When I read that a landmark study had drawn a link between e-cigarettes and an increased risk of cancer, my first thought was: yes, that sounds about right. As a former dedicated vaper who puffed her way through an ElfBar a day, the news that these devices — deliciously flavoured, packed full of nicotine — might not be totally harmless was hardly earth-shattering. Anyone who has sucked on a vape daily and wheezed away as a result will not be surprised.
Scientists at University College London have discovered that vaping can trigger cell changes similar to the DNA mutations that take place in cigarette smokers’ cells, which may go on to cause cancer. But the idea that vaping may damage the body as smoking does is hardly a shocker. Although vaping has been sold as a healthy alternative to cancer-causing cigarettes — with the government even handing out free vapes to smokers and allowing vape shops to open in hospitals — I’d argue that most people who have found themselves hopelessly hooked on the pastel-coloured devices had a sneaking suspicion that this substitute carried some serious health risks.
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I am one of the many who swapped cigarettes for a vape. I have been a nicotine fiend for most of my life. I started smoking at 14 and by university I was puffing my way through a pack a day. I did experiment with methods of getting off them — hypnosis didn’t work, chomping through nicotine gum did for a time, going cold turkey was unthinkable. Then, five years ago, my introduction to the first “It vape”, the Juul, spelt the end of my relationship with cigarettes.
At first, the mango-flavoured e-cig that looked just like a USB stick seemed too good to be true. (Spoiler: it was.) Gone was all the nasty social stigma associated with smoking. There was no gross smell and people didn’t mind if you puffed away inside their homes. Vaping on the street, I didn’t catch the pitying, disapproving glances I would receive when I strode around smoking a cigarette. My parents were delighted that I’d made the switch. It was also, at first, significantly cheaper than cigarettes. In addition to these bonuses, I decided that vaping must be healthier than cigs too. This notion was backed up by science and the press. Again and again I read that vaping was nowhere near as harmful as smoking was.
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And yet it felt more harmful. I had been smoking for about 20 years but had never noticed such obvious respiratory symptoms as I did when vaping. I called it the “lung crackle”, a horrible rattling wheeze as I inhaled that left me wondering what the hell these scrumptious e-cigarettes were doing to my insides. Friends reported vaping so much that the e-liquid began to leak into their mouths. That can’t be good.
For me, the Juul and, later on, the new vape on the block, the ElfBar, were also far more addictive than I had found Marlboro Lights. The convenience of vaping makes the devices unputdownable. Then add in the fact that they’re packed full of nicotine. One ElfBar comes pre-filled with 20mg nicotine salt liquid and is the equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes, according to websites selling vapes. Some sources have put the nicotine level per ElfBar far higher: the same as 48-50 cigarettes.
I vaped everywhere: at home, in restaurants, in the office, underneath a blanket on aeroplanes. While cigarettes at least have an end point — you smoke them and stub them out — a vape goes on and on until it dies … then you go out and buy another. I slept with my fingers curled around my Peach Ice ElfBar. The last thing I did at night was puff and the first thing I did upon waking was puff. Sure, when I was smoking I had a morning cigarette, but I rarely lit up from my bed. And, my God, the money. I was getting through one ElfBar, at £7.50, a day. That adds up to a shudder-inducing £225 a month spent on “vapey plastic”, as one friend put it.
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I finally quit 18 months ago. It wasn’t the feared health risks that did it for me — after all, the looming threat of cancer never made me stub out the cigarettes. Instead, it was the isolating dependency that finished it off. I was bored of forever skedaddling to the toilets at work so that I could sit in a cubicle and vape in solitude. I grew to loathe the collection of almost dead devices cluttering my bedside table. I became embarrassed by how I had to sneak puffs in shops, restaurants and at the cinema.
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I bought the Allen Carr book The Easy Way to Quit Vaping, read it and tossed my ElfBar in the bin in August 2022. I have been vape-free for 597 days and have saved a staggering £4,477. I can’t claim to feel much healthier but I don’t have the lung crackle any more and I’m thrilled to live without a device in my hand. Occasionally I get what I call the “nicotine twitch”, a restless itch and the desire for a quick hit. But it passes and is in no way the debilitating yearning I experienced during my previous attempts to quit.
Hardly any of my friends smoke any more but many vape. I have become so used to seeing the brightly coloured bits of plastic between their fingers that I now no longer notice them. They are so ubiquitous, they have become all but invisible. Many friends want to quit and none see vaping as a healthy alternative to smoking. One friend, who is trying to stop, said she found the news about vaping’s health risks “weirdly reassuring”. She said: “It made me feel that quitting isn’t for nothing. I quite enjoyed vaping until I was doing it too much and thinking, ‘Oh, it’s surely not good for my health.’ So many people say that vaping is healthier than smoking but why is vaping so much harder for me to quit than cigarettes?”
The possible health risks confirm what I have long suspected: e-cigarettes are too good to be true. I thought vaping would save me the bother and agony of quitting smoking and give me all the best bits with none of the minuses: nicotine without the stink, smoking without the stigma, all of it without the risk of cancer. Turns out a vape is just a plasticky version of the original evil.
