The anatomy of a vape: Shock as mould, hair, saliva found inside e-cigarettes

Mould, hair, a dodgy lithium battery, and saliva from testers sucking on them before they are packaged up and sent out to unsuspecting buyers – this is the reality of the anatomy of a vape.

Mould, hair, a dodgy lithium battery and saliva from testers sucking on them before they are packaged up and sent out to unsuspecting buyers – this is the reality of the anatomy of a vape.

Drug and vape researcher and educator Paul Dillon has lifted the lid of the anatomy and dangerous world of single-use vapes, speaking in thousands of classrooms across Australia and the world.

He could try to convince stubborn kids of the simple message that vaping – like smoking – kills, but the veteran drug and alcohol researcher said his tactics of showing vapers what is inside the electronic device they are sucking on has students promising him they have “given up vaping for good”.

Pictured with parts of a dismantled vape is Paul Dillon founder of DARTA , a program which visits schools to make students aware of the realities associated with the shoddy and dangerous nature in the manufacturing process of vapes. Picture: Richard Dobson

“The youngest users I’ve come across myself would be two Year 10 girls who were 15,” he said. “They had been nicotine dependent since they were about 12.

“I’ve been working in this field for 30 years, and I have not talked about nicotine for 25 of those years, it has not been an issue. But to see it come back the way it has in a relatively short period of time – I think is quite disturbing.”

Mr Dillon said the education of more than 150,000 children on the dangers of vaping “has been one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever had”.

“I tried to find something that I thought was much more credible to young people,” he told The Saturday Telegraph.

An assortment of cheaply-made parts from vapes. Paul Dillon founder of DARTA , visits schools to make students aware of the realities associated with the shoddy and dangerous nature in the manufacturing process of vapes. Picture: Richard Dobson

“The way I’ve gone which seems to be reasonably effective, is to talk about vaping and the dangers of vaping.

“I talk far more about the devices they’re using … and the quality of them is appalling.”

The former teacher said his research found “counterfeit” factories in China were producing 18 million illegal, single-use vapes a week.

“On the inside, they’re cheaply made, problematic and quite risky in many ways,” he said.

“We have been sent or given vapes by kids who have given up and when we open them we have found mould in the tank and in the poor quality styrofoam.

“Quite a few that had hair in them, you have to question how that got there.

“We have found small rocks and dirt, but most importantly we know that these factories rely on workers to suck on the vapes to test them.

Workers in vape factories suck on single-use vapes to test they work. Pictures: TikTok

Workers in vape factories suck on single-use vapes to test they work. Pictures: TikTok

“There is the breath and saliva of a tester in these poorly made vapes, and the testers usually have a spit bowl next to them that they rely on to spit out the nicotine.”

But the vape expert said one of his major concerns was the poor quality lithium battery found in single-use vapes, which he “wouldn’t trust in a lighter, let alone something people are sucking on and then hiding on their body”.

“The lithium ion batteries … are not particularly always stable,” he said. “But there are also these pieces of styrofoam, which are soaked in liquid nicotine.

“Liquid nicotine is actually a biohazard and one of the great problems the Australian Border Force faces when they uncover these products is that they are almost impossible to destroy.

“Border forces have to manually break each arm vape into three parts. They’ve got to get the plastic, they’ve got to get the battery and they’ve also got to get the styrofoam the liquid nicotine separate.”

On July 1, the manufacture, supply, advertisement and commercial possession of non-therapeutic and disposable single-e vapes was banned across Australia.