Wood County Prevention Coalition
Uniting For A Drug-Free Community Since 2004
Newsletter for June 3, 2019 Vol. #5 Issue #9
Is Secondhand Vape Bad for You?
by Ed Cara Gizmodo May 30, 2019
You don’t have to look far to find a fresh study suggesting that e-cigarette use isn’t harmless, even if the products are likely less toxic than traditional tobacco cigarettes. But what about people sitting in the same room or living in the same home as someone who vapes? Is there such a thing as secondhand vape? And just how dangerous could it be?
In the simplest terms, yes, there are absolutely chemicals you can inhale from someone else’s e-cigarette. These aren’t released into the air by the device, like what happens when you light up a tobacco cigarette, but they are exhaled back out by the user.
But many of us don’t see secondhand vaping as a major problem: A 2017 study published by the CDC found that around 40 percent of people thought secondhand vaping only caused little to some harm, while one third of people weren’t sure.
To be fair, vaping research has largely focused on what happens to the lungs, airways, and immune systems of people directly exposed to e-cigarettes—meaning the users themselves. So we’re still largely in the dark about the effects of secondhand vaping. This lack of knowledge doesn’t mean that being exposed to someone else’s vape cloud is perfectly safe though, according to Panagis Galiatsatos, an internal medicine physician and director of the tobacco treatment clinic at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Maryland.
“We do know that many of the chemicals present in e-cigarettes are toxic. There are things like formaldehyde that have been shown to impact lung health or that can be carcinogenic. So we know they exist in e-cigarettes, and they will likely still exist in the ‘secondhand smoke’ produced by e-cigarettes,” Galiatsatos told Gizmodo by phone.
A major question about e-cigarettes is whether they’re overall less harmful than conventional tobacco products. So far, the evidence is pretty strong that they are, even in the case of secondhand exposure. A report by the National Academies of Sciences and Medicine in 2018, for instance, found “moderate evidence that second-hand exposure to nicotine and particulates is lower from e-cigarettes compared with combustible tobacco cigarettes.”
Even if that’s true, that doesn’t mean e-cigarette vapor can’t hurt people.
Scott Weaver, an epidemiologist at Georgia State University’s School of Public Health who has studied the usefulness of e-cigarettes as a tool for quitting smoking, told Gizmodo in an email that “there remains the potential for negative health effects for secondhand exposure to e-cigarette aerosol, particularly for vulnerable populations and those with sustained, high exposure.”
According to Sven-Eric Jordt, an anesthesiologist, pharmacologist, and cancer biologist at Duke University who has studied the effects of aerosolized flavoring chemicals in these products, e-cigs could be also be spewing out other chemicals into the air that cigarettes don’t. And we don’t really know what they could do to us.
“In general, indoor pollution due to e-cigarettes is lower than by cigarettes, but, as for inhalation, e-cigarettes produce compounds that combustible cigarettes don’t, with unknown health effects,” Jordt told Gizmodo by email.
Some recent research has looked specifically into secondhand vaping. A study published just this April, Jordt noted, found evidence that vaping can release substances like copper, propylene glycol, and tobacco-related carcinogens into the air. The study also estimated that in small spaces with poor ventilation, like in a car with the windows closed, these chemicals could have an acute effect on bystanders, such as by irritating their lungs. Another study in March found that enough of these chemicals can accumulate in places like vape shops to leave a lingering residue on surfaces.
Too much legal marijuana: Last year's harvest alone may give Oregon a pot surplus of more than 1 billion joints
Associated Press May 31, 2019 Salem, OR
Oregon is awash in pot, glutted with so much legal weed that if growing were to stop today, it could take more than six years by one estimate to smoke or eat it all.
Now, the state is planning to curb production.
Five years after voters legalized recreational marijuana, lawmakers have given the Oregon Liquor Control Commission more leeway to deny new pot-growing licenses based on supply and demand.
The bill passed in Oregon's House late Thursday in a 39-18 vote after it was approved earlier in the Senate. It is aimed not just at reducing the huge surplus but also at preventing diversion of unsold legal marijuana into the black market and forestalling a crackdown by federal prosecutors.
"The harsh reality is we have too much product on the market," said Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, who intends to sign the bill.
Supply is running twice as high as demand, meaning that the surplus from last year's harvest alone could amount to roughly 2.3 million pounds of marijuana, by the liquor commission's figures. That's the equivalent of over 1 billion joints.
Oregon has one of the highest such imbalances among the 10 states that have legalized recreational marijuana since 2012, in part because it had a big head start in the weed business.
With its moist climate and rich soil, Oregon has a long history of pot growing. When it became legal, many outlaw growers went legitimate, and others jumped into the business, too.
They are now all cultivating weed in a multitude of fields, greenhouses and converted factories, with 1,123 active producer licenses issued by the OLLC over the past three years.
The legislation could be a lifeline to some cannabis businesses that are being squeezed by market forces.
