On this month’s Socially Transmitted, KBIA's Najifa Farhat and Rebecca Smith look at nicotine-free vapes, which allow people to inhale other substances, such as ginseng, melatonin and caffeine.
Smith spoke with Dr. Kate Grossman, a pulmonologist at Boone Health, to find out more.
Rebecca Smith: Najifa, if you recall, a couple months ago I did a story about the possible rise in cigarette usage amongst Gen Z young people.
Since then, other outlets have been reporting on the trend, and I've been getting so many targeted ads for nicotine-free vapes.
These are vapes, but instead of nicotine, they contain other substances such as melatonin, ginseng, even caffeine – all claiming to boost people's mood or perk them up.
"There really isn't anything natural about inhaling anything other than oxygen into your lungs."Pulmonologist Dr. Kate Grossman, Boone Health
Najifa Farhat: So this month we're taking a look. Becky, to start with, is a nicotine-free vape any different from other regular vapes?
Rebecca Smith: Not really. They look similar and work the same way. Basically, any substance you choose – marijuana, nicotine, caffeine-is combined with flavoring and a liquid base to make vape liquid. This is then heated by a battery and turned into an inhalable vapor.
I spoke with Boone Health pulmonologist Dr. Kate Grossman, who says inhaling any substance besides air can have consequences.
Dr. Kate Grossman: Even the most benign substance, you put it into a vape and you put it against a heating coil and aerosolize, and it changes the compounds of what you're taking in.
And something that might not have been that toxic is all of a sudden being changed into formaldehyde, which is something that's cancer-causing that you're now inhaling into your lungs.
Najifa Farhat: But these vapes are nicotine-free, and nicotine products, like cigarettes, are known to be incredibly harmful. So, isn't nicotine-free a good thing?
Rebecca Smith: I think that's really a big part of the marketing around these vapes. I mean, they're not cigarettes, and they're not nicotine products, but that doesn't mean these vapes, which still involve inhaling vapor and other potentially harmful things into your lungs, are good.
Dr. Grossman says vaping anything actually makes it more likely people will become smokers of nicotine products, and she adds there's already a lot of better, more regulated ways to either quit smoking or ingest these other substances, like just drinking a cup of coffee.
Dr. Kate Grossman: Melatonin is something else that people are vaping, and you know melatonin comes in gummy form, it comes in pill form, it comes in intranasal form.
So, if you are looking for a way to get melatonin into your body and you want it in a different form, there are safer ways that gets it into your bloodstream quicker that are more regulated than adding other chemicals in as well that might have unknown effects.
Najifa Farhat: So what I'm understanding – even though certain substances can be more harmful than others, it's the activity of inhaling that's still causing the biggest damage to our health.
Rebecca Smith: Absolutely, anything being inhaled other than clean air – whether it's from a vape or smoke from a wildfire – does damage to the lungs.
And Dr. Grossman says what makes these vapes especially dangerous is we don't yet know their full impacts.
She says in 2019, there was an outbreak of EVALI, which stands for E-cigarette or Vaping Use-Associated Lung Injury. It came from one of the ingredients in THC vape liquid breaking down and causing lung disease, hospitalizations, lung transplants, even death – in a young population.
So, Dr. Grossman says she hopes that doctors will start screening for all substances, not just nicotine.
Dr. Kate Grossman: I would be wary of inhaling anything into your lungs that is not oxygen. Anything that you inhale can be damaging.
I think, you know, putting it out there in the way that these companies are putting it out there make it seem like this is acceptable, that it's safe, that it's natural, and there really isn't anything natural about inhaling anything other than oxygen into your lungs.
Najifa Farhat: Becky, thank you so much for looking into this.
