Can vaping cause depression?

A research team at the University of Kansas found that e-cigarette users are more likely than the general population to suffer from depression, once again drawing the inference that e-cigarettes cause depression. In fact, it is well known that people with various mental health conditions, including depression, tend to use nicotine at higher-than-average rates. This is because they use nicotine to self-medicate and manage their symptoms, not because nicotine causes depression.

For many people who follow e-cigarettes, the term “popcorn lung” is not unfamiliar. Many people first paid attention to e-cigarettes because of “popcorn lung,” and many others gave up e-cigarettes for the same reason.

This clearly shows how much damage so-called “research findings” from poorly conducted scientific studies can do to harm reduction products.

After every misleading report, large numbers of people trying to quit smoking go back to cigarettes, because for them, the harms of tobacco are known, while the harms of e-cigarettes have not yet been definitively proven. Human beings often fear the unknown more than the known.

Since e-cigarettes first appeared, not a single person has died from the normal use of e-cigarettes. By contrast, tobacco has spread around the world for more than a century since it was introduced by Indigenous Americans, and the number of deaths caused by tobacco each year is counted in the tens of millions. Although the dangers of tobacco are already well known, many people would still rather wait for that familiar outcome than make a change and explore an “unknown” future.

Even so, e-cigarettes contain nicotine, a highly addictive substance. Minors and adolescents are prohibited from using e-cigarettes, and non-smokers are not advised to use them.