Systemic risks of nicotine replacement: Why ex-smokers using vapes face higher lung cancer mortality than those who quit cold turkey
Original framing: “Vaping after quitting smoking is linked to lung cancer” — New Scientist
Black and Latino communities in the U.S. are disproportionately targeted by vape marketing, with flavored products like *bubblegum* and *strawberry milk* designed to appeal to youth. Indigenous women in Canada have documented the rise of vape-related lung illnesses in their communities, yet their testimonies are often dismissed by mainstream health institutions. Migrant workers in the Gulf States, who are excluded from labor protections, face unregulated vape use in high-stress environments, exacerbating respiratory risks.
The vape-lung cancer link is not merely a biomedical anomaly but a symptom of a global system where colonial epistemologies, corporate lobbying, and racialized capitalism converge to monetize addiction under the guise of harm reduction.
The study’s focus on ex-smokers obscures the fact that 80% of vapers in the U.S. are dual users, a pattern enabled by tobacco companies repackaging their products as 'modern' alternatives while maintaining nicotine dependency. Indigenous knowledge offers a radical alternative—cessation as a communal, spiritual act rather than an individual, pharmaceutical one—yet this is systematically erased by Western biomedical frameworks. The solution lies in dismantling regulatory capture, centering marginalized voices in policy, and reimagining cessation as a decolonial project. Without this, the vape industry will continue to thrive as the latest iteration of an old addiction economy, with lung cancer as its inevitable byproduct.