Go somewhere trendy, and you’ll doubtless see a “vaper” clutching a device that looks like a boxy cigarette lighter with a short steel pipe, or a more elegant e-cigarette and blowing out plumes of smoke.
A vape (short for vaporiser) is an electronic atomisation “cigarette”, and although they’ve been in South Africa for years, they are gaining popularity, with vaping shops spawning everywhere and vaping gathering an almost cult-like following.
The typical vaper is an urbane hipster, probably sporting tattoos and a baseball cap, who is well clued up on vaping paraphernalia and the various “e-juices” (vape liquids) available on the market, most of which contain tobacco.
The real allure of vaping, however, is the fact it has proved to be the most effective method of combating smoking.
An estimated 40 million people worldwide are using a vaping device, and according to Dr Delon Human, a Switzerland-based South African doctor who specialises in tobacco harm reduction, evidence shows vaping is “at least 95 % less harmful than the smoking of combustible tobacco cigarettes”.
“This fact has been endorsed by Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians. Recent surveys have shown smoking prevalence in the UK has dropped significantly, in part due to smokers switching to vaping,” he says.
Studies have confirmed the absence of combustion in e-cigarettes means far less toxic chemicals are created and absorbed than when you light a cigarette.
Levels of the toxicants from e-cigarettes have been found to be nine to 450 times lower than in cigarette smoke, although researchers agree e-cigarettes as a harm-reduction strategy among smokers unwilling to stop still warrants further study.
“Vaping is not without risk,” Human says, but the lower risk is “highly significant and can save lives”.
“People who smoke get confused if health leaders state that ‘there is not enough evidence that vaping is less harmful than smoking’. This is like blocking the fire exit of a house on fire and telling the people inside more research is needed to show the air outside is safer,” he says.
In his practice, Human has no hesitation in recommending vaping to patients battling to quit smoking.
“For me as physician, the acid test for vaping is, what you would advise your brother or sister. No doubt, I would tell them to quit smoking, but even while trying, to switch immediately to vaping,” he says.
Turning to anecdotal evidence, vaping makes a strong case for diminishing, even extinguishing, the craving for cigarettes.
Ask vapers and they tell a similar story to keen vaping enthusiast Pieter Harmse, who gave up cigarettes in 2014 almost immediately after buying his first vaping device.
“I had exactly one cigarette after buying my first set-up and have not had a single drag from a cigarette since. The first couple of weeks there were some cravings for cigarettes, which were fairly easily managed by vaping, but after about a month, I had no desire for a cigarette. Quite the opposite, I now cringe at the thought,” he says.
Harmse says his health has improved “to a level I have not known in decades, not since before I started smoking”.
“I am fully aware that it is not vaping directly that has improved my health, but rather the fact that I am no longer smoking tobacco. Vaping is just the tool that helped me to give that up,” he says.
A first-time vaper might find the choices of vapes and e-juices overwhelming, but evidently part of the fun is learning about the technology and experimenting.
Walk into a vape shop and you’ll see a wide choice of brands, including the popular KangerTech, iJoy and Twisp, along with e-juices in flavours that range from strawberry, chocolate and peanut butter to lemon, mint and banana.
“You can even get e-juices that taste like tobacco without containing tobacco. My first device was a KangerTech EMOW kit. I avoided the Twisp devices because they were priced much higher,” says Harmse.
All e-juices contain propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine and nicotine or flavourant.
Most of the vaping shops, like Vapers Paradise which opened three months ago in Randburg, have had their own e-juices branded.
“You can make your own flavours. You just go to a registered chemistry lab and ask for a flavouring,” says co-owner Daniel Cock.
As to the technical process of vaping, it’s essentially the same as boiling water: the e-juice is heated up to a point where it turns into vapour (steam), which is inhaled. “It’s similar to inhaling steam in the shower, except the stream is flavoured and contains some nicotine,” says Harmse.
The atomiser is a coiled resistance wire, stuffed with some cotton or other porous material which takes the liquid to the coil, like in an oil lamp, to which an electrical current is applied, causing it to heat up and vapourise the e-juice.
“Some of my clients make their own atomisers, so I sell the DIY wire, mods (main segment), tanks and other accessories. It is all part of the vaping adventure,” says Cock.
Cost depends on the vaping device.
The popular KangerTech Subvod kit, which looks like a Twisp, is about R620, but a top-end device like the iJoy Limitless LUX retails for around R1 500.
“The higher wattage tanks produce a smoother draw, fuller taste and a bigger cloud (smoke),” he says.
Then the cost of vaping depends on how quickly you consume the e-juice.
“A 30ml bottle of local e-juice is R150, and on average, you go through that in a week,” says Cock.
The paraphernalia aside, vaping has a strong social aspect to it, with vaping “conventions” and other gatherings to “celebrate” what vaping has done for them, which according to Harmse is “liberation from a debilitating and highly destructive habit they otherwise may never have escaped”.
Human says there is “currently no evidence that to inhale second-hand vape is harmful, but long-term studies are needed to confirm the level of risk”.
Websites
● Vapers Paradise: vapersparadise.co.za
● Vape Shop: vapeshop.co.za
● Vaper’s Corner: vaperscorner.co.za