It’s time for people to rethink vaping as a safe alternative to smoking tobacco or cannabis.

For years, vaping has been widely considered a safe substitute to smoking cigarettes, but those days are gone.

India has taken a strong stance and banned all e-cigarette products due to the potential health hazard, particularly to young people.

People who violate that law by producing, advertising or selling the devices could find themselves in prison or paying a fine of $1,400 USD.

American president Donald Trump recently banned nearly all flavoured e-juices.

Recently people have been falling sick, some of them fatally, with a mysterious illness associated with the habit. It is a brand-new addiction that has been introduced primarily to young people.

Vaping is no longer a cessation tool for people to quit cigarettes. Many of the people stricken with the syndrome were never smokers of any kind.

The first Canadian case of this vaping-related illness occurred on Sept. 18 in Ontario, where a teenager had to be put on life support.

There are 530 people in the U.S. who have contracted a strange lung disease which appears to be associated with the ingredients in juices used in vaporizers.

So far eight people have died due to vaping, the most recently on Sept. 19 in Missouri. The first death in the U.S. was on Aug. 23, and there have been fatal cases in seven states.

The Canadian government has an ethical responsibility to deal with this issue. It’s time for sellers to be prohibited from marketing vape products that appeal to children and for this habit to be treated the same way cigarette smoking is.

The percentage of Canadian teens, aged 16 to 19, that vape increased from 8.4 per cent to 14.6 in just one year (2017 to 2018). A poll of Lethbridge College students found that out of 30 asked, 23 per cent used e-cigarette devices and 10 per cent had used them in the past.

E-cigarette juices contain solvents such as propylene glycol and vegetable glycerine, which helps to dissolve cannabis or nicotine compounds.

The problem comes when trace amounts of this fatty substance gets into a user’s lungs, which can lead to a non-contagious case of pneumonia. It accumulates on the alveolar sacs in the lungs, interfering with their ability to respirate and allow a person to breathe.

One of the most unsettling things is how quickly the cases have appeared and how quickly they have killed their victims. There is no medical consensus on the phenomenon, but doctors seem very concerned.

One cancer-care expert in New York responded to the crisis by advising her patients that smoking cannabis is safer than using a vape device.

Most, but not all, of the cases appear to be linked to cannabis vape cartridges, which are often counterfeit.

Mint and menthol flavoured juices have been found to be especially hazardous. A cancer-causing compound already banned in the U.S. has been found in a number of those products.

There appear to be serious problems regulating the ingredients found in a product that people seemingly don’t give a second thought to inhaling.

Companies like Juul, Smok and Vype sell juices in flavours such as strawberry watermelon, campfire s’mores and “Bubble Trouble,” which are obviously attractive to kids.

It’s not easy to prevent teenagers from using vape devices if they want to. The scent from vaping does not linger very long, unlike the smell of cigarette or cannabis smoke.

The combination of the rapid onset of these potentially fatal illnesses and the dramatic increase in teen vaping numbers is scary.

What’s happening now could be just the tip of the iceberg-shaped medical disaster to come.

People experiencing the mysterious syndrome are not long-time users, although at least some are heavy users. What takes years or decades to become fatal in cigarette smokers is happening to people in a much shorter window of time.

There is a lot of confusion about the cause of this new vaping-related illness and it’s possible it is largely linked to illicit cartridges and not vaping in general. But even if your vape is not going to kill you tomorrow, it might be time to look at it in a new light.

We’re only beginning to understand the health effects of using e-cigarettes habitually and have no idea what the long-term consequences are.

Canada should move to ban flavoured e-juices because marketing an addictive and potentially dangerous product to young people is wrong.