Table of Contents
- WHAT IS PASSIVE VAPING?
- WHAT IS IN SECOND HAND VAPOUR?
- IS SECOND HAND VAPOUR HARMFUL OR DANGEROUS?
- SECOND HAND VAPOUR: WHAT DOES THE SCIENCE SAY?
- HOW DOES SECOND HAND VAPING DIFFER FROM REGULAR SMOKE?
- WHAT ARE THE MECHANICS OF E-CIGARETTE VAPOUR VS BURNING CIGARETTES?
- WHAT IS AEROSOL?
- WHAT IS AN E-LIQUID? WHAT IT CONTAINS, HOW ITS USED IN AN E E-CIG, ETC.
- WHAT IS POLITE VAPING?
- IS SECONDHAND VAPOUR OR AEROSOL FROM E-CIGARETTES HARMFUL - CONCLUSION
- REFERENCES
There are many great things about the E-Cigarette compared to smoking, the amount of money you save, the lack of a constant stale smoke smell, no more yellow stains and of course the fact that according to Public Health England E-Cigarettes are at least 95% less harmful than traditional cigarettes.
As E-Cigarettes only have 4 ingredients in, they don’t contain the 4000+ chemicals and 50+ carcinogens (cancer causing toxins) that each cigarette has. Even better, as a E-Cigarette heats up the e-liquid inside the refill and produces water vapour and not smoke it is kinder to your lungs.
And they are effective too, millions of people around the world have used them to stop smoking for good, after all they are getting the nicotine they need without the many downside of cigarettes!
But what about the people around you? For many smokers 2nd hand smoke is a huge concern, and if 2nd hand vapour, or passive vaping, can harm people around them it defeats the whole purpose.
WHAT IS PASSIVE VAPING?
Passive vaping is similar to 2nd hand smoke as it is the act of inhaling vapour from someone else's e-cigarette. The main difference between passive vaping and passive smoking is that there is no side stream vapour unlike cigarettes.
With a cigarette second-hand smoke comes from 2 places, the cigarette that keeps producing smoke even when not being puffed on (which is called the side stream smoke), and the smoke breathed out by the smoker. With an electronic cigarette vapour isn’t produced unless someone is puffing on it.
That means the only vapour that can be breathed in by someone else is the excess vapour.
WHAT IS IN SECOND HAND VAPOUR?
But what is in the vapour that is coming out? The main chemicals in the 2nd hand vapour will be the 4 ingredients that are in the E-liquid, that being propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, flavouring and nicotine.
The vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol and flavourings are considered safe enough to put in a lot of food and drinks, Find out more information about propylene glycol.
The only ingredient of an E-Cigarette you won’t want everyone breathing in is the nicotine, however the amount that comes out with the vapour is miniscule. Of course the amount of nicotine in the vapour will vary slightly on how much nicotine is in the liquid, but according to a study by the University of California 93.8% of nicotine is absorbed by the vaper so only 6.2% of the nicotine in the vapour will escape. (1)
On the note of nicotine though, the actual chemical, when taken out of tobacco isn’t as harmful as many think, acting more as a stimulant. It is of course addictive (it’s the reason we smoke after all) but nicotine itself isn’t that harmful.
Compare this to what is in cigarette smoke and the difference is stark. In smoke you will get all the 50+ carcinogens that are found in tobacco, plus the other toxic chemicals that can harm you like arsenic and cyanide.
Passive smoking shouldn’t be taken lightly, in the US along 41,000 people die from it, and that isn’t including all those with long term health effects from 2nd hand smoke.
IS SECOND HAND VAPOUR HARMFUL OR DANGEROUS?
As there is little in an E-Cigarette that can harm you, second-hand vaping is by far and away the better choice between 2nd hand cigarette smoke and vapour.
It’s important to note that vapour won’t be as good for you as breathing in fresh air (nothing is), but if you compare 2nd hand vapour and passive smoke vaping is clearly much better.
In some places you might see people claiming that chemicals like Diacetyl or acetoin are produced, but that simply isn’t the case if you are in the UK or EU. In 2016 a law called the TPD came into place that banned all harmful or potentially harmful chemicals (including diacetyl, acetoin and many others) from being included in E-Cigarettes. All E-Cigarettes also had to be laboratory tested to make sure that they did not produce these chemicals before they could be sold.
