The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has linked vaping to 1,479 cases of a mysterious lung disease over the last six months. At least 33 people have died since the outbreak began.

The illness is marked by chest pain, shortness of breath and vomiting, and it has largely affected young people. The vast majority of cases, almost 80%, involve e-cigarette users younger than 35, and another 15% are younger than 18.

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The outbreak has triggered anxiety among parents and calls for government action. President Trump said he plans to ban e-cigarette flavors that seem specially designed to appeal to young people and get them hooked. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has urged everyone to “stop vaping” immediately, and a ban on flavored tobacco products in Los Angeles County will take effect on Oct. 31.

The vast majority of lung infections seen so far appear to be linked to vaping cartridges that include THC, the ingredient in marijuana that produces its characteristic high. Dozens of disease investigators are on the case.

The recent deaths are tragic, but research shows that the toll of vaping — with or without THC — will be far worse over the long term.

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E-cigarette manufacturers have advertised their products as a better option for adult smokers who are already hooked on nicotine. For thousands of young people who have never smoked, however, vaping plays the opposite role: It establishes a nicotine addiction that will ultimately lead to cigarette smoking.

Some young people who vape and then transition to cigarette smoking would have become smokers no matter what. But experts estimate that about 495,000 people ages 12 to 29 who had tried e-cigarettes as of 2018 would go on to become regular cigarette smokers as a direct result of their vaping habit, according to Samir Soneji, a tobacco control researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In other words, those 495,000 people would never have become smokers if they hadn’t vaped first. A new crop of these future smokers is planted every year – and the more young vapers there are, the more future smokers there will be.

The long-term consequences of smoking are well known. In the U.S., 1,300 people die every day as a direct result of smoking, or from second-hand exposure to cigarettes.

In 2013, researchers from Harvard Medical School, the National Cancer Institute and elsewhere estimated the rates of various causes of smoking-related deaths. When those rates are applied to the new smokers created by vaping, the casualties are devastating.