BREAKING NEWS: (NEW YORK) Health dept has approved Gov. Cuomo’s 90-day Exec. Order banning retail sales of all flavored vapor products (ex. tobacco and menthol). Yet NO evidence ban will reduce teen use or stop the unrelated contaminated THC illnesses.https://t.co/UAiRQYKJkS
— CASAA (@CASAAmedia) September 17, 2019
Let’s talk about this for a moment as I’d like to address some things, share some thoughts and explanations.
We’re going to discuss a few correlations and events that lead up to this recent development.
Perhaps some of you may have already read the frightning headlines like:
Teen dies from vaping!
149 People Hospitalized After Vaping...
As of recent, we get questions of whether we heard the news and what our thoughts are?
And frankly our answer has been the same. There are many theories as to why the US government is creating irrational bans without any solid facts. We’re not going to get into the theories, perhaps another time.
Instead we should discuss the flaws of journalism and administrative agenda that conceives fear in people.
You see, we live in an age where digital media is king. We consume so much information on a daily basis, we constantly swipe between apps and jump from headline to headline.
And most of us are guilty of taking information at face value. We see a headline, a tweet or a facebook post that is specifically designed to create engagement. But unfortunately the most engaging content is usually negative and controversial.
Vape Flavor Ban
The current situation in the US – a recent outbreak of over 500 people that were diagnosed with a severe lung infection.
Most news outlets create catchy headlines that are juicy, controversial and engaging, and we consume this information without having to look deeper into the issue.
And the general population that doesn’t vape, doesn’t have a need to dig deeper. Why should they at the end of the day? With all the daily tasks and an insane amount of information in our palms, that is just way too much for an individual to handle.
We’re so used to getting instant answers to most of our questions, that we are already conditioned to trust the first result that pops up.
Aside from the fact that there is a myriad of studies conducted on vaping and data collected for over a decade, we should look into another very important factor.
In this case, we should ask the following question:
Vaping in US has been around since 2006. How come we have a sudden "epidemic" within a month time span in 2019?
Is your common sense tingling as well? If we were to take the headlines with a grain of salt, we are now able to see some very fascinating information buried deep inside the publication.
It actually turns out that a vast majority of patients confirmed to have consumed pre-filled liquid THC cartridges in vape form which are becoming wildly popular these days.
And wait, I know what you’re thinking. However this is not an attempt to throw the Cannabis Industry under the bus. This has absolutely nothing to do with regulated THC, CBD and Cannabis products.
This is rather an observation. So far we actually know that the New York Department of Health is focusing their investigation on Black Market THC Cartridges. Reason being that said cartridges are suspected to contain vitamin E acetate.
Vitamin E Acetate is known to be safe for use on your skin, however can be dangerous when inhaled due it’s oil-like properties. Hence the cause of the acute lung infections.
Many of the samples tested by states or by the FDA as part of this ongoing investigation have been identified as vaping products containing THC, and further, most of those samples with THC tested also contained significant amounts of vitamin E acetate.
Source: FDA.gov
This substance is used to dilute the THC vaping products and is rampant in the illicit cannabis market. The standard nicotine e-liquids that are purchased from reputable vape shops and manufacturers do not contain any Vitamin E Acetate, these are the ingredients of e-liquids:
- PG (Propylene Glycol)
- VG (Vegetable Glycerin)
- Artificial Flavoring
- Nicotine (Freebase or Nicotine Salt)
No vitamin E should be vaped regardless of its chemical structure
Why the E-Liquid Ban?
This brings me to my next point – We are doing it all wrong!
This ban clearly demonstrates the difference in core values when it comes to public health. One government is focusing on the global crisis of smoking by promoting a magnitudes safer alternative to it’s citizens, while the other is motivated by irrational fear and is essentially telling us “get back to smoking”
Mind you that UK is the largest market of vapers in Europe, with roughly around 2.8 million vapers as of 2017.
And yet till this day, there is no Youth Vaping Epidemic nor there are any cases or deaths associated with vaping.
In fact, the yearly statistics suggest that not only smoking rates have declined which I would assume most of us agree that this is a good thing. Furthermore vaping among teens in the UK is insignificant.
Original Source: ASH.ORG.UK
Our conclusion
So what can we take from this? We know that UK and the rest of Europe permit sale of flavored e-liquid. So either the young lads in UK are actually from another planet, since delicious sweet and fruity things is not their “thing”. And certainly isn’t a cause of any epidemic.
Or perhaps the whole “Flavors responsible for Teen Vaping Epidemic” is just a scapegoat.
You be the judge on this one.
However the recent events have indeed sparked a global epidemic. Not a teen vaping epidemic, a rather more contagious fear mongering, baseless hysteria epidemic.
The politicians need to deal with this problem, and the recent events have created even more pressure by the means of panic.
They need your votes, and since majority of the people in US believe that e-liquid flavors are the culprit of increased vaping rates amongst teens, the officials are now doing their job without any due diligence.
But who can blame them? They are misinformed.
