In a recent tweet that went viral, University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine student Eryney Marrogi ’27 found that a “zoomer patient” of his, who was struggling with “fairly serious alcohol dependency / withdrawal and risk of seizures,” had been going through an entire disposable vape cartridge every two days, Futurism Neoscope reported.
That’s “roughly equivalent of 500-750mg of nicotine every single day,” noted Marrogi, who’s done research at Harvard and Caltech. “That’s like nicotine equivalent of 30ish packs of cigs EVERY DAY.”
“Vaping seems way more evil than cigarettes,” he concluded.
The medical student warned that at those astronomical rates, quitting could become a massive hurdle.
“You’d probably have to taper over like ... a year?” Marrogi suggested.
While they were once advertised as a way to quit smoking, vapes have quickly turned into the habit’s harmful successor, luring young people in with high-tech gadgets, more flavors, and even smartphone-like features, like text and social media notifications, as well as the ability to take calls.
To Marrogi, it’s a disaster waiting to happen.
“My guess is as the trends shift to favor disposables basically exclusively, we’ll see an epidemic of something we can’t yet anticipate,” he tweeted.