General News
18 September, 2025
Call the Doctor with Dr Felix Ritson: The hidden dangers behind vaping
This week Dr Felix Ritson, explores the continued vaping practice despite it being illegal without a prescription in Australia. He looks at health damage and the concerning long-term effects.
Vaping is bad for you.
Also known as electronic cigarettes or E-cigarettes, vapes have become very common in Australia. This is despite them last year being made illegal without a prescription.
Vaping was made illegal in Australia for very good reasons.
Vapes containing nicotine were heavily promoted by tobacco companies as a means to reduce or quit smoking. One wonders if these companies had more nefarious goals. It has now been demonstrated that people who start vaping are more likely to later start smoking cigarettes.
The main reason for this is nicotine addiction.
Most vapes, including those used by and marketed towards children, contain large amounts of nicotine.
People are often surprised to learn just how much nicotine is in these brightly packaged devices with flavours like bubblegum and watermelon.
One vape can easily contain more than 100 cigarettes' worth of nicotine, with some reporting vapes that contain over 600 cigarettes' worth of nicotine. Using a full vape over the course of a week, or even over a few days, is common.
Since Australia made most vapes illegal, almost all are bought on the black market. Despite this, they are easily accessible; often sold for cash at established stores on main streets in seemingly every suburb and town. Having been imported illegally, the vaper has no idea whatsoever what is in their vape. It could contain any amount of nicotine, and any number of harmful chemicals.
An Australian study published several years ago collected a series of cases in which young children had ingested vaping liquid.
Every incident was fatal.
The chemicals in vapes are very dangerous and have the potential to cause serious long-term damage. As vaping is a relatively new phenomenon, and the contents of vapes are unregulated, it is impossible to predict just how bad the future will be. Just like when smoking tobacco was considered safe, only for millions to die decades later, at the time the risk was not appreciated.
Many Doctors, myself included, very much fear what will become apparent in 10-20 years when the long-term effects of vaping manifest as disease.
But it is not only long-term damage that is the problem. A very serious condition known as “popcorn lung” can develop within 3 months of vaping. In this condition, lung tissue is literally obliterated, never to regrow.
A CT scan reveals many cavities throughout the lungs, looking oddly and terrifyingly like popcorn. Half of the people who develop the condition need to be admitted to an intensive care unit and placed on a ventilator. The damage seen in this condition is attributed to flavouring chemicals used in vapes.
One of the lesser-known harms of vaping is hormonal damage.
Nicotine disrupts the production of testosterone and causes the body to produce too much or too little, both of which are very much unwanted effects.
Whilst at University, I had the pleasure of undertaking a research project with a Harvard-educated Professor of Endocrinology and world-leading expert on testosterone. Hormones are complex and incredibly important to our well-being. The key element to their functioning well is balance. Vaping nicotine will lead to an imbalanced hormonal system and cause insidious but pervasive bodily and psychological damage.
Vaping is bad for you. Talking to your GP about nicotine replacement therapy will help you quit.