Is Vaping Safe?

Is Vaping Safe? What You Need to Know

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• How Safe is Vaping?
  
• The Problem with Smoking
• Vaping Vs Smoking
• Is Vaping Better Than Smoking?
• Nicotine: Is It Safe?
• Is Secondhand Smoke from Vaping Safe?
• Is Nicotine-Free Vaping Safe?
• When Can Vaping be Unsafe?
• Verdict
• Vaping at myCigara

E-cigarettes are everywhere; what was once considered a niche community of ex-smokers has since trickled into the mainstream, with more people than ever before turning to vaping to help them kick their smoking habit. With more than 4.3 million people in the UK using a vape on a regular basis, one question remains more important than ever; is vaping safe?

Our blog is here to find the answers. By exploring the safety of vaping, the dangers of smoking and how they both compare, as well as delivering up-to-date facts, statistics and data, we hope to provide our readers with all the relevant information they need to help them make an informed choice.

How Safe is Vaping?

The topic of vaping rarely leaves the news these days, and you’re probably aware that there are a whole host of contradictory opinions regarding its safety, which can make it even more difficult for potential vape users to form their own informed view. So, you may be wondering: is vaping bad for you? And just how safe is vaping?

This isn’t an easy question to answer, particularly because vaping is a pretty new concept and simply hasn’t been around long enough for us to know if there are any long-term effects of using an e-cigarette. However, their short-term effects have been studied in great depth over the last few years, and it’s been concluded that vaping poses no short-term risk to the body and overall health.

But to truly understand how safe vaping is, it’s important to look at it in the right context. The sole purpose of e-cigarettes is to provide users with a safer alternative to smoking and to ease the transition to ultimately help them quit smoking for good. So, before we can evaluate the safety of vaping, first we must take a look at the problems with smoking.

The Problem with Smoking

Over 100,000 people in the UK die every year as a result of smoking-related diseases, often in the form of lung cancer and heart disease. Unlike e-cigarettes, traditional cigarette smoking involves the burning of tobacco leaf and inhalation of the smoke that’s produced. This smoke is packed with over 70 different carcinogens and toxins, including carbon monoxide, which cools inside your lungs to create a deadly byproduct: tar.

For most smokers, quitting smoking is the single most impactful action they can take to improve their health and lessen their chances of developing a smoking-related disease. In fact, recent studies have found that even if you’ve been a smoker for many years, quitting the habit can minimise your risk of developing lung cancer by 30-50% in just ten years. Check out our Stop Smoking Timeline to see a detailed breakdown of how quitting smoking can benefit your health over time.

Vaping Vs Smoking

As we already touched upon above, it’s no secret that smoking cigarettes is extremely detrimental to your health. So, it should come as no surprise to learn that vaping is proven to be far safer than smoking. But don’t just take our word for it— Public Health England recently revealed that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than regular cigarettes.

The key reason for this is because vaping doesn’t expose users to toxins, carcinogens and tar that are found in a traditional cigarette. Although vape kits emit vapour, this does not contain the same harmful chemicals as cigarette smoke. In fact, Public Health England found that carcinogens found in e-cigarette vapour are below that of 1% those found in smoke and don’t pose a risk to the body.

Rather than burning tobacco leaf and inhaling the smoke produced, vaping involves heating e-liquid to a specific temperature until it evaporates, and then inhaling the subsequent vapour. These e-liquids tend to contain just 4 ingredients, as opposed to the 70+ chemicals found in traditional cigarette smoke, so it’s clear to see why vaping is considered a far healthier alternative.

Is Vaping Better Than Smoking?

If you were to ask any expert or public health body if vaping is better than smoking, the answer would be a resounding ‘Yes’. Picking up smoking is one of the worst decisions you can make for your health, so almost anything that can help people to break a smoking habit can be seen as an improvement. When it comes to harm-reduction, transitioning from smoking to vaping is a great first step.

Not only is vaping better for you than smoking, it’s considered to be one of the best smoking cessation aids out there. Studies found that those using a vaping product to help them quit smoking saw up to a 74% success rate, making it far more superior than other smoking cessation aids such as patches, lozenges, and gum.

Nicotine: Is It Safe?

Although e-cigarettes don’t contain the same harmful chemicals, carcinogens and tar that’s found in traditional cigarettes, the two do share one thing in common: nicotine.

