Straight Outta Bugs Bunny

The exploding cigar is a tired old joke from Bugs Bunny era of cartoons. But the advent of vaping has sadly made it a not-so-uncommon occurrence:

William Brown had errands to run on a chilly Texas evening, and his grandmother was happy to lend him her light-blue Lincoln Town Car.

Brown stopped at a store selling vaporizer smoking pens outside Fort Worth on Jan. 27. He sat alone in the parked car, put his lips to a pen, and soon after, an explosion sent shards of metal into his face and neck, said Alice Brown, his grandmother.

He thrashed and fell out of the car, trying to regain his balance on the hood and trunk before collapsing, she said, according to evidence from the scene conveyed to her by authorities.

Brown, 24, held on for two days before he died at a hospital. The cause of death was listed as stroke after the carotid artery in his neck was severed by “penetrating trauma from exploding vaporizer pen,” the Tarrant County medical examiner found.

There were more than 2000 vape pen explosions between 2015 and 2017. A Florida man died last May. That should put to rest the idea that vaping is safer than smoking cigarettes. To be fair, exploding cell phone batteries also kill people. But cell phones don't have heating elements...

Companies like Juul are trying to sell kids on the idea that vaping is cool and is safer than smoking cigarettes. But it ain't so: nicotine itself is highly toxic. Under normal circumstances average vapers are unlikely to OD on nicotine; they're more likely to make themselves sick rather than killing themselves. However, it is possible: Russian composer Igor Stravinsky nearly died from nicotine poisoning from smoking cigarettes.

 A number of of people have died from drinking vaping liquid, including children. The sweet-smelling and colorful vaping liquid often reminds children of juice or candy. Juul makes mint, mango, cream and fruit flavored JUULpods, each of which contains an an entire cigarette pack's worth of nicotine.

Nicotine is still highly addictive, making vaping the "gateway drug" for cigarettes. 

And, even though vaping doesn't pollute your lungs with carbon monoxide and all those other nasty carcinogens omnipresent in tobacco, don't forget that nicotine is carcinogenic: nicotine metabolites are known carcinogens, and nicotine itself causes DNA damage and mutations, which are precursors to cancer.