Tens of thousands of us have given up tobacco cigarettes and taken up vaping. For most of us, it was based on the idea that vaping had to be better for health than burning a leaf wrapped in paper, right?
And then stories began to filter out of the United States. 'Vapers' were being hospitalised at an alarming rate. Previously healthy individuals who had been jogging and going to the gym were on ventilators in intensive care and vaping was the chief culprit.
In the last few months, 42 deaths and more than 2,000 vaping-related injuries have been reported in the US.
What a wake-up call that was. For a few months over the early summer, retailers reported that e-cigarette sales fell through the floor. They haven't recovered since.
Anecdotally there were reports that vapers had abandoned the e-cigarette and gone back on the traditional tobacco cigarette.
Slowly information began to filter out that it wasn’t the ordinary vape liquid that was implicated in the American scare. It was a particular oil, vitamin E acetate, which appears to coagulate on the lungs, with disastrous consequences. That oil is used to help vapourise THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana. It's deadly.
And yet, the flow of negative noises about e-cigarettes from the United States continues.
Professor Moon-Shon Tang from New York University’s Medical School tested ordinary vape liquid on mice and found that the rate of lung cancer was higher.
Professor Tang believes it is the nicotine that is causing the problem.
"American puritinism" is the refrain from the British authorities on this side of the Atlantic, where the benefits of e-cigarettes are being pushed at an unprecedented level.
The British view articulated by the public health authority, Public Health England, is that vaping is not necessarily safe, but it is safer than tobacco cigarettes and it has a part to play in harm reduction. This pragmatic approach is based on evidence, they say.
I called into Totally Wicked, a vape store in London, and was amazed to find the staff there had been trained on smoking cessation. They told me that the public health authority had decreed that vaping was 95% safer than smoking cigarettes.
Vaping is being incorporated into the stop smoking campaigns in England. Two hospitals in the west Midlands have opened vape stores.
The contrast between the American and British view on vaping couldn’t be more stark.
Here in Ireland, the HSE is the authority that regulates e-cigarettes.
The HSE points out that e-cigarettes are a consumer product and it has commissioned research from the Health Research Board, which is due to report early next year.
At present its regulatory powers have been used to enforce compliance with the European-wide Tobacco Products Directive - mostly dealing with product size and strength.
The State Laboratory currently tests e-liquids to check their toxicity and efficacy. Next year they will start testing the actual vapour produced by the e-cigarettes to see what is in it and whether it is dangerous.
They haven’t got the equipment to do that yet, but will issue a tender soon.
As someone who vapes but doesn’t smoke cigarettes, I have found the debate very troubling. Americans seem very anti-vaping, while the British are more pragmatic. The evidence seems contradictory to me.
While I continue to use e-cigarettes, I’ve decided to ditch them in the near future. Better to be safe than sorry. What’s that famous expression? Oh yes, 'doctors differ and patients die'!
