That’s certainly a problem. It’s one of the big reasons I think THC vapes should be both legal and regulated. In the states were it is legal, there’s strict inventory tracking every step of the way.

Admittedly it’s a lot harder to get people on board with regulating drug-free vapes, but I think it would be a good idea to have guarantees about what you’re consuming just like food.

The black market carts in question were specifically weed vapes, not nicotine vapes, which are actually more different than you may think. Not only was that not a problem with nic vapes ever, it hasn’t been a problem with homemade weed carts since that one incident (which IIRC was caused by one singular dumbass in WI or MN) either.

There still are “black market carts” for both weed and nic, but they’ve learned not to use vitamin a and are now mostly just regular ol’ knockoffs.

That said however, that’s why it’s always better to use a refillable vape with a bottle of juice over a disposable, they usually don’t counterfeit bottles opting instead for dispos, and even if they did it’s easy to make your own juice so you know what you put inside.

Well, I’m impressed they actually did test JUST the vape liquid, even though they’re still calling them e-cigs.

Quoting from the journal itself:

There were no significant differences in changes of BAL inflammatory cell counts or cytokines between baseline and follow-up, comparing the control and e-cig groups. However, in the intervention but not the control group, change in urinary PG as a marker of e-cig use and inhalation was significantly correlated with change in cell counts (cell concentrations, macrophages, and lymphocytes) and cytokines (IL8, IL13, and TNFα), although the absolute magnitude of changes was small. There were no significant changes in mRNA or miRNA gene expression. Although limited by study size and duration, this is the first experimental demonstration of an impact of e-cig use on inflammation in the human lung among never-smokers.

The way I read this, it seems like there’s a small correlation with inflammation, but there’s no measurable risk of developing lung cancer from it (they were doing cancer research after all). Personally for an adult, I feel like “inflammation” is kind of a nothingburger, just stop vaping for a while and you’ll be fine. But for kids developing habits, I can understand the concern.

twice a day for just a month

It’s empirical, but I’ve been vaping steadily all day every day since I switched from my 2 pack a day newport habit around 2013ish, give or take a year. Last time I went to the doctor he said I had the healthiest lungs he’d seen in a while.

I was as surprised as you are, frankly. Mostly because of the ports in the past but I guess it’s been long enough since then to heal up my surfboard lung. I mean I did notice marked improvement in my ability to breathe about a month or two into the switch, and my ability to smell things came back shortly thereafter, and then the doc visit was years after that, so maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised but I digress. In any case 2x daily for a month is pussy numbers, gotta bump those up, try 200 times a day for 10yr and your doc will say your lungs look great if they’re anything like mine.

Our data suggest that the flavorings used in e-juices can trigger an inflammatory response in monocytes, mediated by ROS production, providing insights into potential pulmonary toxicity and tissue damage in e-cigarette users.

Well, I guess that’s a point against flavored vapes. I really wish there were more studies, because presumably not all flavorings would have the same effect. A comparison with unflavored e-juice would have been great.

Ugh, that’s no good! It doesn’t say what you think it does. It shows that they are safe, not that they are harmful.

For this study the team included 30 youths aged between 21 and 30 years between 2015 and 2017. They did not have a history of traditional smoking or e-cigarettes.

^ Small sampling.

The participants were divided into two groups – one of the groups was a control group while the other was asked to use e-cigarettes at least twice a day taking 20 puffs during an hour at one time. To measure the puff count, the refills given to the users had LED screens with a puff counter. The e-cigarette refills used contained 50% propylene glycol (PG) and 50% vegetable glycerine (VG) and no nicotine or flavours. The study duration was for one month.

For all the participants, a bronchoscopy was performed at the start of the study and again five weeks after. The lung tissues, bronchi and the lung health were recorded at these sessions. The team wrote, “Inflammatory cell counts and cytokines were determined in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluids. Genome-wide expression, microRNA, and mRNA were determined from bronchial epithelial cells.”

Results revealed that there was no significant difference in levels of inflammatory cells among the e-cigarette users and the control group.

No difference in between the control group and the vapers?

So I don’t know if you’ve mistakenly been sharing that, but it supports the opposite of what I gather is your view on the matter. I know it might not seem like that if you only read the headline, but I tend to actually read the articles and studies I link myself. You know, to avoid awkward things like this.

Not readable from EU unless I decide my privacy and data don’t matter at all, which I won’t be doing.