Anyone paying attention should have realized, from the get-go, that the established e-cigarette industry had nothing to do with the recent outbreak of severe lung injuries. Millions of Americans have used FDA-regulated nicotine vapor products for over a decade without incident. Why would these products suddenly be injuring people? And why were fresh-lunged kids the primary victims, rather than grizzled old ex-cigarette smokers?
Sometimes, the media fail to ask such obvious questions. (Recall the widespread acceptance of Jussie Smollett’s absurd attack story last winter.) So it was hardly a surprise when many outlets immediately implicated “vaping,” generally, for the lung ailments.
As the months passed, conclusive evidence emerged that illegal street drugs, not legitimate nicotine products, were responsible for the hospitalizations. Nonetheless, much of the media continues to conflate legal and illegal vapor products. Politicians, all the way up to the president, have followed suit. The relentless misdirection is destroying a life-saving industry while at the same time obscuring the grave danger that street drug vaping represents.
The first cluster of severe lung injury patients was identified in late July by the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. After a month of investigation, and mounting hospitalizations across the state, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported that 89 percent of the patients acknowledged having used vaping devices to inhale black-market THC products. (THC is the psychoactive component in marijuana.) Investigations of injuries in other states mirrored that finding.
Surprisingly, only 11 percent of the Wisconsin patients denied breaking the law. That tiny minority was enough, apparently, to keep DHS scientists from firmly declaring THC the culprit. Notably, though, their only advice to the public was to “avoid vaping any THC products.”
Victim assessments continued to roll in from across the country, each affirming the obvious. It was past time for the media to sharpen their focus. To blame “vaping” for these selective self-poisonings was as mindless as blaming “eating” for a salmonella outbreak.
But by mid-September, respected news outlets like The Washington Post, NPR, The Wall Street Journal and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel were still running headlines calling the hospitalizations a “mystery.” Vital information about black-market THC was often buried deep within the reporting, far from the reach of passive news consumers. On Sept. 13, to pick a random example, the Chicago Tribune published a photo of an 18-year old male curled up in a hospital bed. The headline beneath announced that he was suing Juul, maker of the nicotine-based vape devices he had begun using two years earlier. After spending 11 paragraphs discussing nicotine vaping, the story mentions that this young man “eventually started vaping THC.” Exactly four of the story’s 1,000+ words pertained to the cause of his hospitalization.
It is not the media’s job to make public service announcements. But it is very important for young people to hear, unambiguously, that vapor from street drugs can kill. It’s a shame the media has chosen to obscure that fact. They have given the false impression that everyone who vapes — about 10 million American adults — is at risk. This yellow journalism has sent state and municipal governments across the country into panic mode. Dozens of municipalities have summarily banned the sale of all vaping products. Massachusetts put its state-level product ban together so hastily that a judge had to order a redo, so multiple procedural errors could be corrected.
Unintended consequences are an organic feature of panic laws, and vaping bans will have plenty of them. Far from thwarting the underground drug market that is putting people in the hospital, the bans will expand the market, to include nicotine-based liquids. Unless clearer heads prevail, we will soon see nicotine users going to the hospital for real, sickened by adulterated black market products. Some will just go back to smoking, which currently kills 1,300 Americans a day.
Though not without risks, nicotine vaping is certainly far safer than smoking tobacco cigarettes. And use of tobacco cigarettes had been plummeting for the past several years, thanks largely to the alternative that the nicotine vape industry provided. With the industry under siege, cigarettes are poised for a resurgence. Nicotine vapers have already started trickling back to their former habit.
If the supply of nicotine vape products dries up permanently, and smoking fatalities increase, I wonder how the media will report it. As another “mystery,” no doubt.
Michael Cummins is a Madison-based business analyst.
