As kids went back to school in the fall of 2019, parents, educators, public health experts and lawmakers were growing more concerned by the day.
A string of “e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injuries,” or EVALI, was appearing across the United States, and no one—not even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—had a handle on what was happening.
Eventually, in November, the CDC belatedly identified a “very strong culprit”: vitamin E acetate, a compound that had been found as an adulterant in illicitly manufactured THC cartridges. That is, not nicotine vaping products. (Two months earlier, police had arrested two brothers in Wisconsin for what the local sheriff called an “empire” of illegal, vapable THC.)
The damage, though, was already done. “Vaping” had been blamed, by officialdom and media and in the public eye—and all vaping, whether nicotine or THC, had been lumped under that one verb.
Alex Norcia – FilterMag – 2021-05-07.
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