Flawed Cocaine Research
Researchers are claiming that teen vaping acts as a gateway into cocaine addiction but fail to recognise that the individuals may be predisposed to be risk takers
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by Dave Cross
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The drug link to vaping isn’t new, it’s been used as a stick to beat tobacco harm reduction in the past. In 2014, The Daily Mirror wrote: “E-cigarettes could lead to the use of illegal drugs like cocaine and cannabis, new research has found.
“E-cigarettes have the same physiological effects on the brain and may pose the same risk of addiction to other drugs as regular cigarettes, especially in adolescence during a critical period of brain development. We don't yet know whether e-cigarettes will prove to be a gateway to the use of conventional cigarettes and illicit drugs, but that's certainly a possibility”
In other words, the article consisted of completely flawed guesswork.
The following year, The Daily Mirror was at it again, warning against the increase use of e-cigs by referring to them as “psychedelic crack pipes” used by “digital druggies”.
Anti-vape rent-a-quote Professor Martin McKee wrote on Twitter, posing the daft question: “Could e-cigarettes act as gateway to cocaine?”
McKee didn’t explain why he thought it might, his entire point appeared to be to throw shade at a harm reduction product he admitted he knew little about yet had adopted a prohibitionist standpoint to because he is ideologically opposed to the tobacco industry, cigarettes and anything that looked like smoking.
Advocate Clive Bates said that McKee was neither “an expert in nicotine policy” nor an “authority in the science” involved in vaping research, neither of which held him back from being “a prolific commentator on the e-cigarette controversy.”
Come 2017, another research paper warned: “Increasing availability, use and acceptance of vaping devices, especially amongst teens and young adults, which may lead to greater use of recreational drugs by this route, thereby increasing overall drug exposure. The ability to vape deodorised drugs, especially cannabis, more discreetly with no smell - known as 'stealth vaping' – makes drug use harder to detect and therefore prevent.”
No proof of these claims were ever offered up throughout this period.
Now Nicotine & Tobacco Research journal has published a study by a team from Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, and The Ohio State University. The researchers looked for associations between e-cigarettes and subsequent cocaine use in adolescence.
“Nicotine exposure via early combustible cigarette smoking can prime the adolescent brain for subsequent cocaine use,” they say. “However, there is limited evidence whether e-cigarette use, a nicotine delivery system that is increasingly popular among youth, is associated with later cocaine use.”
The team looked at the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study but completely ignored a key aspect.
They found: “7.6% of adolescent e-cigarette users by age 14 used cocaine by age 17 versus 3.1% of non-e-cigarette users…e-cigarette use by age 14 was associated with 2.7 times higher odds of cocaine use by age 17” – posing a similar risk to cigarette smoking.
Naturally, most observers would say teens who initiate nicotine use could be classified as risk takers. This group would be more likely than non-smokers to take risks with prohibited substances. Therefore, vaping isn’t causing cocaine use, the abuse of the substance is just another development for a subset of these risk takers.
But then that wouldn’t make a great story or gain easy access to further research funds.
References:
- Associations Between E-Cigarettes and Subsequent Cocaine Use in Adolescence: An Analysis of the UK Millennium Cohort Study - https://academic.oup.com/ntr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ntr/ntac219/6705402
Photo Credit:
Photo by Colin Davis on Unsplash
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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