E-cigarettes: A wolf in sheep’s clothing

You would have come across a lot of media articles these days stating that e-cigarettes are less harmful than normal cigarettes. A lot of stats are offered to the general public stating that it is 95% less harmful, it reduces the chances of getting lung and oral cancer by 80%, however reports are now emerging that debunk these claims.

Many more teens are attracted towards smoking due to an alternative in place. Since 2011, the use of e-cigarettes has gone up to 500% in middle school and 800% up in high school. In 2017, almost 3% of students from middle school and 12% from high school were using e-cigarettes.

The idea behind getting e-cigarettes was to prevent people from using tobacco. Smoke is the leading cause of all the risk related to smoking, FDA hoped that if we give people a way by which they are unable to produce smoke but inhale the nicotine, this would help them in quitting smoking. Unfortunately, nothing went down the way it was planned. E-cigarettes are marketed directly to youth.

Using e-cigarettes affect the youth because nicotine affects the functioning of brain, also inhaling nicotine at such an early stage can affect their breathing and lung capacity. Above all, early use of e-cigarettes actually tempts youth to go and try for actual smoking experience that after some points becomes affordable and more satisfactory.

As parents it is essential that we educate ourselves about the new trends, especially in the field of addiction, so that we can help and counsel our children. Talk to them, if they have ever tried it, if their friends have tried it, what they exactly know about it and what are their misconceptions. Schools, communities and health advisors play an important role in redirecting the youth in right direction.

Remember it’s not just harmless water vapor, e-cigarettes aerosol contains atleast 10 chemicals which can cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.