This week, on the cusp of the rollout of their worst nightmare of vaping regulation, serial vaping barrel-scrapers Colin Mendelsohn and Alex Wodak reached deep into the murky depths of their vaping theology lexicon and pulled out the old hypocrisy meme.
This was also a week where Mendelsohn, with “the greatest humility” let us know that he was gonged with a coveted award from the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) as their new public health golden boy.
In his blog, he helpfully explained UKVIA’s impact on smoking:
Col also updated his website FAQs (see under ‘fires and explosions’) with a generally sensible series of tips on how to prevent your vape exploding. But he just couldn’t resist adding a photo of me and my electric vehicle.
His tag-team partner in sophistry, someone who goes on and on and on about the need for civility, politeness and respect, helped out by making the relevance of the photo explicit in a subsequent tweet.
Exploding vapes have grabbed headlines for good reason, as this show-reel of incidents illustrates. Here’s a 2018 review of 164 cases on e-cigarette explosion injuries. 35% resulted in second degree burns and 20% in third degree burns (the worst), with many necessitating skin grafts. The most common sites were thighs, hands, face and genitals.
But when it comes to catastrophic risk, it’s explosions on aircraft that are most concerning. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) advises that any device using lithium batteries should be stored in carry-on luggage. But its regulations only prohibit a small range of devices from stowed luggage and these include … you guessed it … electronic cigarettes and vapes. Now why would that be? Because as they explain:
“Electronic smoking devices, like vapes and e-cigarettes, contain lithium batteries and are considered dangerous goods due to their risk of smoke, fire and extreme heat. As such, they are restricted to on how they can be packed when preparing for travel on an aircraft. These devices were the leading cause of lithium battery incidents on aircraft in 2022.”
The potential consequence of an intense heat vape battery fire deep in the hold of a crowded airliner is dire.
But hey, what would the world’s largest airline regulator know, when Col and Alex think it’s all just “exploiting fear” to mention explosions as a concern?
Yes, I drive an electric vehicle. And undoubtedly just like both Mendelsohn’s and Wodak’s, my house is also full of appliances that use lithium batteries: laptops, tablets, mobile phones, power banks, torches, remote controls, fitness monitors, and power tools. When these products very rarely catch on fire, we typically see highly publicised global recalls like this laptop, these power tool batteries and the infamous Samsung Galaxy Note 7.
But Google couldn’t show me any examples of recalls for exploding vapes. This almost certainly reflects the cowboy nature of vast segments of the vaping manufacturing industry and the thousands of equally dodgy retailers willing to stock them.
Electric vehicles have much lower probability of catching fire than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. From 2010-2023 EV FireSafe has verified 393 EV battery fires globally. To put this in context, there are some 30 million EVs on the world’s roads. This Conversation review points to fires in ICE vehicles being some 80 times more common than in EVs. Tesla’s 2020 impact report argued that there was one Tesla fire for every 330 million kilometres their vehicles have travelled. Tesla automatically collects full kilometer and incident data for every car it has ever sold, across all owners.
After reading about the explosion risks of vapes and EVs, I’m very pleased to warm my nether regions in winter driving on the Tesla’s battery powered seat warmers rather than risk molten lithium trickling around my testicles if I vaped. Goodness, gracious great balls of fire!
Wodak’s apparent understanding of the comparative risks and consequences of vape explosions with those occurring in EVs seems about as informed as his unforgettable comparison of nicotine in tobacco with that in vegetables like eggplants and potatoes, the most opened of all blogs in this series.
Hypocrisy? Not guilty m’lud.
Other blogs in this series
Vaping theology: 1 The Cancer Council Australia takes huge donations from cigarette retailers. WordPress 30 Jul, 2020
Vaping theology: 2 Tobacco control advocates help Big Tobacco. WordPress 12 Aug, 2020
Vaping theology: 3 Australia’s prescribed vaping model “privileges” Big Tobacco WordPress Feb 15, 2020
Vaping theology: 4 Many in tobacco control do not support open access to vapes because they are just protecting their jobs. WordPress 27 Feb 2021
Vaping theology: 5 I take money from China and Bloomberg to conduct bogus studies. WordPress 6 Mar, 2021
Vaping theology: 6 There’s nicotine in potatoes and tomatoes so should we restrict or ban them too? WordPress 9 Mar, 2021
Vaping theology: 7 Vaping prohibitionists have been punished, hurt, suffered and damaged by Big Tobacco WordPress 2 Jun, 2021
Vaping theology: 8 I hide behind troll account. WordPress 29 Jun, 2021
Vaping theology: 9 “Won’t somebody please think of the children”. WordPress 6 Sep, 2021
Vaping theology: 10: Almost all young people who vape regularly are already smokers before they tried vaping. WordPress 10 Sep, 2021
Vaping theology: 11 The sky is about to fall in as nicotine vaping starts to require a prescription in Australia. WordPress 28 Sep, 2021
Vaping theology: 12 Nicotine is not very addictive WordPress 3 Jan 2022
Vaping theology 13: Kids who try vaping and then start smoking,would have started smoking regardless. WordPress 20 Jan, 2023
Vaping theology 14: Policies that strictly regulate vaping will drive huge numbers of vapers back to smoking, causing many deaths. WordPress 13 Feb, 2023
Vaping theology 15: The government’s prescription vape access scheme has failed, so let’s regulate and reward illegal sellers for what they’ve been doing. WordPress 27 Mar 2023
Vaping theology 16: “Humans are not rats, so everybody calm down about nicotine being harmful to teenage brains”. WordPress 13 Jul, 2023
Vaping theology 17: “Vaping advocates need to be civil, polite and respectful” … oh wait. WordPress 3 Oct, 2023
Vaping theology 18: Vaping is a fatally disruptive “Kodak moment” for smoking. WordPress Oct 30, 2023
Simon Chapman AO 
Thanks Simon. Brilliant as always.
The wave of tobacco shop burnings in Victoria, by organised crime and smugglers is a consequence of having inadequate regulation and NO retailer license regime.
We have had licensing in Tas for nearly two decades. We know where all the shops are, who runs them, (must be of good character) and the volume of their sales. Retailers are regularly monitored for compliance and can lose their license for non compliance. Anyone selling chop chop can be fined.
E-cigarettes and existing tobacco are treated the same under the Tas Public Health Act – in most sections in licensing, display, sales etc.
The major health NGOs tell me they are lobbying “behind the scenes” for licensing in NSW and Victoria. However I have seen no public advocacy or exposure . Personally I think cosy chats with Ministerial staff are less effective at getting change than an article in the Age, ABC, SMH.
We are still supporting the Tobacco Free Generation but the current Liberal government has been in for a decade. They are hopeless. They have reduced enforcement resources just as they need to be ramped up for dealing with e-cigs ban
Keep up the good work.
In peace
Kathryn
Sent from my iPhone
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