OF: Dawn, Editor: Wei Jia, from the head of FIG: Oriental IC

E-cigarettes are not very peaceful recently. The e-cigarette-related deaths in the United States have poured cold water into the e-cigar industry, which is flourishing in the country.

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that as of October 8, the United States found that it was related to the use of electronic cigarettes. The number of cases of lung injury has reached 1299, and the number of deaths has reached 26. And more than half a month ago, the two figures were 500 and 8 respectively.

“E-cigarettes are poisonous, the news said, we do not sell.” The owner of a tobacco store in Beijing International Trade Zone said to the burning of finance. Previously, he had never been exposed to e-cigarettes. This simple cognition is very representative in the moment.

The government department also frequently voices. Seven months ago, 315 nights were named e-cigarettes; three months ago, the National Health and Health Commission said that the hazards of e-cigarettes should be highly valued.

But at the same time, domestic e-cigarette entrepreneurs have consistently shouted that e-cigarettes can “reduce harm”. They believe that e-cigarettes are “healthy” and “safer” than cigarettes, making them a better choice for smokers. They quoted data from the UK’s Department of Public Health (PHE) that said: E-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than traditional tobacco.

The positions of the parties are different, and the arguments are quite different, adding to the public’s doubts about e-cigarettes.

Is the electronic cigarette harmful? Burning the finances will disassemble this issue into different dimensions and show you the positions of all parties in order to find the answer.

Focus:

Sorted on the harmful components of the product, traditional cigarettes>IQOS heating non-burning tobacco products>Juul electronic nicotine delivery system. The Juul class is known as e-cigarette;

WHO pointed out that although the specific level of risk associated with e-cigarettes has not yet been finalized, e-cigarettes are undoubtedly harmful and should be regulated;

Inconsistent industry standards have led toProduct quality and safety are mixed. Whether the materials are safe and compliant largely determines the content of harmful substances in electronic cigarettes;

Non-toxic additives such as spices, alfalfa, ginseng, and cordyceps also produce new harmful substances. In the market competition, there are still problems such as the random addition of nicotine and the ambiguity of the brand.

What are the harmful substances in e-cigarettes?

The electronic cigarette really entered the mainstream media vision, which was in early 2019. At the press conference in January, Luo Yonghao was the Fulu e-cigarette platform. His bottom line was from the British Ministry of Public Health’s “95% reduction” research report.

This 2015 report will build on the evaluation of the coordinate system based on comparison with traditional cigarettes.

Traditional cigarettes are harmful to the human body. This is a common sense that has long been demonstrated. Traditional cigarettes produce various chemical components such as nicotine, tar, formaldehyde, benzene, lead, propylene glycol, and carbon dioxide, and known carcinogens.

Electronic cigarettes contain substances such as nicotine, propylene glycol, glycerin, and spices, and not all of them are directly harmful. Jiang Mengxi, an analyst at the Tianfeng Securities Research Institute, told Combustion Finance that propylene glycol and glycerin are used as organic solvents in the food or skin care industry, and there is no problem in normal use within the scope of the corresponding industry or product standards. Flavors and fragrances are similar, and can be divided into fragrances for daily use, consumption, and tobacco use. It is legal and compliant to use within the allowable content range.

Since the composition of the composition, the harmful components of e-cigarettes are much smaller than cigarettes. The consensus reached in the industry is that because of the atomization technology, the electronic cigarette eliminates the burning process, so it does not produce tar, and tar is considered to be the culprit leading to lung cancer.

According to the report of the World Health Organization, sorting based on harmful components in products, traditional cigarettes>IQOS heating non-burning tobacco products>Juul electronic nicotine delivery system. The Juul electronic nicotine delivery system is known as e-cigarette.

But this does not mean that e-cigarettes are completely harmless. The World Health Organization also pointed out that although the specific risk levels associated with e-cigarettes have not yet been finalized, e-cigarettes are undoubtedly harmful and should be regulated.

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Zhang Jianshu, president of the Beijing Controlled Smoking Association, told Combustion Finance that chemical additives such as food additives and propylene glycol added to e-cigarettes will generate new chemical reactions after heating, producing harmful substances such as formaldehyde and nickel-lead. Therefore, he believes that e-cigarettes are not safe.

The focus of domestic e-cigarette entrepreneurs’ external publicity is that e-cigarettes can reduce harm compared to cigarettes. Their logic is that e-cigarettes are not harmless, but the harm is much smaller than cigarettes, so e-cigarettes are the best choice.

For e-cigarettes, the process of demonstrating its harmfulness is a process of turning the unknown into a known one, which requires time to test. A statement issued by the Scottish National Health Service and signed by the Royal College of Edinburgh, said: “It may take many years for the medical community to have sufficient evidence to make an absolute judgment on the pros and cons of e-cigarettes.” p>

Where does “harm” come from?

Like the cottage mobile phone ten years ago, today’s e-cigarette market, due to the lack of uniform industry norms and policy supervision lags, leading to mixed industry and chaos.

