CDC is Concealing and Suppressing Information on Youth Marijuana Vaping to Over-hype Harms of E-Cigarettes

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is concealing and suppressing information on the number one cause of severe, vaping-related health harm to youths in order to deceive the public into thinking that e-cigarettes are at the top of the list.

In fact, the number one cause of severe, vaping-related health damage to youths is not electronic cigarettes, although you would not know that from reading the CDC's literature on youth vaping.

The Rest of the Story

The chief cause of substantial health harms to youth from vaping is actually not e-cigarettes. It is marijuana or THC vaping.

The hundreds of youth who have become severely ill with respiratory failure from the EVALI outbreak have been harmed not by e-cigarettes, but by vaping marijuana carts.

The deaths that have occurred among youths from the EVALI outbreak were caused not by e-cigarettes, but by vaping THC.

Substantial numbers of youths have been affected by psychosis due to vaping THC and in some cases, groups of youths have actually had to be taken to emergency rooms because of the vaping of THC products that may have been contaminated with synthetic marijuana or other drugs.

This is by no means to minimize the harm being caused by addiction to devices such as JUUL which deliver high concentrations of nicotine salts. However, it is to point out that what is actually causing serious acute health harm to adolescents is THC vaping, not the use of e-cigarettes.

For some reason, the CDC has been concealing this critical information from the public. For three years in a row (2016-2018), the CDC's National Youth Tobacco Survey (NTYS) showed that the overwhelming majority of youths who were heavy e-cigarette vapers (use on 20 or more days per month) were also vaping marijuana. However, in all three years, the CDC failed to report these data.

In fact, had the CDC reported these data in 2016, it is possible that steps could have been taken that would have averted much of the disease and death caused by EVALI in 2019 because the problem of youth marijuana vaping would not have fallen off the radar screen.

Even if you look at all youth vapers (anyone who has used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days), more than half of these youth are vaping marijuana, not just nicotine-containing e-cigarettes.

Here are the data which the CDC has concealed:

Percentage of CURRENT youth e-cigarette users reporting ever use of THC vapes:
2016: 39%
2017: 52%
2018: 54%

Percentage of HEAVY youth e-cigarette users reporting ever use of THC vapes:
2016: 62%
2017: 73%
2018: 71%

What percentage of youth e-cigarette users reported having also vaped THC in 2019?

The answer is ...

... we have no idea.

Why? Because the CDC did not even ask the question about marijuana/THC vaping in the 2019 National Youth Tobacco Survey!

Why would the CDC intentionally take this question off the survey, when it had included the question in the 2016, 2017, and 2018 surveys?

If you put everything together:

• the fact that the CDC concealed the information on youth THC vaping for three straight years;
• the fact that the CDC blamed the EVALI outbreak on e-cigarettes rather than on THC vaping for months before finally having to admit that e-cigarettes were not to blame; and
• the fact that the CDC intentionally removed the THC vaping question from the 2019 NYTS,

one can only get the impression that the CDC is intentionally hiding from the public the extent of the youth marijuana vaping problem because it wants the public to incorrectly believe that e-cigarettes--not THC vapes--are the greatest and most serious vaping-related health risk faced by our nation's youth.

The CDC cover-up of the role being played by THC vaping in the youth vaping epidemic has had serious consequences. Arguably, it contributed to the sudden and unexpected outbreak of respiratory disease that took the public health world by storm last year, something that could potentially have been avoided or reduced had health practitioners and agencies throughout the country been aware of the severe health risks being posed by youth THC vaping.

It could also have helped avoid misguided policies - such as the e-cigarette flavor bans that are sweeping the nation - which are going to push youth towards more THC vaping as flavored e-liquids become less available.

The CDC had better add the THC vaping question back into the 2020 survey because I am predicting that the proportion of youth vapers who report the use of marijuana/THC vapes is going to rise significantly in 2020 and beyond because of the widespread bans on flavored e-liquids.

The rest of the story is that the CDC is concealing and suppressing critical health data on youth marijuana use, apparently in an attempt to over-hype the harms of e-cigarettes. This is causing significant adverse public health consequences. Unless heath practitioners and agencies understand that the problem of youth vaping is not solely a problem of youth e-cigarette use, they will be unable to craft an effective policy to protect the health of our nation's youth.

Tobacco Researcher Claims that Smoking May Be Safer than E-Cigarettes

Imagine if a tobacco company came out today and publicly claimed that smoking might very well be safer than using an e-cigarette. It would be a completely irresponsible statement and the company would rightly be vigorously criticized and attacked for asserting that its deadly products, which kill more than 400,000 people each year, are potentially safer than e-cigarettes, which do not contain tobacco, involve no combustion, and have been documented to have much lower levels of thousands of different chemicals compared to cigarettes.