There have been some studies that show that e-liquids when heated much higher than they are meant to be start to produce other chemicals and metals, however the same can be said of a rib eye steak. If you heat that up too much you will get charcoal (a carcinogen) along with a ruined steak.
If the recommended voltage is kept to, or you have a fixed voltage device like the SMOKO E-Cigarette Starter Kit where you literally can't overheat the liquid, then this isn’t an issue.
The only people that vapour might be affected are people with asthma or a lung disease like COPD, as the vapour can be an irritant to sensitive lungs.
SECOND HAND VAPOUR: WHAT DOES THE SCIENCE SAY?
This isn’t just us saying this though, multiple studies over the years have shown that second hand vapour is not a risk.
For example in 2012 a study led by McAuley TR found that there was “no significant risk” from e-cigarette vapour. They compared different e-cigarettes and measured the indoor air concentration to see what was being produced. (2)
They also repeated this with cigarette smoke to compare the two.
They also repeated this with cigarette smoke to compare the two.
While the cigarette smoke was of course full of toxins and chemicals, the E-cigarette vapour was found to have almost nothing.
This is backed up by a 2014 comparative study that drew from many other studies and a total of 9,000 observations, and found that “Exposures of bystanders are likely to be orders of magnitude less {than smoking}, and thus pose no apparent concern”. (3)
The Royal College of Physicians found similar results in 2016 in their review, saying that “Nicotine from exhaled vapour can be deposited on surfaces, but at such low levels that there is no plausible mechanism by which such deposits could enter the body at doses that would cause physical harm”. (4)
Even studies that aren't as positive regarding E-cigarettes show that they are better by far than cigarettes and 2nd hand smoking. The study that looked at 15 e-liquids which have been used for 20 minutes and compared the indoor air.
They then did the same with a cigarette. They found that E-cigarettes produce some ultrafine particles that can be harmful if exposed for long enough.
They then did the same with a cigarette. They found that E-cigarettes produce some ultrafine particles that can be harmful if exposed for long enough.
They did note though that the amount produced by E-cigarettes was about 100 times less (or “ two order of magnitude lower”) than what was made from cigarettes! (5)
This is backed up by a study in 2017 that looks at particles in the air of lower income families to find out what percentage of that was from vaping. They found that “Smoking, whether cigarettes or marijuana, is a major source for this study population, whereas electronic cigarettes are not.” (6)
From these studies and their own investigations Public Health England, the health agency for England, has stated that there is no significant evidence to show that passive vaping is harmful. In their review of E-Cigarettes where they take new evidence from the past few years they conclude that there are “no identified health risks of passive vaping to the health of bystanders”. (7)
This review from Public Health England and others is why the NHS also states that E-Cigarette vapour is not harmful to those around you.
HOW DOES SECOND HAND VAPING DIFFER FROM REGULAR SMOKE?
From the studies above we can see that 2nd hand E-cigarette vapour and 2nd hand smoke are hugely different, not only in their makeup but in the damage they can do to those who breathe it in.
For those who are new to vaping this may still seem a bit strange, after all they look similar and do the same job of getting nicotine into your body. However it is how they are made, and what they are made of, that makes all the difference.
WHAT ARE THE MECHANICS OF E-CIGARETTE VAPOUR VS BURNING CIGARETTES?
The most basic way of differentiating between electronic cigarettes and burning cigarettes is the substance that is produced.
With using an e-cigarette the vapour that is made by heating an E-Liquid up until it turns into a water based vapour (technically it’s a water based aerosol, but we will touch on that later). The E-cig does this by heating the e-liquid with a small metal coil housed in an atomizer, and the heat turns the e-juice into the vapour.
E-cigarette vapour doesn’t have any carbon monoxide or tar, and the particles in the aerosol are liquid rather than solid.
Like mist or other types of water based vapour, e-cigarette vapour carries the nicotine and flavouring into the lungs to give that great taste and nicotine hit.
Cigarettes on the other hand burn the tobacco to produce smoke. Even without the thousands of chemicals that are in tobacco smoke is terrible for you, that’s why smoke inhalation from fires can be so dangerous. Added to that the 4000+ toxins that can damage your body like tar and the 50+ carcinogens and you get a dangerous gas that can hurt a lot of people.
WHAT IS AEROSOL?
In this article we have called what comes out of E-Cigarettes a vapour and an aerosol, though they are technically different.
