Vape store owners and health professionals sound off on effects of vaping

AMORY, Miss. (WCBI) – As concerns over vaping increase, people on both sides of the issue are speaking out.

Amaza Vapors opened more than five years ago, and since then, owner Joseph Stone says business has grown steadily.

“We have several age ranges, 18 to, oldest guy is about 87 or 88 somewhere around there, he was a three pack a day smoker who quit with us,” said Stone.

Like many who vape, Stone started the practice as a way to stop smoking cigarettes.

Vaping is marketed as a safe alternative to cigarettes. Vaping is the inhaling of a vapor created by an electronic, or E cigarette, or other vaping device.

The battery powered smoking devices have cartridges filled with a liquid that usually contains nicotine, flavorings and chemicals. That liquid is heated into a vapor which the person inhales.

Recently, media attention has focused on five deaths from a mystery lung condition dubbed “Vape lung.”

However, another vape store owner says the fatalities are associated with dangerous chemicals that legitimate vape stores do not sell.

“The illnesses you see, lung issues, deaths solely are accredited to illicit black market drugs, you see THC cartridges that are currently flooding our entire country and those are causing major damage in people, what we are here for is tobacco harm reduction,” said Joseph Enfinger, owner of 1810 Vapors.

But health professionals are sounding the alarm on vaping.

As the Cardio-pulmonary Director at Gilmore-Amory North Mississippi Medical Center, Bert Mize said he’s seeing more patients with vaping related lung illnesses.

“The illnesses you see, lung issues, deaths solely are accredited to illicit black market drugs, you see THC cartridges that are currently flooding our entire country and those are causing major damage in people, what we are here for is tobacco harm reduction,” said Mize.

Plus Mize said there are no FDA regulations for vaping, even though ingredients are listed on the products.

“There are things printed, but it’s not regulated by the FDA, you don’t know the amount of nicotine, you get, they add the scents, and chemicals that go into it and that is all unregulated when it is being heated and inhaled,” said Mize.

Mize said more information about the effects of vaping is needed, and until then he encourages people to not start using the products.

It is illegal to sell e-cigarettes or vaping products to minors.