In a strange an shocking irony, that exact claim was made today, but it came not from Big Tobacco but from a tobacco researcher. According to a press release issued by Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), one of its professors--who is a tobacco researcher and studies electronic cigarettes--claimed that smoking may actually be safer than vaping. The professor was quoted as stating:

"The fact is: we don't know whether e-cigarette use is as lethal as combustible cigarette use, less lethal than combustible cigarette use, or more lethal than combustible cigarette use."

The Rest of the Story

I agree that we cannot precisely quantify how much safer e-cigarettes are compared to smoking. However, there is overwhelming evidence that smoking is more hazardous than vaping. One of the most compelling lines of evidence is a series of studies showing that when smokers switch to e-cigarettes, they experience immediate and dramatic improvement in both their respiratory and cardiovascular health, measured both subjectively and objectively. Also compelling is evidence that e-cigarette aerosol contains much lower levels of thousands of chemicals, including scores of carcinogens, compared to tobacco smoke and that e-cigarette users have demonstrably lower levels of toxic chemical biomarkers than smokers. And this isn't even to mention the evidence from thousands of vapers who testify that their health has improved substantially since switching from smoking to vaping.

Tobacco companies can now have a field day with their cigarette advertising. They could legally and truthfully take out an advertisement stating:

"Smoke Marlboro. According to a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, smoking may be safer than using e-cigarettes, which contain no tobacco and involve no combustion."

Or:

"Let's face it. People have been smoking for decades so we know exactly how many people are going to die each year. But we have no idea how many people are going to die from e-cigarette use. Take the more predictable and potentially safer path, according to a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University: smoke, don't vape."

With enemies like this anti-tobacco researcher, the tobacco companies no longer need friends. He has given Big Tobacco the most amazing public endorsement it could have ever asked for, and something that it could never have claimed to be true itself.

Vape Shops Saved for Now: Dodged One Bullet, But Now Must Dodge Another One

I am expecting the FDA to announce this afternoon that it plans to enforce a ban on the sale of all flavored e-cigarette pods and cartridges for closed vaping systems, with the exception of tobacco and menthol flavors, but that it is exempting e-liquids and vape juices sold for open systems. This means that the restriction will primarily affect the vaping products sold by convenience stores, but not all of the products sold by vape shops.

The decision of the FDA not to ban all flavored e-cigarettes is a huge victory for public health. By allowing vape shops to continue selling flavored vape liquids, the FDA is preventing hundreds of thousands of ex-smokers from being forced to return to smoking. It also ensures that this important off-ramp from smoking remains available to adult smokers.

However, the battle is not yet over because if the FDA implements the PMTA deadline in May of this year, it will wipe out most of the vaping industry, handing it over to the tobacco companies. The results would be devastating to the public’s health, as many ex-smokers would return to smoking and many more would turn to a new black market for these products.

Hopefully, the FDA will re-think its overall approach to tobacco product regulation and announce a more sensible policy—one that regulates products based on their level of risk. Such a policy would remove the addictive nicotine from combustible cigarettes and restrict their sale to tobacco shops open only to adults. It would also directly regulate e-cigarette safety by issuing standards, including a maximum nicotine level for e-liquids that use nicotine salts, battery safety, and temperature regulation.

This proposal is unlikely to curb the rise in underage vaping because teens who use JUUL can simply switch over to the menthol or tobacco flavors. Since the proposal does not restrict the nicotine level in these products—something I have been calling for since my Congressional testimony last fall—JUUL can continue to sell pods with more than 50 mg/mL of nicotine, a ridiculously high level that is contributing to youth addiction to this product.

The FDA needs to stop focusing on the flavorings and for once, focus on the nicotine, which is the problem. The epidemic we have is not one of youth flavor use, but of youth addiction to the JUUL device, and that is occurring not because JUUL is flavored but because JUUL has more than 50 mg/mL of nicotine salts, compared to less than 25 mg/mL in most other products on the market, which use freebase nicotine rather than nicotine salts.

All of the recent restrictions we have seen on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes are about politics rather than protecting the health of Americans. If policy makers were interested in protecting the health of Americans, the first thing they would do is to get the nicotine out of combustible cigarettes and restrict their sale to tobacco shops that are only open to adults. And the second thing they would do is limit the level of nicotine salts in electronic cigarettes, especially JUUL, because it’s the high levels of nicotine salts--not the flavors--that is causing the problem of youth addiction to vaping.

All in all, the announced policy is a huge victory for the public’s health, compared to what would have happened had the FDA banned all flavored e-cigarettes. Now, attention must turn to the problem of the May 2020 PMTA deadline, which will decimate the vape shops, severely constrict the vaping market, and result in devastating health effects for hundreds of thousands of ex-smokers who will either be forced to return to smoking or forced to buy products from--ironically--a completely unregulated black market.