There is a strong case to be made for regulatory standards for vaping products. I’ve heard of a handful of explosions caused by faulty vapes—in one case, a teen was permanently blinded. There is also inconsistency between the quantity and quality of ingredients in vaping products.
To my mind, this is no different than the regulatory standards set in place for almost any other product. If you buy a product, you have the right for it to be safe and standardized. This is a different issue than the fact that studies so far do show that vaping is less harmful than smoking.
And yet there is also mission creep. Is there nothing now that states what, say, the nicotine content of a vape should be, or what else is permitted to be in a vape?
That said, if the major domestic tobacco companies were producing vapes, they probably would be more consistent and better quality than the frequently China produced products we now have, if more costly too.
I occasionally vape nicotine.
Most of the explosions are from cheap stand-alones (ie: battery & cartridge purchased as a single unit that cannot be separated). Many, if not all of the stories I have read closely mention the victim carried a lithium ion battery product loose in a pocket with keys and change, that is: metallic objects.
Another mistake is to drag heavily and repeatedly on the unit within a short time period. Anyone using a vaporizer notices this makes the battery unit heat up. When this happens, it is a good idea to unscrew the cartridge from the battery and let them cool down separately for a while, NOT shove them into a pocket or purse with loose metallic objects.
A third error is to fool around inside the vaporizer to change the voltage, the gap between the heated prongs that do the actual vaporizing or the percentage of ingredients in the cartridge.
I use a case with separate storage for a connected unit (battery and cartridge), plus a charging station for a second battery. The case indicates number of charges left and if the charger is working. The empty case can be separately recharged when necessary. I would never recharge the case while a battery is inserted into the internal charging station. It holds a charge, as does the extra battery, for weeks if I only use it when in a no smoking environment. If I use it continually, as I would cigarettes,it still holds a charge for several days, maybe up to a week with two interchangeable batteries.
Common sense and a commitment to purchasing a more sophisticated device would obviate many of these explosions. Lithium ion powered laptops explode, as well.Many of these dangers are explicitly noted on the labels. The units I have used have detailed operating instructions. Some have UL ratings. The ones I have used list percentages of available nicotine, but heavy tokes within a short time can change the delivered dosage, which, of course, if why some people misuse the devices and try to substitute altered dosing.
Media misleads when one has to read closely through several sensationalized paragraphs to discover user fault in most of the reported explosions. Vaporizers are electronic devices and should be treated with the same caution as any other electronic device. I suspect these same people misuse their phones and laptops or never read operating instructions on anything. Responsibility lies with users as well as manufacturers.
That said, everything available in the marketplace exists on a quality spectrum. There are cheap, poorly-made versions of everything. There are imports of dubious quality. Much responsibility lies with users to exercise discernment.
Nanny government will exploit stupidity to institute regulations every time it can. Education of users would go a long way to solve the problems without egregious one-size-suffocates-all regulation.