The Salt Lake County Health Department released a study on Thursday showing that a majority of liquids sold locally for use in e-cigarettes have significantly different levels of nicotine than their labels claim.
The county health department sent E-liquid samples to the Center for Human Toxicology at the University of Utah. 120 samples were labeled as containing nicotine. 73 of these had nicotine levels that were different from the amount specified on the label by more than 10 percent. Kathy Garrett is the county’s Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Manager. She says this concerns consumers and parents alike.
“I think consumers really want to know how much nicotine is in the product they are ingesting. You know if a child gets their hands on it, I think an emergency room doctor or physician needs to know how much E-liquid or actual nicotine that they’re ingesting," said Garrett.
According to Garrett, E-liquids can cause nausea, vomiting, an increased heart rate and can be fatal to a small child. Garret says she worries about this because the liquids can be especially enticing.
“You’ve got wild cherry, there’s Captain Crunch out there, I mean the list it goes on and on and I wish you had smell-a-vision here because I have a whole box of them and it smells just like a candy shop,” said Garrett.
The county is currently working on a regulation that would require shops to have a standardized label on E-liquids showing they are from county approved sources.