“Vaping,” or use of electronic cigarettes or other devices, is a booming business, according to businesspeople on both sides of Mobile Bay. And while they say it’s a far-gone conclusion that federal health regulation is coming, the fact that it hasn’t been imposed yet keeps things simple.
Recently an AL.com spoke with management from the Vapor Hut in Daphne and Vapor Brothers in west Mobile, and they maintain vaping, or “blowing clouds,” is a much-healthier alternative to traditional cigarette smoke.
And, the trendy high-tech, “cleaner” way of smoking is developing an entirely new client base, as well as serving folks looking to transition from tobacco cigarettes.
Zach Fowler, who manages Vapor Hut in Daphne, said many of his customers turn to vaping to “get healthy,” including one man he and his staff call “Shoeless Joe,” who claims to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.
Katlin Purvis, owner of Vapor Brothers, said one of her customers said he has even completed a marathon now that he’s switched from traditional smoking to vaping.
“There haven’t been any health issues,” Purvis said of e-cigarette use, other than some reports of individuals getting sick from too much nicotine. “There have been no deaths from it.”
Both she and Fowler said that use of electronic devices greatly improves the sense of smell and taste over traditional cigarettes. “It’s a big difference,” Folwer said. He also said personally, having switched from long-time, tobacco cigarette use to vaping, he feels much healthier.
The amount of nicotine can range on the amount of the e-solution or “juice,” according to Purvis. Her shop only sells about 15 percent of devices, or “mods,” that allow for “variable wattage,” she said. And although standard-wattage devices still make up the majority of her products, popularity of the variable type is definitely on the rise.
The purpose of such devices is to increase or decrease the amount of heat generated by the coils inside, and thus change the intensity of the nicotine delivery, Fowler said. Many variable mods have a dial that can be turned to achieve that.
And both shops said they offer “custom builds,” where staff members take apart the devices to manipulate the amount of ohms and sub-ohms the devices generate. The lower the ohms, or resistance, the greater the heat and nicotine delivered, Purvis said.
There may be some risk of cancer due to upping the heat on the vapor-delivery system, according to a recent letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine. A co-author of the study, James Pankow, a professor of chemistry and civil and environmental engineering at Portland State University in Oregon, said the issue with higher temperatures is formaldehyde.
“We’ve found there is a hidden form of formaldehyde in e-cigarette vapor that has not typically been measured. It’s a chemical that contains formaldehyde in it, and that formaldehyde can be released after inhalation,” Pankow said in the study. “People shouldn’t assume these e-cigarettes are completely safe.”
E-cigarette vapor can contain cancer-causing formaldehyde at levels up to 15 times higher than regular cigarettes, according to the study. That’s possible when the devices are used “at very high temperatures,” the study found. According to the researchers, when used at a lower voltage, vaping devices did not create any formaldehyde-releasing agents.
Purvis said she hadn’t heard of the study, but said none of the juice she sells in her shop contains formaldehyde. Neither she nor Fowler have signs in their stores regarding health concerns from vaping, although both do have signs that warn about the potential danger of faulty batteries, which power the electronic devices.
Health warnings related to the effects of the vapor are expected once regulation is in place, just as they exist with tobacco and cigarettes, Fowler said. He said about half of the devices his shop sells are of the variable-wattage type.
Asked if he felt the need to get ahead of the regulations and advise customers that there may be a health risk in the vapor they’re inhaling, he said, “I’m not a doctor in that field.”
“All I can give is my personal experience,” Fowler said.