How did vaping emerge, and why do so many in public health oppose it? It is a perplexing question, but the explanation starts with innovation.
The essential development was progress with a critical technology—the lithium-ion battery—that made new categories of consumer nicotine product possible in a compact form acceptable to consumers. Driven by the insatiable demand for miniaturization from mobile phones and other portable devices, these batteries have improved to deliver ever greater energy density (essential for good battery life) and power density (essential for rapid heating and responsiveness to human interaction).
In one sense, vaping and heated-tobacco products are novel energy technologies. The critical innovation is that they change the heat source used to form the inhalable nicotine-bearing aerosol from combustion to electricity. Burning tobacco generates the heat, and the tobacco smoke is the aerosol, but the products of combustion are also the prime driver of the disease burden.
Clive Bates – Tobacco Reporter – March 1, 2021.
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