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Nicotine can be toxic at high levels. This is sometimes known as ‘acute nicotine toxicity’, or colloquially as ‘nic-sick’. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, headaches and coughing.

Basically, nic-sick is a form of poisoning and a very real symptom that can come from vaping.
Nicotine also increases heart rate and blood pressure.

Nicotine is crazy addictive. It’s more addictive than almost anything & everything. Eek.

The short answer is, yeah. Young vapers who aren’t smokers are about three times as likely to take up smoking than people who don’t vape (see the evidence here). In other words, it can be a highway to harming your health.

You could just try ‘no thanks, I don’t vape’. But we know that doesn’t always work. Peer pressure is real. The best thing you can do is arm yourself with the facts. And the fact that you’re here is already a great start.

It’s also good to remember that most people actually don’t vape. So even if the situation you’re in may look like you’re the ‘odd-one-out’, only 29% of Aussies aged 14-25 regularly vape, based on a national study we undertook in 2022. Stay in the majority.

If liquids in vapes contain the drug nicotine, then it’s possible a person using them will have become dependent on nicotine. However, not everyone who vapes will become dependent.

Some people will already know that they are dependent; they might feel as if they have no control over their vaping and feel addicted. They experience cravings to vape and without a vape they feel unwanted physical and psychological symptoms. However, it’s also possible to feel completely fine until you try to stop, but then notice symptoms.

The short answer is – pretty much all of it.
See all of the facts on this page for the full picture. But here’s some food for thought:

Malfunctioning batteries can overheat and explode, causing burns to your face (or other sensitive areas). They can also cause environmental damage, including fires – when chucked in landfill. That’s why they’re not allowed there.

The vape or ‘e-liquid’ is often made up of a cocktail of chemicals, including nicotine which can (and does) cause poisoning of children when they accidentally come into contact with the liquid.

If your vape contains nicotine (which many of them do, whether labelled or not) you can open yourself up to short term effects like becoming nic-sick… and longer-term sinister stuff like addiction.

Oh and the aerosol (known as the vapour or cloud) that is breathed out also contains toxic chemicals.

So, yes – all of it can be bad for you.

Keep in mind, this is just some of the stuff we know today. Talk to us in a few years… or months.

We’re so glad you asked.
Short answer: Nope, UNCLOUD is not a government or health authority. Our goal is to bring together the collective of young people fighting back against vaping and all the information we give is backed by research, evidence and expert support. We’re here to ensure the truth of vaping among youth IS seen by all Aussies, so look out for more from us.

Hey there, this is a great question and we feel you. So, whilst we’re not going to pretend to be the experts on stopping vaping, the guys over at Quitline could give you some awesome strategies for this. You can also check out the Get Help page here for some ideas and understanding as background. You should also send your roomie our way at the Give Help page so they can see what they can do to give you a hand and/or get them to check out our informational TikTok vids, which might inspire them to ditch the vapes for good as well! Cisco lays out some great facts here.

Here’s the thing, vapes are so new to the scene that there is no proper way to safely and easily dispose of them. So for the moment, it’s up to the vaper to deal with the toxic leftovers, which makes this an even bigger concern.

The simple answer is: Doing your best to stop vaping is probably the best thing you can do. Not only would that help the environmental waste issue, but also your own health – coz if it’s too toxic for landfill, imagine what it’s doing to you. Check out the 2023 Queensland enquiry that that looked into environmental issues like how difficult it is to dispose of vapes safely.

Yes, many of our facts are based on disposable vapes as these are most often being sold to children and young people illegally. The ingredients in vape liquids can vary significantly. Here is a great review of the global evidence about the harms of vaping, it covers all types of devices.