A Shenzhen e-cigarette entrepreneur told fuel economy that in terms of composition, e-cigarettes have little harm to the human body, but in actual operation, new harmful substances may be produced for various reasons. . “The cases caused by such industry irregularities have become the handle of the e-cigarette industry.”

If you dismantle the e-cigarette production process, we can see where the industry is chaotic.

First of all, at the source selection, whether the materials used are safe and compliant, largely determines the content of harmful substances in electronic cigarettes. “If a very inferior material is used, it is very likely that new harmful substances will be produced during the heating process. The content of formaldehyde and carbon monoxide may exceed the standard.” Sun Haiming, founder and CEO of Platinum Electronic Cigarette, told the Finance.

Secondly, in the security testing, most e-cigarette brands do not have self-detection capabilities or set up self-testing links. Undetected e-cigarette products have entered the market, exacerbating industry chaos. “You said that e-cigarettes are harmful. It depends on what e-cigarettes you are testing, like milk powder. Are some of them not poisonous?” asked an e-cigarette brand founder.

In addition to the addition of ingredients, non-complianceAdditives will also produce new harmful substances. Specifically, in the production process, the manufacturer can determine the type and amount of the additive; in the use link, the user can add DIY to the open electronic cigarette, which increases the uncertainty of the substance produced by the electronic cigarette.

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“The recent fatal incident in the United States is due to the open electronic cigarettes. Some users have injected CBD hemp oil into the cartridges and produced new harmful substances.” Sun Haiming said.

Almost all e-cigarette entrepreneurs will attribute the current chaos of e-cigarettes to industry issues, not e-cigarettes themselves.

Sun Haiming made a metaphor: The knife itself is not wrong, it is necessary to see who the knife is. If it is in the hands of the martial arts master of the righteous man, this knife will kill the rich and help the peace and protect the peace; if it is in the hands of the criminals, it will kill and injure the innocent. “In the final analysis, it is still the industry standard is not standardized, resulting in uneven quality and safety of products.”

Is the additive fatal?

In response to the recent frequent occurrence of e-cigarette-related lung diseases in the United States, the industry has pointed to the additives. Due to the lack of uniform specifications, a variety of additives were born.

Spices, medlar, ginseng, cordyceps, betel nut, marijuana… all kinds of strange materials, added to the smoke oil by some electronic cigarette manufacturers, and even crowned the health care gimmick. However, in the case of mixing and heating, these substances will produce new harmful substances, which most manufacturers do not know and do not care about.

The electronic cigarette is heated by the device to atomize the smoke oil into smoke, and the smoker inhales the nicotine into the lungs to achieve the effect of addiction. Prior to e-cigarettes, this atomization technology was widely used in the medical industry. At present, Macwell, the largest e-cigarette foundry in China, used to do medical atomization and hemp atomization. Therefore, e-cigarettes and natural materials such as marijuana have a natural connection.

When these additives, especially marijuana, are chargedWhen the cigarettes are combined, the risk comes along.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that e-cigarettes used in patients with e-cigarette-related lung diseases contain cannabis components such as tetrahydrocannabinol products (THC)< /span>. A survey conducted by the New York Department of Health Laboratory found that these electronic cigarettes containing cannabis contain extremely high levels of vitamin E acetate, an additive.

Cannabis is currently under strict control in the country, but the US policy is relatively loose, and the United States has a wider range of open-type e-cigarette users, which facilitates the inflow of cannabis products into e-cigarettes.

Jing Xingtao, an expert on tobacco oil research and development, said that “the death of marijuana is not due to marijuana, but to the dissolution and anti-oxidation of cannabis, the addition of lipids, and inhalation leading to lipid pneumonia.”

Specifically in China, although cannabis products cannot be added, there is a phenomenon in which arecoline and caffeine are added to the smoke oil. In July of this year, an e-cigarette brand in China released a new product called e-coffee, trying to help users replace coffee drinks in the form of e-cigarettes.

However, China’s “Sanitary Standards for the Use of Food Additives” stipulates that caffeine is allowed to be used in cola-type carbonated beverages and does not include e-cigarette products. In addition, the UK has banned the addition of caffeine to e-cigarettes in 2017, and the European Commission also imposed restrictions on caffeine in 2014.

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“Nicotine is an alkaloid that stimulates the secretion of dopamine, but caffeine and arecoline are stimulating adrenaline, plus individual differences and rapid absorption, and the safety risk is extremely high.” Jiang Xingtao said.

In addition, there are not many manufacturers that add vitamin C and collagen to tobacco oil. Most of these additives appear in the form of energy bars in foreign markets. In fact, vitamin C is decomposed when the temperature reaches 80 degrees Celsius, and the atomization temperature of e-cigarette is more than 200 degrees. “Collagen macromolecules cannot be atomized in e-cigarettes,” said Jiang Xingtao.