The Washington Post - Vaping is a problem, and that's no myth

Op-Ed

By Sen. Dick Durbin

Daniel Giovenco's Oct. 20 Outlook essay, "Five Myths: Vaping," read like an e-cigarette industry memo, carefully written to knock down straw men and all but avoid the reality of the vaping public-health threat.

To argue that vaping is not as dangerous as smoking cigarettes says less about the safety of e-cigarettes than the danger of tobacco cigarettes.

And just how safe is that e-cigarette now that cartridges with THC, a marijuana derivative, have been linked to about 1,600 hospital admissions and 34 deaths?

Defending vaping because there is no clear linkage to "popcorn lung" ignores the growing body of evidence of lung damage and other harms in e-cigarette users.

The assertion that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking based on a British study was clearly unconvincing to the Food and Drug Administration, which recently prohibited vaping giant Juul from making similar unproven health claims.

After paragraphs of vaping defense, Mr. Giovenco saved his closing line to try to regain some credibility. He wrote: "Make no mistake, though: While E-cigarettes do not seem to be leading large numbers of youth into smoking, the strikingly high rates of teenage vaping alone are alarming."

That's the point.

More than 25 percent of U.S. high school students are now vaping, and that's no myth.

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