Vaping: Harm Reduction or Chucking Children under the Bus?

Abstract

Tobacco is one of the great scourges of modern health, and e-cigarettes are suggested to be a means of smoking cessation and harm reduction. This editorial shows that, far from being a source of harm reduction, they are being aggressively marketed to children and young people. The acute effects of e-cigarettes are greater than those of tobacco, and thus we cannot be complacent about the long-term effects. There is accumulating data that e-cigarettes are immunosuppressive, pro-inflammatory and lead to epigenetic effects that are pre-cancerous. There is an urgent need for legislation that is actually enforced to protect children from being the next-generation nicotine addicts.

Keywords: acute lung injury; addiction; e-cigarette; lung cancer; nicotine.