E-cig fad has gone from vaping to dripping

Kids enhancing flavor with new, potentially dangerous technique.

The e-cigarette fad has gone to another level.

It’s called dripping. Instead of smoking an e-cig traditionally, kids are removing the liquid tank, and placing the fluid directly on the heating coil, inhaling it that way.

The reasoning is to get an enhanced flavor – as the liquids come in a seemingly endless variety of flavors from strawberry or mango to caramel tobacco or Cuban cigar.

“Almost 90 percent of high schoolers say they would not use an e-cigarette if they did not have any flavors,”  La Crosse County health educator Alison Glodowski said. “So, because high schoolers are using this dropping technique to inhale a stronger flavor, there’s a direct correlation there between flavors, between e-cigarette use and now this dripping.”

Dripping can possibly increase exposure to harmful chemicals like formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and acrolein in the vapors, according to existing research.

Using the heating coils in this way is also not the safest or smartest.

“We’ve already heard in the news about explosions with electronic nicotine devices,” Glodowski said.

According to a Yale University survey, 26.1 percent of 1,080 Connecticut high school students have tried dripping.