Trying new e-cigarette flavors, young men get drug poisoning
On the afternoon of December 15, Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen, Director of the Poison Control Center, Bach Mai Hospital, said that every day the Poison Control Center receives patients poisoned by e-cigarettes, including many cases. Poisoning by drugs mixed in electronic cigarettes.
The patients are mostly teenagers, hospitalized with symptoms of seizures, irritability, convulsions, hallucinations, psychosis, coma, damage to the brain and many other organs, leaving serious health consequences. Strong.
Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen examines a patient with e-cigarette poisoning being treated at the Poison Control Center. Thanh Tam’s photo
Currently, the Poison Control Center is treating 2 young patients (a 23-year-old patient and a 29-year-old patient) who were both seriously poisoned after using e-cigarettes.
A patient is TQT (23 years old, in Thuong Tin, Hanoi) with a history of smoking e-cigarettes for the past 2 years. According to family members, on the evening of December 1, the patient was given an e-cigarette to “test” a new flavor (recommended by the shipper), and at 5 a.m. the next day, the patient had a seizure. Foaming at the mouth, convulsions all over the body.
The patient was taken to the emergency room at a front-line hospital but did not improve, then was transferred to the Poison Control Center on December 9.
Testing the patient’s e-cigarette sample revealed the synthetic marijuana drug ADB-Butinaca.
The second case is patient LHH (29 years old, in Dong Anh, Hanoi) hospitalized because of limb spasticity and movement disorders. The patient has also used cigarettes and e-cigarettes for many years. Recently, the patient has shown signs of movement disorders, tremors, sweating, and cannot control movements.
“Most people think that e-cigarettes are very simple and do not contain addictive nicotine. This is completely wrong. E-cigarettes are essentially electrical devices that heat mixtures of ingredients containing many chemicals. The artificial substance inside, evaporates for users’ entertainment.
In e-cigarettes, there are 3 groups of risks that are harmful to health: nicotine, artificial flavors and drugs,” Dr. Nguyen shared.
Some samples of toxic e-cigarettes brought by poisoned patients are kept at the Poison Control Center, Bach Mai Hospital. Thanh Tam’s photo
Nicotine is banned in pesticides but is included in e-cigarettes
Dr. Nguyen also worries that nicotine is a very toxic chemical, previously used in pesticides and plant protection drugs, but due to its high toxicity, it has been banned in many countries and Vietnam has also banned its use.
“So it’s clear that nicotine is so toxic that we can’t use it as a pesticide, but we put this substance into e-cigarettes to use to smoke and absorb into the body? That’s completely absurd! If we let e-cigarettes exist, we don’t know what people are?”, Dr. Nguyen emphasized.
According to Dr. Nguyen, the toxicity of nicotine on humans is similar to organophosphorus pesticides. When using cigarettes repeatedly, nicotine is toxic to the heart (atherosclerosis, narrowing of the blood vessels, blood vessel spasm, causing myocardial infarction, increased blood pressure, etc.), and the respiratory system (causing alveolar dilatation). bronchospasm,…).
In addition, nicotine also reduces immunity, affects the brain, reduces memory, reduces concentration, reduces learning ability, increases early optic nerve degeneration, damages glomeruli, narrows renal vessels, and kidney failure.
Men who absorb nicotine for a long time may experience reduced or lost erectile dysfunction, decreased testosterone secretion, and decreased sperm quantity and quality. Women who inhale nicotine can have menstrual disorders, reduce estrogen and progesterone secretion, affect the ovaries, affect ovule maturation, and reduce blood flow to the ovaries.
Nicotine also causes growth retardation in the fetus, stillbirth, ectopic pregnancy, mental retardation in the fetus, and increased risk of asthma in the newborn.
“The nicotine content in e-cigarettes is many times higher than that of traditional cigarettes. This is synthetic chemical nicotine, in the form of almost pure nicotine powder, prepared in a form that makes Soothing when inhaled, users will easily inhale large amounts, quickly become poisoned and soon become addicted.
According to World Health Organization standards, nicotine is a drug in its full meaning. There have been thousands of studies around the world proving that electric cigarettes aggravate the problem of regular cigarette use,” Dr. Nguyen emphasized.
Image of a patient’s brain severely damaged by e-cigarettes. Thanh Tam’s photo
E-cigarettes have tens of thousands of “pitfalls”
According to Dr. Nguyen, to attract users, especially young people, manufacturers have put tens of thousands of flavors into e-cigarettes. To date, there are at least 20,000 flavoring chemicals and many different types of flavor and aroma additives.
These are original substances, and when heated at different temperatures, each substance will create combustion products that are different chemicals that we cannot predict.
Many chemicals in e-cigarette vapor have been proven to be harmful to health, causing cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cough, asthma, myocardial infarction, blood vessel damage, and reduced immunity. , causing damage to DNA and genetic molecules, increasing the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease…
These chemicals cause diseases that are much more complicated than regular cigarettes and are mostly new diseases.
Dr. Nguyen said that recently, e-cigarettes have been discovered to be the cause of a new acute disease known to humans for the first time, which is acute lung injury caused by e-cigarettes.
In 2019 in the US, a series of cases of serious lung damage in e-cigarette users with no history of lung disease were recorded. The number of cases continues to increase, and by 2020, 68 deaths were recorded.
The determined cause is because vitamin E is added to e-cigarettes. When heated, vitamin E converts into another chemical that causes lung damage. Vitamin E can normally be taken orally or applied on the skin. This clearly shows one thing, even substances that can normally be eaten or drunk may not be safe to heat and inhale.
Since 2020, the US has banned all flavors in e-cigarettes (except mint flavor and tobacco flavor) and is researching to ban both flavors.
“E-cigarettes are the beginning of the trend of abuse and addiction to synthetic artificial chemicals and are a quick way for people to destroy their health, leading to stunting and degeneration of the race.
Accepting to smoke e-cigarettes with a series of toxic chemicals is as bad as inhaling polluted air or waste from factories,” Dr. Nguyen shared.
According to Dr. Nguyen, what is most alarming is the mixing of new generation drugs and marijuana into e-cigarettes. There have been hundreds of marijuana chemicals and new generation drugs mixed in, making it very difficult to detect…
“All of this shows that e-cigarettes are many times more toxic and affect health than traditional cigarettes due to the combination of three factors: nicotine, chemical additives and drugs.
To date, there have been 32 countries banning e-cigarettes, 79 countries regulating e-cigarette management very strictly and 16 countries banning heated cigarettes.
Countries around us that have banned the circulation of e-cigarettes are China (banning all types of flavored e-cigarettes), countries that have completely banned them are Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore”, Dr. Nguyen speak.
A patient with e-cigarette poisoning causing brain damage and organ failure is being treated at the Poison Control Center. Thanh Tam’s photo
“E-cigarettes have been spreading widely among students and their huge consequences cannot be fully assessed.
The Poison Control Center urgently requests that the National Assembly urgently ban the production and circulation of e-cigarettes in Vietnam before it is too late and things become uncontrollable,” Dr. Nguyen urgently suggested.