E-Cigarettes Threaten Public Health by "Renormalizing Smoking," California Health Officials

Now E-cigarettes are being called a public-health risk. They pose a problem when viewed against the progress made on tobacco reduction and "re-normalizing smoking behavior".

E-cigs are injecting nicotine addiction into the younger generation, California health officials said on Wednesday. The state has declared electronic cigarettes a "health threat" that should be controlled and monitored like tobacco products. California is joining other states and health experts in the US in its attempt to control.

E-cig users and e-liquids both contain abusive toxic chemicals, according to news.yahoo.com. California health officials have declared a public health advisory that slams the use of e-cigs.

"As we have done with other important outbreaks or epidemics, we are taking this formal step of warning Californians about the health risks of e-cigarettes," said Dr. Ron Chapman, State Health Officer and director of the California Department of Public Health.

According to Ron Chapman, these "vape pens" and "e-hookahs," are full of a toxic chemical or "e-juice," which emits "a toxic aerosol, not a harmless water vapor," when its temperature shoots up.

There are at least 10 chemicals that are part of California's official list of carcinogens, including benzene, part of gasoline, formaldehyde, lead and nickel in e-cigs. Even nicotine, another addictive, is part of e-cigs.

"There are myths and misinformation about e-cigarettes and many people do not know that they pose many of the same health risks as traditional cigarettes and other tobacco products," Chapman said. "The public needs more facts, not more fiction."

Vapers naively believe that the users are inhaling harmless water vapor and e-cigs will help the tobacco smokers to drop their addictive habit.

"There's a growing amount of research that confirms that e-cigarettes are not safe and pose serious health risks for users, (to) those exposed second hand to the e-cigarette aerosol - and even (to) those who are merely within reach of e-liquid."

In fact, the bottles and cartridges full of the liquid for e-cigs are leaky and do not even have child-resistant caps, which poisons through ingestion or through skin contact, according to the advisory. A number of phone calls were made to California's "poison-control centers" that revealed that the dangers to children had increased from seven in 2012 to 154 in 2014. Moreover, its abuse is "escalating among teens and young adults".

The Monitoring the Future survey tracks substance-abuse trends among over 40,000 U.S. minors. It found that the use of e-cigs among teens has overtaken the use of cigarettes. More than double the number of 8th and 10th graders in the survey were seen using e-cigarettes instead of the conventional kind.

However, on the other hand, vaping supporters try to counter the official claims. "Despite the health officer's false claims, there is ample evidence that vaping helps smokers quit and is far less hazardous than smoking," Gregory Conley, president of the e-cigarette advocacy group American Vaping Association, said, according to ocregister.com. "Smokers deserve truthful and accurate information about the relative risks of different nicotine products, not hype and conjecture based on cherry-picked reports."