E-Cigarettes Must Be Banned

As a pulmonary and critical care specialist, I am writing this open letter today, September 25, World Lung Day, to ask that the Board of Supervisors take immediate action to ban the sale of all e-cigarettes and vaping devices in Santa Barbara County. We are at the beginning stages of an alarming epidemic of both vaping-related lung disease and nicotine addiction in adolescents and young adults.

In national surveys, the rapid rise of vaping/e-cigarette use has been astounding, with more than 28 percent of high school students vaping on most days of the month in 2018. This represents a 78 percent increase between 2017 and 2018.

The recent outbreak of vaping related lung illness cases was first reported in August. Just in the past month the number of cases has more than doubled to well over 600 probable cases with hundreds more being reported every week. There have been nine deaths attributed to vaping-related lung disease so far. Unfortunately, this number will certainly rise. Cases have been in both adolescents and adults: 16 percent are under age 18, 67 percent between 18 and 35, and 17 percent over 35.  This week we had a possible case of a 19-year-old requiring mechanical ventilation in our own community.