Retail prices in Oregon for legal pot have plummeted from more than $10 per gram in October 2016 to less than $5 last December. At the same time, smaller marijuana businesses are feeling competition from bigger, richer players, some from out of state.
Officials worry that some license holders will become so desperate they will divert their product into the black market rather than see it go unsold.
"We're a very young industry," said Margo Lucas, a marijuana grower and vendor in the Willamette Valley who is hoping the measure will give her business breathing room.
She noted that growers can't seek federal bankruptcy protection — pot is still illegal under federal law, and banks avoid the industry — and that many owners have taken out personal loans to finance their businesses.
"So when we go out of business, we're going to go down hard," Lucas said. "Many of us will lose our homes. ... You're going to have a lot of entrepreneurs in this state that are pretty unhappy with the way that this ends if we don't get some support with this bill."
Opponents say the proposed law will drive growers who are denied licenses into the illegal market, if they're not there already.
"This current track seems like a giant step backwards toward prohibition, which has always been a disaster," Blake Runckel, of Portland, told lawmakers in written testimony.
As of January, Oregon's recreational pot market had an estimated 6½ years' worth of supply, according to an OLCC study.
To prevent excess pot that is still in leaf form from spoiling, processors are converting some into concentrates and edible products, which have longer shelf life, OLLC spokesman Mark Pettinger said.
Doctors want stricter limits on pot
BOSTON — Physicians and medical researchers are pressing for tougher laws to protect the public from high-potency cannabis products.
In a report sent to lawmakers, a group of 40 doctors and researchers at Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital and other medical institutions criticizes regulators and argues that recreational and medical pot is "being governed and regulated as if it were an ordinary commodity" instead of a drug with "potential to do significant harm to public health."
It warns that users of THC, the drug's psychoactive compound, risk addiction and mental health problems such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and suicide.
The 16-page report, produced by the anti-legalization group Massachusetts Prevention Alliance, calls on lawmakers and marijuana regulators to halt all new pot licenses and implement a series of recommendations while combining the recreational and medical pot markets under a "public health framework" similar to the one that regulates the sale of tobacco products.
"Regulatory failure in the case of the marijuana industry, like tobacco, opioids and vape devices, is likely unless there is a prioritized focus on public health," the report states.
The group points to increasing research that shows negative mental health effects from use of the drug by youth and adults, including "cannabis-induced psychosis."
"The harms of high-potency cannabis use to public health are clear," said Jody Hensley, the alliance's policy adviser. "This is not a harmless drug, despite what the industry claims."
Among its recommendations:
* Delay the licensing of social consumption sites and home delivery of marijuana products;
* Establish strict limits on potency and regulation of THC and other psychoactive compounds; and
* Update warning labels to note that pot use "increases the risk of serious mental illness including psychosis, paranoia, suicidal thoughts and depression."
Marijuana advocates criticized the report as "reefer madness like" and pointed out that Massachusetts' pot rules are already among the most stringent in the industry.
"To assert that the state is treating cannabis as an 'ordinary commodity' is laughable," said Jim Borghesani, an industry consultant and spokesman for the 2016 campaign to legalize its sale and use. "I don’t care how many junk-science studies they cite, that assertion alone should inform everyone that this group hasn’t done its homework and shouldn’t be taken seriously."
PUSHING FOR LIMITS
Massachusetts is one of 10 states and the District of Columbia where recreational marijuana is legal, and one of 33 states and the District of Columbia with a medical marijuana program. The state has registered about 60,000 medical marijuana patients, according to regulators.
A 2016 voter-approved recreational pot law allows adults age 21 and over to possess up to 10 ounces of weed, and it authorizes regulated cultivation and retail sales.
To date, 19 retail shops have opened throughout the state, including Alternate Therapies Group in Salem, reporting more than $100 million in sales since last fall.
Additional regulations tacked onto the pot law by the Legislature prohibited marketing and advertising of marijuana products, with strict bans on TV and radio ads that target underage users. But the physicians group wants further limits as well as restrictions on the industry's lobbying and involvement in the regulatory process.
Hensley said those recommendations are based on lessons from the powerful tobacco lobby, which blocked clinical studies and research on the health risks of cigarette smoking. The marijuana industry is spending millions of dollars to convince policymakers and the public that pot is safe, she said, when "the studies and research are showing it isn't harmless."
"Youth smoking rates skyrocketed in the mid-20th century because it wasn't heavily regulated," she said. "At the time, the concern was lung cancer. Now it's the brain that's at risk."
Tips for Teens: E-Cigs/Vaping
About Us
Our Vision: Helping youth be drug-free, productive and responsible citizens.
Our Mission: We are a coalition of compassionate community members working together to coordinate high quality programs for the prevention of youth substance abuse in Wood County.
Email: mkarna@wcesc.org
Website: wcprevention.org
Location: 1867 Research Drive, Bowling Green, OH, United States
Phone: (419)-354-9010
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WCPCoalition
Twitter: @woodpccoalition