LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - A new Georgia State University study says an alarming number of young people are modifying their vape devices in potentially dangerous, life-threatening ways.

“I’m telling you, these kids think they’re engineers,” said Sapphira Shaikh, a salesperson at Puff Puff Pass.

Puff Puff Pass sells a wide variety of smoking paraphernalia, from THC to vape products. It’s the latter that is causing smoke shops headaches.

“They’re mixing, matching, doing things that are unsafe,” Shaikh said.

The GSU study found that roughly 84% of youths and young adults who vape engage in “vape hacking,” meaning they modify their vape devices in ways the manufacturers don’t intend.

Specifically, the study found people messing with the manufacturer’s battery, replacing heating coils, and tweaking the e-liquids to non-regulated, after-market products.

These modifications create a host of potential hazards, including possibly causing the devices to explode and exposing users to heavy metals.

To prevent explosions, the FDA recommends smokers never charge a vape with a cellphone charger and that they keep batteries away from other metal objects.

Shaikh says she can’t control what people do with the products when they leave the store, but she can tell them what they shouldn’t do.

“We do not touch it out of the box,” Shaikh said. “We don’t open it, we don’t modify it in any way. Outside, when you’re buying it from a friend, a stranger, you don’t know how they might have modified it. They might not tell you everything.”

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