Drug Vaping: From the Dangers of Misuse to New Therapeutic Devices

Users of e-cigarettes are unwitting volunteers participating in a worldwide epidemiological study. Because of the obvious benefits of e-cigarettes compared with traditional cigarette smoking, these electronic devices have been introduced all around the world to support tobacco smoking cessation. Same potential harm reduction could be considered by cannabis vaping for marijuana smokers. However, the toxicities of liquids and aerosols remain under investigation because although the use of e-cigarettes is likely to be less harmful than traditional cigarette smoking, trace levels of contaminants have been identified. Simultaneously, other electronic devices, such as e-vaporisers, e-hookahs or e-pipes, have been developed and commercialised. Consequently, misuse of electronic devices has increased, and experimentation has been documented on Internet web fora. Although legal and illegal drugs are currently consumed with these e-devices, no scientific papers are available to support the observations reported by numerous media and web fora. Moreover, building on illegal drug vaping and vaporisation with e-devices (vaping misuse), legal drug vaping (an alternative use of vaping) could present therapeutic benefits, as occurs with medical cannabis vaporisation with table vaporisers. This review seeks to synthesise the problems of e-cigarette and liquid refill toxicity in order to introduce the dangers of illegal and legal drugs consumed using vaping and vaporisation for recreational purposes, and finally, to present the potential therapeutic benefits of vaping as a new administration route for legal drugs.