What I don’t understand is how these e cigarettes are accessible to youngsters compared to disallowing cigarettes.
I live in the UK, and I see young teens and people my age in 20s smoking these metal pipe cigarettes, isn’t it just tobacco in liquid form? Shouldn’t this be tightly controlled like regular cigarettes?
How the hell is this drug popular and marketable??
I think that technically the vape solution is nicotine, but not tobacco. They’re “better” in that they don’t have all the side products you get from burning leaves, but it’s still nicotine and there’s now the new mix of vape chemicals that weren’t present in cigarettes. Healthier? Doubtful, but it’s less studied.
As far as teens getting their hands on them, I think this just shows how hilariously ineffective age restrictions are in preventing access to children. If vapes weren’t available, those kids would be smoking cigarettes. If cigarettes weren’t available, they would vape. If both are available (which they are, because there’s no shortage of adults who will sell these things to minors), they’ll use whatever they prefer.
Vaping is winning the popularity war with cigarettes among teenagers. I think that’s all you’re seeing.
In Canada, it’s very illegal to sell cigarettes and vaping products to minors, but it’s not illegal for them to possess or use them. That kind of brain dead gap in legislation makes it easy for politicians to say they did everything they can, and lets police say there’s nothing they can do.
Any doctor will tell you that breathing anything other than air is harmful. Vaping is far and away less harmful than cigarettes, and when used for their intended purpose (smoking cessation), they are absolutely the “healthier” option.
*Citation needed
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-less-harmful-than-tobacco-estimates-landmark-review
I would however argue that the barrier of entry is smaller with vapes in a way that it is less of a turn off. Many people don‘t smoke because they think it smells disgusting or they start coughing the first time they smoke. Vapes however smell like fucking strawberry or melon and aren‘t as hard on your throat the first time.
Another issue is how much easier it is to up your nicotine content. When my little brother started vaping, he went up to the equivalent of a pack of smoke’s worth of nicotine per day within a couple of months.
Whereas I, who got addicted to nicotine the old fashioned way, took a couple years before I was smoking a pack a day, because otherwise I would have been coughing my lungs out.
Yeah, it’s definitely more enticing.
“You’re telling me if I inhale this, it tastes like donuts!?”
😂
Trends like this is like trickle down economics. If the adults find fun in using it the teens will use it, and then the children will catch on. I would argue it being illegal also encourages minors to get it; so even If they enforced it better, there would be people willing to take risks.