‘Trading an evil for an evil:’ Vaping not a safe way to quit smoking cigarettes

Six deaths, hundreds sick, and now even the president is getting involved to protect you from vaping.

We spoke with one 18-year-old who started vaping when she was 14. She tells us the potential health risks don’t scare her.

Fallon Cavanah first got into vaping for fun, but now, four years later, she’s still doing it and says she has no motivation to quit.

“I know what I’m doing, you know? When I first started vaping, [I] probably knew the consequences of it anyways, so that’s probably why wouldn’t choose to stop,” said Cavanah.

Pulmonologist Parmeet Saini with Lee Health says quitting cold turkey isn’t easy, especially if the vape contains nicotine.

“Nicotine use in general is not a good thing, so when you put a product out that contains nicotine in it, even though the intention is to wean somebody off of a cigarette use to win them onto another nicotine product, two wrongs don’t make a right you’re trading an evil for evil,” he said.

However, some vape shops disagree saying adults can benefit from these products when they’re used in the right way.

“The sales are still steady. There are people who still recognize, ‘I would rather do this than smoke a cigarette which, in the long run, will ultimately kill me,'” said Zen Keeley with King of Vapes.

Dr. Saini says right now because of the lack of research there are still too many unknowns.

“So these chemicals need to be studied over time. It’s just gonna take time to study them and unfortunate victims or casualties along the way are the data points that we use to say, hey, this is harmful or it’s not,” he said.

At the end of the day, nicotine or not, these vapes contain chemicals and inhaling that is never good.