Smoking rates have declined as vaping becomes increasingly popular

A possible correlation is developing across the country as less people are smoking, but more people, especially teenagers, are vaping.

According to KOSU, the adult smoking rates in Oklahoma have continued to decline, dropping 20 percent over the past four years. However, 7.6 percent of Oklahomans started using electronic cigarettes in 2014.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices used to inhale water vapor that is sometimes mixed with nicotine for an effect similar to smoking regular cigarettes. Because the devices are still new to the market, the safety of using them is not fully known. People between the ages of 18 and 24 are 22 percent more likely to try e-cigarettes, according to PBS.

Bill Lutrell, chair and associate professor of chemistry at Oklahoma Christian University, said the increase of smoking electronic cigarettes, or vaping, is a concern for public health and people of the state because there is no evidence that smoking e-cigarettes significantly reduces nicotine intake, according to Lutrell.

“There are things in e-cigarettes that we don’t know about yet,” Luttrell said. “We don’t know the long-term effects to smoking electronic cigarettes, or vaping, because there’s other things they could be using that has never been inhaled.”

Another troubling thing about vaping and e-cigarettes is at this point they’re not fully regulated though the Food and Drug Administration, Luttrell said.

Senior Nathan Jia said the decrease in smoking could be caused by people not wanting to smoke anymore as well as the government regulations on tobacco products and the increased prominence of e-cigarettes.

According to Luttrell, more than 433,000 people each year die from smoking related diseases.

“And then for every one death there are 20 people living with smoking-related diseases,” Luttrell said. “It’s pretty amazing the number of people who do smoke and the reason is they are addicted to nicotine.”

Are people switching to vaping as a safer alternate to smoking?

Dilley said he has seen people on the streets smoking e-cigarettes and thought it was odd how the smoke dissolved after being exhaled, which made him wonder about the effects of secondhand smoking.

“They are legal in most places where cigarettes are not,” Dilley said. “Are there secondhand effects from smoking e-cigarettes? We don’t know. We could have caution, we should probably ban the use of e-cigarettes in all of the places cigarettes are currently banned.”

Jia said e-cigarettes are not necessarily a safe substitute for traditional cigarettes.

“I don’t think you can say it’s bad or worse than a cigarette, obviously,” Jia said “It may not be a completely safe alternative to cigarettes but I wouldn’t say that there is definitely a fair amount of carcinogens, toxic compounds for the body.”

Senior Ty Dilley said the decrease in smoking is because of a cultural trend rather than the appearance of e-cigarettes. As of last year anyone under the age of 18 in Oklahoma cannot buy e-cigarettes.

Jia said the increase may be due to the novelty of the e-cigarettes.

“I think whenever you have something out there for people to use, people are always going to be tempted to use it but you have to make a comparison between that and what’s coming out there,” Jia said.

Luttrell said the electronic cigarette companies might be marketing them as a way to help people stop smoking, which is not true.

“Often people will smoke e-cigarettes and then smoke regular cigarettes,” Luttrell said. “And teenagers have done that too – smoke both. Either way it’s not a good thing.”

Jia does not believe electronic cigarettes will help regular smokers to stop smoking, because they would be moving from one thing to the next.

“You may be able to move off of smoking cigarettes, but you’re still getting yourself onto something else that has nicotine in it,” Jia said. ”I think you’ll be able to stop as many people from smoking cigarettes, yes, but you may be just introducing something else in-between.”

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