting aerosol into a sleeve or collar.