Secondhand Vapor Is Harmless, New Evidence Suggests

The California Department of Public Health has been testing the air quality inside vape shops across the state and the findings suggest that second-hand vapor is virtually harmless.

Dr. Michael Siegel, a public health expert who runs a tobacco news analysis and commentary blog called “The Rest of the Story,” wrote that the results of sampling conducted in one of the shops by the state health department shows that secondhand vaping “appears to result in minimal exposure of bystanders to hazardous chemicals.

“The results of sampling in one of these vape shops, obtained by The Rest of the Story, reveal that “secondhand vaping” appears to result in minimal exposure of bystanders to hazardous chemicals.”

In the particular vape shop that Dr. Siegel’s blog received air sampling results for, the conditions entailed “visible clouds of vapor” at times during the sampling, which was perhaps of little surprise given that there were customers as well as employees vaping in the store which had “no active ventilation system,” Dr. Siegel noted.

By Dr. Siegel’s account, “this seems to represent a high level of exposure” in comparison to what one might experience in another public place such as a restaurant or office. Surprisingly, even under these conditions, the air sampling detected no traces of nicotine.

Here’s a list of what are at least some of the chemicals that were not detected during the air sampling conducted by the health department:

Nicotine
Glycidol
Diacetyl
2,3-Pentanedione
Acetyl butyryl
Acetoin
Acetone
Ethyl benzene
m,p-Xylene
o-Xylene
Toluene
Acetaldehyde
Acetonitrile
alpha-pinene
Benzene
Chloroform
d-Limonene
Methylene chloride
Methyl methacrylate
n-Hexane
Stryene

While it may raise initial alarm in some, the air sampling did result in the detection of formaldehyde. However, while formaldehyde was detected at 7.2 ppb, this level is “consistent with normal and outdoor air levels of formaldehyde under baseline conditions,” according to Dr. Siegel.

The only other quantifiable amounts of chemicals detected corresponded with ethanol and isopropyl alcohol.

In summary, the air sampling’s results confirm what some scientists have already concluded, which is that secondhand vapor’s health implications are negligible. In other words, the data suggests that secondhand vapor, unlike secondhand smoke, is virtually inconsequential to the health of bystanders.