I really don’t understand vaping. How has it just become so integrated into today’s society? It is something that is incredibly difficult to avoid in 2023. You walk down the street and the toxic fumes are everywhere, I have been to clubs with people vaping, and I have had customers at work vape in the restaurant. Who deemed this to be appropriate?
Since there has been tougher restrictions on smoking the promotion of vaping has been seen as a better alternative. It is almost the suggestion that vaping is far better than smoking. This, for specific individual cases, could be true, but has vaping even been around long enough for the necessary long-term testing to be done?
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My grandmother was born in the generation that told her smoking was good. Naturally, this is not true, and she died of lung cancer as a consequence. Surely we are now in the generation that will be those who vape and will face medical consequences in the future.
Someone facing the consequences now is Ewan Fisher. Fisher took up vaping at 16 and has subsequently required an artificial lung. He described vaping as ruining his whole life.
Vaping came to the UK in 2005 and the market has boomed. In May of this year, there was information published on some vapes that had been tested, and it was discovered that some contained lead. Highlighter vapes also included nickel, which was 9.6 times over the safe limit and chromium, was 6.6 times over the safe limit.
In June this year the NHS revealed that children as young as nine years old have been hospitalised due to illegally sold vapes. It is utterly heart- wrenching that children are facing the consequences of a market that is clearly not being regulated in order to protect some of the most vulnerable in society. Why are the Government and the Department for Health not stepping in order to stop what could be seen as an epidemic?
I grew up in an idyllic town in Cheshire, which on the small high street has had two vape shops. Why? If vaping was introduced in order for people to stop smoking, why does the current market allow people to just pick up smoking? There are clear success stories of people who have smoked their whole life and do switch to vaping, but children should not be just picking up vaping.
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The New Zealand Government have been acting efficiently in order to make positive changes. They are banning most disposable vapes, there are no new vape shops to be built near schools and the names of the vapes will become more generic and less descriptive. The changes will help to reduce the number of children that are sucked into something that could be regarded as deadly.
I ask myself, what was the point of writing this? Really, it was so that people stop vaping near me. I would love to ban vaping, but when something like vaping is banned, it would allow it to become unregulated and unmonitored which potentially could have more serious consequences than the ones at present. So I guess, just stop vaping near me. I don’t find vaping cool and I also don’t want your toxic and not fully tested chemicals in me, please learn to respect that.
“Vaping” by lindsay-fox is licensed under CC BY 2.0.