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Faced with an explosion of vaping-related illnesses – linked to 805 cases and 12 deaths since Thursday – officials across the country are banning the sale of electronic cigarettes and encouraging people to quit.
"We're seeing something we've never seen before," state-owned dean of California's interim public health organization Charity Dean said this week. to vapote everything.
But critics fear that these actions are excessive. They fear that the authorities will not distinguish between nicotine electronic cigarettes such as Juul and vet devices containing THC, the ingredient responsible for high cannabis content.
This difference is important, they say, because although some studies have questioned the safety of nicotine steaming, it is the latter that is linked to most recent illnesses and deaths.
"There is a risk in confusing these two tragedies," said former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb warned in one of several tweets on Wednesday. "They all require a very cautious and deliberate approach if we are to stem these two crises."
And removing e-cigarettes from the market could also have health consequences. Ex-smokers who used them to quit could take back the tobacco, which, according to tobacco experts, would threaten a decade of progress in reducing smoking rates. Children now addicted to nicotine because of their vaping could turn into cigarettes. Cigarettes are associated with more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States; according to some estimates, 6.6 million premature deaths could be avoided in the next decade if smokers were converted to e-cigarettes.
While denouncing electronic cigarettes as dangerous, Ned Sharpless, the acting commissioner of the FDA, also worried about the unwanted effects of a total ban on vaping. "We are also very concerned about the return of people to [tobacco] cigarettes, "he told Congress Wednesday.
Others think that children will continue to find ways to vape even after a ban on driving more products on the black market. "I just do not think kids will stop bleeding," said Michael Siegel, a doctor and researcher in smoking control at the School of Public Health at Boston University. "I do not think they'll say," There are no more flavored electronic cigarettes, it's over. "
This decision could also lead children to use more dangerous products, such as THC bootlegleg cartridges that regulators have virtually no way to follow, Siegel said.
As Gottlieb tweeted: "We can not ban legal e-cigs and leave THC and CBD unregulated."
Anne Schuchat of the CDC said at Wednesday's congressional hearing that she expects the number of vaping-related lung injuries to increase nationally in the coming weeks. The crisis forces states and federal agencies to crack down quickly.
In response to the growing number of vape-related illnesses beginning in August, the CDC warned people – including adult smokers trying to quit smoking – to avoid all e-cigarette products.
Although the Trump administration has proposed a national ban on flavored electronic cigarettes, many states have taken steps in this direction. New York and Michigan have begun banning flavored electronic cigarettes this month and San Francisco is about to become the first major US city to effectively ban all sales of electronic cigarettes.
On Tuesday, California health authorities issued a warning asking them to immediately stop taking steam and Massachusetts has taken the most aggressive action of any state to date. She declared a public health emergency and banned all vaping products, including those used for both tobacco and marijuana, for four months.
"The purpose of this public health emergency is to temporarily suspend all sales of vaping products so that we can work with our medical experts to identify what makes people sick and how to better regulate these products to protect the health of our patients." residents, "Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said in a statement. Other states, such as Virginia, seem to be lagging behind.
The CDC does not yet know which product, brand or substance can cause respiratory diseases. But it is said that most patients used devices containing THC, while "some" used devices containing only nicotine. "Many" have used devices with both, according to the agency.
There are key differences in the regulation of both substances. Juul and other nicotine electronic cigarettes will be subject to FDA regulation in May 2020. Marijuana, on the other hand, is illegal under federal law and therefore under the jurisdiction of the FDA. A handful of states allow recreational or medical use.
Under this legal patch, THC vape cartridges are sold at licensed marijuana dispensaries in states where they are legal, but are widely available on the black market. Many popular brands, such as Dank Vapes and Mario Carts, are not real companies, but exist only in the form of colorful packages that can be bought by anyone and filled with vape oils "homebrewed". The tests revealed inexpensive additives, such as Vitamin E acetate, in the oils of many cannabis cartridges that made him sick.
According to Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, a non-profit organization that defends legislation on vaping and receives funds from electronic cigarette manufacturers, it is these illegal devices, and not Juuls and others, that send usually people in the hospital.
According to his group, at least four of the 12 known deaths related to the attack on the stoke involved THC cartridges, citing media reports and press releases from health agencies. In the case of other deaths, what patients used was not publicly disclosed.
Nevertheless, most Americans still hold Juul and nicotine vases responsible for the epidemic. In a recent Morning Consult survey of 2,200 adults, only one-third said they believed that deaths from lung disease were related to marijuana, but 58% blamed nicotine electronic cigarettes.
Some former smokers who have turned to e-cigarettes feel unjustly targeted by the bans. Jeannie Cox of Chattanooga, Tennessee, smoked a couple a day for 53 years. In 2013, she heard about electronic cigarettes on the radio and decided to give them a chance. "After three days of vaping and not wanting a cigarette, I understood, well, shoot, I think I just quit," she recalls. "I did not even try."
For Cox, who has not smoked since, a ban would at least bring some ex-smokers back. For herself, she said that she would find other ways to continue buying or making e-liquids.
"I think they're going too far," said the 75-year-old player about recent bans. "They punish innocent people for what drug traffickers are proposing".
This does not mean that the nicotine vows are safe. In fact, Sharpless of the FDA has stated that "e-cigarette products are not safe" during the congressional hearing, and added that they are also technically illegal, as unapproved medical devices, for sale. His agency sent Juul a letter of warning earlier this month regarding marketing, including among social media influencers, aimed at minors.
While Juul's selling points have always been to help people quit smoking, the product has been widely criticized for potentially creating an entirely new population of never-smoking vaping users. To say that their devices are popular would be a euphemism: More than one in five young adults regularly use the electronic cigarette. (The company did not return a comment request from BuzzFeed News.)
At the congressional hearing on Wednesday, Kansas State surgeon Lee Norman pleaded for a national ban on e-cigarettes, pointing out that their health risks are for the ## 147 ## # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # 39; unknown moment and that there are other ways to stop smoking.
The trap: These other methods do not seem to work very well. A major clinical trial, published in February, showed that people who use e-cigarettes quit more effectively than other nicotine substitutes, such as patches and gums.
"Smokers who switch to vaping dramatically reduce the risk of cancer, heart and lung disease that smoking can cause," BuzzFeed News said Peter Hajek, director of study, Barts and London School of Medicine and Dentistry. "The prohibition or over-regulation of electronic cigarettes protects the classic cigarettes of this much less risky competitor and thus detrimental to public health."
Hajek added that the ban should not target e-cigarettes for people who want to quit smoking, as vaping-related deaths seem to be linked to THC vaping.
"It's really a public health disaster, to be honest," said Siegel of Boston University. "I think it's a tragedy, frankly, that e-cigarettes are blamed on a problem that is almost certainly caused, at least in large part, by marijuana vaping."
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