While nicotine is proven to increase blood pressure and temporarily narrow blood vessels, these are short-term side effects, this is also common when doing other activities, such as light exercise. It’s important to note that nicotine is not considered dangerous when ingested in small doses, and the amount of nicotine found in both cigarettes and vape products is not enough to cause harm to the body.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that suggests that long-term use of nicotine leads to cancer or heart disease, and it has been concluded that inhaling nicotine does not increase the chance of premature death. However, nicotine is an incredibly addictive substance and is the key reason why smoking and vaping can be so addictive and hard to quit.

Unlike smoking, vaping allows users to stay in control of how much nicotine they are ingesting, as it’s a legal requirement for all vaping products to display the nicotine strength on the packaging. Smoking is much harder to control, as the level of nicotine per cigarette isn’t consistent across the board, increasing the chance of nicotine poisoning.

Is Secondhand Smoke from Vaping Safe?

Secondhand smoke is a real problem when it comes to cigarettes, even more so since studies have found that being in the presence of someone smoking a cigarette can have serious detrimental effects to your health. Beyond this, we all know how unpleasant it can be having to stand in the vicinity of someone smoking a cigarette and having to breathe in the foul smoke.

Fortunately, secondhand smoke isn’t an issue when it comes to vaping. As e-cigarettes don’t emit smoke, they emit vapour, you won’t have to worry about posing a risk to bystanders when vaping. Although, it’s still a good idea to respect others in your surroundings while vaping, as small amounts of nicotine could be inhaled by bystanders, particularly when vaping indoors or in an enclosed space.

Is Nicotine-Free Vaping Safe?

As outlined above, vaping gives users the freedom to customise their experience by choosing what strength nicotine they want to vape. While this includes strong options such as 20mg and less intense options as low as 6mg, it also allows users to vape entirely nicotine-free if they want to.

Many ex-smokers begin vaping high nicotine strength e-liquid and slowly wean themselves down until they eventually quit entirely, but sometimes they miss the action of inhalation so opt for a nicotine-free vape juice until they’re ready to stop.

Nicotine-free e-liquid contains all the same chemicals as regular e liquid, but as the name suggests, minus the nicotine. This means that unlike regular vaping, nicotine-free vaping is not addictive. What’s more, the contents found in nicotine-free e-liquid are made from only food-grade ingredients and pose no known threats to the user’s health.

When Can Vaping be Unsafe?

While we’ve already touched upon the fact that vaping is far less harmful than smoking traditional cigarettes, there are a handful of circumstances where vaping isn’t considered safe; for example, if you’re pregnant. Although e-cigarette vapour doesn’t contain the same harmful substances as cigarette smoke, it does contain nicotine, which is not safe to use during pregnancy. Studies have shown that nicotine has negative effects on a developing baby, which can lead to poor growth and other issues.

Another group of people who should avoid vaping are those that suffer from asthma. Studies have shown that vaping can increase inflammation and breathing difficulties in those with asthma, triggering symptoms and possibly even an asthma attack. Therefore, those with asthma should consider an alternative smoking cessation aid that doesn’t involve inhalation of vapour.

It’s also important to note that vaping is designed exclusively for ex-smokers and those trying to quit the habit, so it should be completely avoided by those who are not already regularly exposed to nicotine. If you use an e-cigarette when underage or if you’ve never smoked before, you run the risk of developing a nicotine addiction, which is notoriously very difficult to overcome.

Verdict

When discussing whether or not vaping is safe, it’s important to look at it in the right context, as an alternative to smoking cigarettes. So, when posing the question— is vaping safer than smoking?

We’re pleased to say that the answer is a resounding yes, by a landslide. If you’re currently a smoker and on the hunt for a helpful tool to kickstart your quit smoking journey, then turning to an e-cigarette to replace your cigarette usage is a great place to start. As vaping is proven to be 95% safer than smoking cigarettes, it makes a great stepping stone for those hoping to one day live entirely nicotine-free.

However, those who have never smoked and don’t currently use nicotine in any form should not start vaping, as they run the risk of developing a nicotine addiction.

Qutting Smoking with Vaping at myCigara

Here at myCigara, we exist to make the UK smoke-free. By offering a range of high quality vaping equipment that caters to both beginners and advanced users, we hope to help our customers make that all important first step on their quit smoking journey.

If you’re new to vaping and want to find out more about how it works and the best way to get started, be sure to check out our blog; A Basic Guide to Vaping to learn more about the different components of e-cigarettes and which vaping style is right for you and your lifestyle. We stock a wide range of vape starter kits, pod devices and e-liquids from popular and reputable brands to help you get started on the right foot straight away.

If you have any questions or would like further advice, feel free to contact us, or head down to your local myCigara vape store where our friendly expert staff is on hand to help you out.