Opinion

The Truth About Vaping

June 11, 2016

As the tobacco industry collapses in the U.S., a new industry is rises; E-cigs. With the public’s awareness of the long term, disastrous effects of smoking cigarettes, in the United States it has become a great taboo to smoke. It is bad for those who are directly smoking it, those who are breathing in the smoke, and it is a disastrous pollutant to the environment; in the end, no one wins (with an exception for tobacco companies). However, there is now a new industry of vaping, which is taking over the place of smoking. The question is, are vaping “e-cigs” really better for one’s health than to smoke regular cigarettes? Here we question if e-cigs are truly a solution to quit smoking, or if they are just like Tobacco industry.

Buying cigarettes requires an ID, and in the United States one must be at least 18 years old to buy cigarettes. You cannot buy cigarettes online, yet however, if you go on Google and just type in “Vaping” you will get results of online “e-cigs” and “e-juice” shops, which have no way of scanning an ID through the computer, and do not properly check if the online customer is actually over age. So if nicotine is now as easy access as if shopping on Amazon.com, then what does this mean to future generations? Like some cigarettes, e-juice is flavored, attracting young generations to start smoking/vaping early. Children and teenagers are likely to be longer-term customers, starting from a young age and continuing to smoke or vape in their adulthood. E-cigs can help people quit cigarettes, yet how are we to know that e-cigs are not just as equally destructive? We can prove that cigarettes cause cancer, but e-cigs are such a new product, that we do not have any evidence of its long term effects. E-cigs are in fact such a new industry, that it was only introduced to the United States since 2007; not enough solid research can be accomplished in 9 years.