Sugar Vapour

Vaping has been in the news a lot lately. There seems to be some health problems popping up that proponents are desperately trying to deny.

I figured there would be problems way back when the vaping first started.

Anytime you put anything in your lungs other than air you are asking for trouble.

I suppose water vapour has to seem the safest thing to use, and is actually a component in air.

Even water vapour has issues. There are a number of health conditions where humidity can be a problem. Tuberculosis and asthma spring to mind. Notice that we’re talking about ordinary humidity. Vaping takes the concept of humidity up to a ludicrous extreme.

It is much more concentrated than any kind of natural fog.

Heck, high humidity in hot weather makes breathing harder even for people with no lung conditions at all.

Probably any vapers out there will have jumped on my argument already, but pure water isn’t even my main concern.

Let’s say we accept the idea that if fog isn’t a problem for most people, and even that the idea of breathing water vapour considerably more intense than fog is a fine activity, that isn’t what vaping is all about.

The idea is to use the vapour as an agent to get other substances into the lungs. These include, but are not limited to, flavours, nicotine, glycerin, propylene glycol, and cannabis. And don’t forget about the presence of unintentional contaminants.

Let’s consider the safest seeming of this list, which are the flavourings. Some manufacturers refuse to use several commonly used substances as unsafe, but others do. Cinnamon is common, and tastes great, but it certainly shouldn’t be introduced into anybody’s lungs.

Surely you remember the stupid cinnamon challenges of a few years ago. The reason there were challenges at all was people trying to handle a spoon of cinnamon in their mouths. The difficulty lay in the extreme drying characteristics of the spice. Do you really want to introduce water vapour and a hideously drying substance to the delicate surfaces in your lungs at the same time, simply to enjoy the flavour?

How about oils derived from fruit? Plants are great to eat, but do they really appeal to you as a lung coating.

I don’t want oil introduced into my lungs, or concentrated water vapour, or spices, or sugar.

The argument that vaping is safer than smoking doesn’t hold much water with me. Both are stupid.

If anything, smoking has less of an impact on me these days than vaping does. Smokers seem to understand that they have no right to inflict their toxins on other people. Vapers? Not so much.

I can’t even remember a recent incident of a smoker practicing their habit near me.

Yesterday, at a crowded bus stop, three individuals openly vaped near the waiting passengers. I’m sure they felt that their little cotton-candy-papaya-mango clouds were harmless, but are the rest of us supposed to just take it.

It could just as easily have been home-made, strawberry-flavoured cannabis, with nicotine, extra glycol, and only a little cross contamination from the users chicken burrito dinner the night before.

Why do they even want to inflict their habit on others? Perhaps it is a hold over from the olden days when smoking was seen as sophisticated and cool. Perhaps they have always wanted to breathe smoke and fire like a dragon.

A vaping dragon.