Effects of Vaping and E-Cigs
With the birth of a new generation comes another challenge they must face when it comes to substance abuse such as alcohol, illegal drugs, and the most common Tobacco products. Growing up the amount of anti-smoking ads and lessons on these substances have doubled but a new trend is appearing among millennials. Vaping and Electronic Cigarettes sales and usage has soared since its introduction in the early 2000’s and is attacking the new generation like a storm. To look and see what effects these products are slowly doing we must look into the history of E-Cigs and Vapes and then dive into how easily available they are to get and lastly see what impact they are having on this generation to come.
A common misconception is that vaping technology is relatively new, but in actuality it has been around since ancient Egypt when the Egyptians would heat stones and then vape various herbs such has incense and shisha (hookah). The modern-day vaping technology was invented by Joseph Robinson in 1927, although the current “smokeless” version was invented in the 1967. A manufacturing company in China named Hon Lik made the first modern e-cig in the early 2000’s. Before the 2006 the FDA had not approved any electronic vaporizers for sale until they approved the new technology and introduced the first one to America in 2007. At first it was not popular due to the unknown and the cost of the cartridges. Towards 2010 a rise in the amount of advertising increased, and the new trend was trying to switch cigarette users to vaping because of the benefit. Though studies have only been going on since 2011, the CDC and FDA have seen a major jump from 2013 to 2014 with almost a triple of the number of users smoking or vaping. The FDA found out “In 2015, 1 and 6 high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the past month” this jump came out of nowhere and was the contribution to gas stations selling these small portable e-cigarettes.
According to senior research scientist in the Institute for Health Research and Policy Sherry Emmery “For kids, they’re novel, interesting and a little rebellious”. Another occurrence among the up and coming adults is the craft aspect, the sort of creativity and cool features that comes along with vaping. The customization for a vape or e-cigs are limitless and can include everything from how much vapor you are putting out per second to the color of the smoking device you are using. The flavors that come in vapors and e-cigs can be also a sort of novelty a student at Longwood University who wanted to remain anonymous stated “I vape because it tastes good and gives me something to do, you can never really get bored vaping and it’s like eating but without the harmful calories.” He goes on to talk about how it is not about the so called rebellious nature or addictive nature. He is smoking vapor juice that has zero nicotine, nicotine is the addictive substance in e-juice and cigarettes that has been proven to be most harmful among teenagers. Teens think that smoking non-nicotine juices are healthier and have no repercussions but in fact it has been tested that some non-nicotine vape juices have lied about the nicotine percentage and traces of formaldehyde are sometimes found in vapes. Two ingredients that are found in vape juice that have been known to cause respiratory problems are diacetyl and acetyl propionyl. These are both artificial flavorings that have been proven to create lung problems called popcorn lungs. This name comes from the workers in the Missouri microwave popcorn factory in the 1990’s inhaling the added flavor to the popcorn and began causing lung problems.
The problem with the amount of options that person can acquire through vaping is the appeal and to fuel the fire is the amount of availability in this country. You have to be 18 in the United States to purchase any tobacco or nicotine related consumptions in stores, but online it is not monitored as well. There are websites that will ask for you date of birth but that can be easily made up if you can do simple math. More and more online websites are however using identification checkers, these devices take your license number and run it through a database to see if you are over the age. But, as well as vapor products you can buy fake I.D’s online as well that even scan in gas stations. As well as availability of these smoking devices comes the discreetness. A popular device that if you were to walk through any campus there is a 95 percent rate of seeing one is called a Juul. This small smoking device looks like a USB device and can even plug into computers but in fact it is one of the fastest selling smoking devices in the U.S. One reason it is so popular is the discreetness but also the high percentage of nicotine. One Juul Pod can have 5 percent nicotine and the total Juul pod can equal the equivalent of one pack of cigarettes in nicotine.