Vape Shop in Soho explains common vaping myths and misinformation
Almost every vaping story you've seen online is missing context. Some are outright wrong. Here are the eight we hear most often at our counter, fact-checked against NHS, Public Health England, and Royal College of Physicians evidence.
Vaping is one of the most reported-on consumer products of the last decade, and most of the reporting is bad. The pattern is consistent: a single study about a single device used in a non-representative way gets picked up by a paper, the headline drops the qualifications, social media drops the rest, and within 48 hours the public has a new "fact" that isn't quite. By the time the original researchers issue a clarification, the headline has already done its job.
What this page is not is a defence of vaping for non-smokers, a claim that vaping is harmless, or a suggestion that the regulations should be lighter. Vaping is not harmless. It is, however, substantially less harmful than smoking, and that's the framing the NHS and the Royal College of Physicians have settled on after a decade of evidence. Most of the misinformation we deal with at our counter comes from people genuinely worried about vaping based on something they've read; once you walk through the actual evidence, the worry usually shifts to a more accurate place.
"The honest answer is almost always more nuanced than the headline. Vaping is not safe; it is safer than smoking. Both halves of that sentence matter."
The eight we hear most often.
Each card: the myth as it's usually stated, the actual evidence, and where the evidence comes from.
Vaping is just as bad as smoking.
Vaping is approximately 95% less harmful than smoking, according to the original Public Health England review and subsequent updates. The reason is mechanical: cigarette smoke is the product of combustion, which produces over 7,000 chemicals including dozens of known carcinogens. Vape aerosol is produced by heating, not burning, and contains far fewer compounds at far lower concentrations.
Vaping causes popcorn lung.
There has never been a documented case of popcorn lung linked to vaping. The myth comes from diacetyl, a flavouring chemical that caused bronchiolitis obliterans in factory workers exposed to high airborne concentrations daily. Diacetyl was banned from UK e-liquids under TRPR 2016, and the levels found in vapour even before the ban were a fraction of those found in cigarette smoke, which has never been associated with the condition either.
Nicotine causes cancer.
Nicotine is addictive, but nicotine itself is not the carcinogen in cigarettes. The cancer-causing compounds in tobacco smoking are the products of burning the tobacco leaf and the additives, not nicotine. This is why nicotine replacement therapies, gums, patches, and lozenges, are recommended by the NHS without cancer warnings. Nicotine has its own cardiovascular and pregnancy-related risks, but cancer is not one of them.
Vaping is a gateway to smoking for young people.
UK youth smoking rates have continued to fall steadily during the same period that youth vaping has risen, which is the opposite of what a gateway effect would produce. The Royal College of Physicians explicitly addressed the gateway hypothesis in 2016 and concluded the evidence does not support it. None of this means underage vaping is fine, it isn't, but the specific claim that it leads young people to take up smoking does not hold up.
Vapes contain antifreeze.
No. The myth comes from confusing two chemicals with similar names. Propylene glycol (PG), one of the two main e-liquid carriers, is found in some non-toxic aviation de-icer formulations and in countless food products, asthma inhalers, and theatre fog machines. Diethylene glycol, which is the toxic alcohol in some automotive antifreeze, is a different compound entirely and is banned from UK e-liquids. Calling vape juice "antifreeze" is like calling water "battery acid" because cars need both.
Second-hand vape is as dangerous as second-hand smoke.
No, and this isn't even close. Public Health England's review found no identified health risks of passive vaping to bystanders at typical usage levels. Second-hand smoke contains the full output of burning tobacco; second-hand vape is mostly evaporated propylene glycol and vegetable glycerine that dissipates within seconds. This doesn't mean vaping in someone's face is fine etiquette (see our guide to vaping etiquette in public places), but the health-equivalence claim is not supported by evidence.
EVALI was caused by regular vapes.
EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury) was a serious 2019 outbreak in the United States, but it was overwhelmingly traced to vitamin E acetate in black-market THC cartridges, not regulated nicotine vapes. The CDC investigation identified vitamin E acetate as the primary cause and noted that the outbreak was tightly linked to illegal THC products bought outside licensed dispensaries. Vitamin E acetate is banned from UK e-liquids, and EVALI cases in the UK have been near-zero throughout.
All vapes are basically the same.
No. The most consequential split is between UK-regulated stock and black-market product. UK-regulated vapes are notified to MHRA, capped at 20mg/ml nicotine, sold in 10ml bottles, and use ingredients screened for safety. Black-market disposables, often labelled with 5,000+ puff counts, frequently contain higher-than-legal nicotine, undeclared cannabinoids, and heavy metals from cheap coils. The difference is not cosmetic; it's the difference between a product subject to oversight and one that isn't. We cover how to tell them apart in our piece on why buying from a regulated Soho vape shop matters.
Why this misinformation persists
Three forces keep the myths alive. News incentives: a "vaping is fine" story is dull and gets clicked once; a "vaping might cause X" story gets clicked repeatedly. Conflation with illegal product: most of the genuinely concerning vape stories of the last five years have involved unregulated product, but the headlines rarely make that distinction. Public health communication caution: regulators and health bodies are appropriately cautious in their language ("more research needed", "not without risk"), and that caution gets stripped out by the time a claim reaches social media.
If you're reading something about vaping that sounds alarming, our standing advice at the counter is to look for three things. Is the study about regulated UK product or illegal stock? Most of the bad news is about the latter. Is the comparison to smoking, or to clean air? Most "vaping causes X" claims compare against clean air and ignore that the alternative for most users is cigarettes. Has the study been replicated, or is it a single paper? Single studies are how science works, but they're not how facts are established.
Where to read good information
The most reliable UK sources on vaping are the NHS Better Health stop-smoking guidance, the Royal College of Physicians 2016 report and its updates, the Cochrane Review on electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation (regularly updated), ASH UK for policy and youth-vaping data, and Cancer Research UK for layperson summaries that don't oversimplify. All five are publicly accessible and don't require academic database access. The MHRA's product notification register is also public, at products.mhra.gov.uk, if you want to verify a specific product is legal to sell here.
The short version
- Vaping is not safe; it is safer than smoking. Both halves of that sentence matter.
- Most "vaping causes X" claims either compare to clean air or are based on illegal product. Read the small print.
- UK-regulated vapes are notified, screened, and capped. The regulatory regime is the reason most of the worst international stories haven't happened here.
- If you smoke, switching to vaping is recommended by the NHS. If you don't smoke, vaping is not recommended.
- The real risk to public health is unregulated product, not regulated product. Buy from somewhere that displays its compliance.
Got a question we didn't cover?
Our team will give you a straight answer at the counter, with sources where appropriate. We'd rather walk you through the actual evidence than sell you something based on a myth.
Keep reading
Soho vape guidance
Etiquette, indoor venue rules, what to expect from a regulated retailer, and what makes our corner of London a good place to learn about vaping properly.
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