A vapour is matter dispersed in the air, like fog. So the water particles in the air a small enough to float and they kind of stick together. An aerosol on the other hand is a liquid that has been turned into a gas through heat or other ways.
Technically what comes out of an e-cigarette is an aerosol, but as a large part of the gas that comes out of an e-cigarette is water based and looks like fog so it is called vapour instead.
The terminology used by most people is also vapour, so for now we will continue to call it that to make it easier.
WHAT IS AN E-LIQUID? WHAT IT CONTAINS, HOW ITS USED IN AN E E-CIG, ETC.
The e-liquid is the main part of an e-cigarette, and is what is heated up by the atomizer and turns into vapour. When we talk about an E-cigarette flavour or strength, what we are really talking about is the e-liquid’s flavour or strength.
In the E-liquid, or e-juice as it is sometimes known, there are 4 ingredients: propylene glycol (PG), vegetable glycerin (VG). nicotine and flavourings. The amount of each ingredient changes between different brands of e-liquids as that will change the amount of vapour produced when the e-liquid is heated. For example all SMOKO E-Cigarette refills and VAPE refills have a 80/20 mix of PG and VG. We do this so that there is a great throat hit and only a realistic amount of vapour.
The nicotine levels can change too, with 2% being the strongest we can legally sell. The percentage here means that 2% of the e-liquid is nicotine. It can also be shown as 20mg/ml which is measuring how many milligrams of nicotine there are in each millimeter.
What makes e-liquid so different from tobacco is that only the nicotine that is needed is used, the rest of the carcinogens and toxins that make cigarettes the number 1 preventable killer in the world are left behind. That means you aren’t getting the tar or arsenic as well.
WHAT IS POLITE VAPING?
If after reading this you were planning on vaping everywhere you can, do remember that just because E-cigarette vapour is much safer than cigarette smoke, and won’t hurt those around you, doesn’t mean you should vape where ever you want!
The 4 main rules we have found to follow so that you and everyone around you can feel comfortable are:
- Don’t blow your vapour at other people – This one is pretty simple, but even though vapour is harmless it can be annoying for people around you if you are blowing it in their faces.
- Don’t create clouds of vapour – This isn’t the 1970’s anymore, where pubs were a cloud of smoke with a bar somewhere in the middle. When people walk into a pub or restaurant they don’t expect to walk through a fog of vapour!
- Ask the people you are with if they are ok with e-cigarettes – This shouldn’t be an issue as e-cigarettes won’t harm people (and most people will want you to use an e-cigarette rather than a cigarette) but if your vapour smells of pineapple and cucumber or has enveloped the entire table your friends might not want to sit in it.
- Make sure there is no-one with lung related issues or nicotine sensitivity near - Issues like COPD or asthma can be affected by pollutants in the air like the PG or VG in the vapour. Make sure to ask if you are unsure if your vapour will affect people in this way. This also applies to the very young who can be affected by even the tiny amount of nicotine in vapour.
IS SECONDHAND VAPOUR OR AEROSOL FROM E-CIGARETTES HARMFUL - CONCLUSION
Hopefully by this point you can see that the risk from passive vaping is miniscule to the point of nothing. From the studies that have been going on for almost 10 years now and showing the same results (that there is no risk) you can rest a bit easier knowing that your vapour won’t be harming those around you.
If you are reading this as a smoker who is worried about their friends and family then maybe this will help you finally make the switch from tobacco to a 95% less harmful alternative for you and those around you and that has helped millions of smokers stop producing 2nd hand smoke and finally live smoke free . But why wait? Try a SMOKO Vape Pod Starter Kit today and see for yourself.
REFERENCES
(1) Nicotine delivery, retention and pharmacokinetics from various electronic cigarettes
(2) Comparison of the effects of e-cigarette vapor and cigarette smoke on indoor air quality
(4) Nicotine without smoke: Tobacco harm reduction
(7) Clearing up some myths around e-cigarettes
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Written by Dan Overgage
Dan Overgage – is a former smoker of 10 years until he became a client of SMOKO E-Cigarettes. Dan started working with SMOKO 5 years ago after successfully quitting using our e-cigarettes and works across our Customer Service and heads up our content creation and research with a strong focus on all things quitting smoking. During his tenure with SMOKO, Dan has written countless blogs and consults with countless clients every day to help them to stay smoke-free.
