Vape facts - What you need to know
Vaping Reality Check
Time for some real talk: Could vaping be adding to your stress instead of helping? Vaping has negative short- and long-term health risks. Decide what you want to do about it and take back control.
Ready to Quit? Make Your Choice
The fact is that vaping actually has short and long-term health risks. Although vaping hasn’t been around long enough for us to know all its health effects, we’ve still discovered a lot.
Don’t get sucked in. Get the facts and make an informed choice about vaping and your health.
Addiction and your brain
Highly addictive nicotine found in vapes can be extracted from the tobacco plant or made chemically in a lab. Every form of nicotine has risks.
Your brain is still developing until you are about 25 years old. This is why is takes less nicotine and time to become addicted. Did you know one vape (2mL of e-liquid) can contain more nicotine than 40 cigarettes? That’s two whole packs! Vapes with more than 2mL of e-liquid can contain the same amount of nicotine as smoking 300 cigarettes!
Using nicotine before your brain is fully developed can lead to:
- Memory issues
- Trouble learning
- Trouble concentrating
- Mood Swings
- Changes in behaviour
- Dependence (addiction)
How does this happen?
While your brain is still developing, each time a new memory is created or a new skill is learned, your brain is building stronger connections (synapses) between brain cells.
Your brain builds connections faster than adult brains. Nicotine changes the way these connections are made, impacting healthy brain development and even increasing the risk of addictions to substances like cigarettes and other drugs.
Vaping is a hit to your mental health
Vaping affects your mental health in ways that aren’t always easy to notice at first.
Social media and advertising make it seem like vaping helps you deal with stress and anxiety, but it's been shown to actually make these feelings worse. You may vape to fit in, but over time, it could harm your mood and leave you feeling disconnected.
Nicotine in vapes is also highly addictive. When a person becomes addicted to nicotine, then stops using it, their body and brain have to get used to not having nicotine. This can lead to nicotine cravings and withdrawal, which could feel like:
- Being “on edge,” irritable or anxious
- Tired or groggy
- Sweating
- Low mood or feeling sad
- Trouble concentrating
- Trouble sleeping
- Headaches, and more
Using nicotine can make these symptoms go away for a little while but as nicotine levels in the body wear off, these feelings come back. This cycle leads to dependency on nicotine and creates an addiction.
Vaping messes with the natural chemicals (neurotransmitters) in the brain. Nicotine found in most vapes, increases stress chemicals (cortisol), which causes increased heart rate, breathing and blood pressure. This is the same reaction people have when they are scared or stressed. It is the exact opposite of what your body does when it is calm.
Marketing, flavours and the industry
The tobacco and vape industry use marketing techniques that promote their products in ways that target you.
The industry uses strategies that appeal to people like you, including colourful and “cool” packaging, popular flavours, and even social media influencers and celebrities to endorse products. These marketing techniques are designed to falsely make you believe vape and tobacco products are safe, helpful and even a “normal” part of life, influencing you to try them.
It is important that you are careful and think critically about what the industry is actually trying to sell. Make your own informed choices after knowing the real facts about the risks of these products.
It’s Time, I’m Ready to Quit
We get it—quitting vaping can be tough. But guess what? You're not alone in this journey. Whether it's your first attempt or you've tried before, we're here to support you every step of the way. Remember, every small step counts, and we're cheering you on!
Try any of these free resources to help you say goodbye to your vape.
Virtual, In-person and Phone Support
Start Your Vape-free Journey
Create your own plan to quit vaping and get tips along the way
I’m Not Ready to Quit…Yet
Quitting vaping is one of the best things you can do to improve your health. Don’t believe us? Here are just some of the benefits of quitting:
- More money in your pocket
- More energy
- Better health (physical and mental)
- Freedom from your vape
If you keep vaping, there are serious health risks.
The Long-term Effects of Vaping are Still Being Researched
Here’s what we know so far about vaping and its effects on your health
- Lung damage: Vaping can make it hard for you to breathe, causing symptoms like wheeze and cough. It can also worsen existing lung conditions like asthma
- Stress on your heart: Vaping nicotine can increase your heart rate and blood pressure, putting pressure on the heart. This can also make you feel stressed or anxious. Using both cigarettes and vapes can increase this risk even more
- Oral health problems: The chemical known as propylene glycol (PG) is found in vapes and absorbs moisture (like saliva), which can lead to dry mouth. Dry mouth can lead to tooth decay, gum infections, changes in taste and bad breath
- Eye and throat irritation: Chemical particles found in vapes can cause eye and throat irritation
- Nicotine poisoning: E-liquids contain enough nicotine to cause serious harm, especially if absorbed through your skin, mouth or eyes – even in small amounts
- Addiction: Nicotine is a highly addictive drug and the main ingredient found in most vapes and other tobacco products like cigarettes
Still looking for more information?
Looking for more information about vaping, commercial tobacco and other nicotine products?
Related Resources
- Smoke-Free and Vape-Free Spaces – How the law protects your health
External Resources
- Not An Experiment: Escape the vaping experiment
- Stop Vaping Challenge – Learn more and overcome dependence on nicotine
- Unfiltered Facts – Making health choices using facts, not beliefs
- Consider the Consequences – What’s up with vaping?
- The Real Cost – The real cost of vaping and tobacco products
- My Vaping Mistake Videos – Real teens, real stories
- The Truth – Breath of Stress Air
- Behind the Haze – Go Behind the Haze
- Kids Help Phone – Ways to talk with a friend about their substance use
- Centre for Addiction and Mental Health – Vaping: What you and your friends need to know
- Take Down Tobacco – Youth standing up and speaking out against Big Tobacco
