It’s the sort of label that easily could have come from a backstory plot in the Mad Men TV series.
“Vaping—” lead creative Don Draper would have whispered in presenting his pitch to a captive audience of important client representatives in an otherwise silent, softly lit room. The word would have been held in the air for a bit as he looked reassuringly into some pleasantly imagined distance before intoning further. [2]
“It’s word that connotes images of the warm, misting vaporizer in an innocent baby’s room. What are the effortlessly drifting clouds in the sky if not simple vapor from pure water?
“Can you imagine anything further away from the dangerous smoke of a traditional cigarette than that?”
As it turns out, you can and should imagine quite a bit — none of it following the path of this flight of fancy.
Cheryl Phillips is the program coordinator with Saint Joseph Mercy Health System who shares fact-based information on what is known about this topic, in a presentation titled “Vaping 101: What’s Important to Know.” On Thursday, May 17, she’s scheduled to share it here locally at Saline Middle School from 6:15pm to 7:30pm. [3]
“‘Vaping’ was developed in China in 2004. The hope was that in getting people to start vaping, that they would stop smoking,” she told Saline Journal. “They said it was ‘safer than smoking.’
“The problem is, ‘safer’ doesn’t mean ‘safe.'” [4]
Given this relatively short history of vaping, research is, not surprisingly, still very new, incomplete, and evolving. Even so, Ms Phillips emphasized that several things are known.
For example, vaping byproducts can include ethylene glycol, benzene, and heavy metals. For those not readily familiar with the chemistry here, ethylene glycol is a key to automotive antifreeze. Stop into O’Reilly Auto Parts on East Michigan Avenue and you’ll see just how many choices there are to get the mix just right to keep your particular car running right. [5,6]
No parallel in care comes when humans ingest ethylene glycol through vaping.
Ms Phillips further cautioned that “most vape liquids have nicotine in them. Even products that say they have no nicotine often have nicotine in them.” [7,8]
Prior to its US introduction in 2006, vaping was marketed much like cigarettes of the Mad Men era. This has since changed in ways that are blatantly youth targeted, with flavorings such as “blueberry,” “Gummy Bear,” and “cupcake.”
Vaping paraphernalia, too, is quite different from that which most parents likely remember as having been used by there own misgreant peers at the age of their own children today. [9,10]
Now ask yourself, how many of the vaping devices shown above would you immediately recognize?
Mad Men is fiction, but the approaches to marketing that it depicts are very often quite real. That makes it even more important for individuals to make sure they have the latest facts in order to make their own best decisions when it comes to health.
Saint Joseph Mercy Health System can be an ongoing resource for this — whether on May 17 here in Saline, or down the road in the future. [11]
References
- “E-Cigarettes / Vaping” Partnership for Drug-Free Kids.
- “Mad Men” AMC.
- “Vaping 101: What’s Important to Know” Cheryl Phillips (May 17, 2018) Saint Joseph Mercy Health System.
- “The facts on e-cigarette use among youth and young adults” United States Surgeon General.
- “Which Antifreeze is Right for Your Vehicle?” Jim Marotta (June 6, 2013) Chilton DIY.
- O’Reilly Auto Parts (local store).
- “Harmful effects of nicotine“ Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine (January-March 2015) United States National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
- “The Real Dangers Of Liquid Nicotine” Robert Glatter MD (March 24, 2014) Forbes.
- “‘Vaping:’ Emergence of a New Paraphernalia” Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine (September-October 2017) United States National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
- “Teenagers Embrace JUUL, Saying It’s Discreet Enough To Vape In Class” (December 4, 2017) NPR.
- “Classes & Events” Saint Joseph Mercy Health System.
