E-Cigarettes: Healthier Than Your Average Cigarette?
This video is no longer available.
JACKSON, Tenn. — Stores selling electronic cigarettes are opening up across West Tennessee. Michael Nance owns Roar Vapor, a recently opened electronic cigarette store in North Jackson. “It gives you everything you need in smoking, but without the harmful effects,” Nance said. Health experts are not convinced e-cigarettes are safe and worry about the side effects of nicotine. “Our heart rate rises, blood pressure rises, we get a feel of jitteriness,” Melissa Walls said, Director of Disease Management at the LIFT Wellness Center. Roar Vapor cigarettes contain liquid made up of four ingredients. “There’s propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, your liquid nicotine and whatever flavorings you want,” Nance said. “They‘re all normal everyday products. They‘re in everything from shampoos to soaps, food preservatives.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not regulate vapor e-cigarettes, so it is not clear if they are actually safer than regular cigarettes. “E-cigarettes can definitely be as addictive if not more addictive than a cigarette mainly because of the amount of nicotine,” Walls said. Roar Vapor mixes most of its 120 liquid flavors on site and offers customers different levels of nicotine, so they have the option of how much nicotine they want to consume, unlike cigarettes. “The CDC has noticed then as that the middle school and high school students who never smoked a cigarette are picking up e-cigarettes because of those flavors,” said Walls. According to the FDA, e-cigarettes have not been fully studied so consumers do not know the potential risks when used as intended, how much nicotine or other potentially harmful chemicals are inhaled during use, or if there are any benefits. The LIFT Wellness Center has a tobacco cessation program. Those classes will take place April 7, 14, 21, and 28 at the Lift Wellness Center from 5:30-6:30 p.m.
