In this interview conducted at Pittcon 2024 in San Diego, we spoke to Professor Michelle Peace about the challenges and implications of detecting ethanol in e-cigarettes for drug testing and forensic toxicology.
Sponsored Content by Pittcon Reviewed by Danielle Ellis, B.Sc.Jul 23 2024 Thought LeadersMichelle PeaceProfessor of Forensic ScienceVirginia Commonwealth University
At the time, e-cigarettes were beginning to push into the US marketplace, but they were not widely popular. I thought about what she said and their prevalence in Europe. I thought about the fact that people might not be manipulating them yet, but we were likely going to get to a place where they could. If they figured out how to open the device, they would put other drugs in them.Boston, MA
It is also important to consider what other chemicals they are exposed to, whether that is a solvent like ethanol or ethyl acetate or flavoring chemicals and humectants that people generally think are safe in our food products. The Food and Drug Administration recognizes them as safe in our food products, but they are not safe to inhale.
Platforms like this, where we get to talk about the research, have been critical for us in sharing these messages. Our arc from bench to the practice and policy is very short. One of the things that we are presenting at Pittcon is a case that came into the lab a few months ago. I was speaking to policymakers within a week because of something we found in the vapes in the unregulated marketplace and the impact to the consumer.
That is when we found that some of the products in our lab at the time contained as much as 20% ethanol. We were stunned by that. It was not surprising that there would be trace ethanol because most of the flavoring chemicals are in a solvent. But 20%? However, other agencies that administer the breath test often do not honor that 15—to 20-minute wait period or a deprivation period. We were concerned that if somebody has been vaping and you are not going to observe that 15—to 20-minute wait period, you are going to have a positive on the breath test. That turned out to be true. We have tried to educate people on this to make sure they employ a depravation period.
Communities and consumers need to be thoughtful about this, and regulatory agencies should require that all products have ingredients listed on them, including ethanol. In all of our studies, in the thousands of products we have tested, we have only found one or two that had ethanol labeled. I do not think we are capturing data on health surveys thoroughly enough. Somebody shows up to a health check with a rattly cough, and often they are just told they have a cold or the flu, when in some instances, the person vapes, and vaping could be the cause.
The FDA has to move faster because there may be a reason why companies are not pushing their products through the regulatory process. Perhaps it is burdensome, takes a long time, or is expensive. We have to get more regulated products into the marketplace—products with labeling and transparency of ingredients - and a limited list of approved chemical ingredients —and carry out better compliance evaluations.
What are the next steps for you and your research in this area? We have a second human subjects study ongoing right now. We are concerned about drug courts. Some school systems are conducting drug tests to ensure kids are eligible to play sports. Substance-use treatment and prevention clinics are collecting biologicals. So, in this study, the goal is to see whether we can tell how vaping ethanol acutely affects the biomarkers of ethanol.
We are concerned about the advice given in drug user forums. We continue to be concerned about children getting access to vapes containing solvents. We are also concerned about the unregulated products in the marketplace. So, we will continue down the path we are on. When we first found ethanol, we went to a meeting to talk about our research, and a lot of Big Tobacco representatives were there in this forum. Somebody asked the question, “Is there ethanol in any of these products?” Across the board, the representatives from Big Tobacco said there was not. Meanwhile, I was about to get on stage and present, “Look at all the ethanol we found in products.” I am okay with the confrontation.
Vaping Blood Cannabis Chemicals Children Chromatography Cough Drugs Flu Food Laboratory Lungs Mass Spectrometry Nicotine Pittcon Public Health Research Spectrometry Students Tobacco Toxicology Whiskey
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