Government must crack down on vaping products

Let there be no mistake. The growing popularity of vaping among young people represents a backdoor way to increase youth nicotine addiction.

And though much more research is needed, in the last six months, a number of new studies have linked vaping to troubling potential negative health effects on the heart, lungs, brain, liver and immune system. Links to some cancers have also been suggested.

Given the alarming rise in vaping by young people in recent years, there’s an urgent need to clamp down on both the types and availability of these products.

Put bluntly, the progress in improving health outcomes we’ve seen as smoking rates dropped among young people is in serious danger of being lost. Vaping, marketed as a cool activity, with flavoured products clearly designed specifically to entice youth, is expanding in leaps and bounds among young people.

Studies in the U.S. have suggested many teenagers and young adults are unaware of the high nicotine levels in some vaping products, such as the Juul.

Nicotine’s negative health effects are well established. It’s a highly addictive substance that can dramatically affect the developing brains of young adults, impairing emotional control, decision-making and impulse regulation skills. Meanwhile, recent studies have shown unsafe levels of toxic metals like lead, cadmium and arsenic can leak from heating coils used to create an aerosol in vaping devices.

One study found such metals in study participants’ urine.

The U.S. Surgeon General was so alarmed by the dangers of vaping among American youth that he issued a warning about e-cigarettes in December. The month before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited a 78 per cent increase in ecigarette use among U.S. high school students over the past year.

In late February, the Lung Association of Nova Scotia said nearly one-half (49 per cent) of Grade 10 to 12 students reported vaping in the last 30 days.

Yes, there’s some evidence vaping can help adult smokers trying to quit. That’s great, but if at the same time vaping is introducing a whole new generation to the lifelong shackles of nicotine addiction, much more is being lost than gained.

At the very least, all flavoured vaping products should be banned outright. Other than appealing to young people, it’s hard to see any justification for vaping products tasting like peach or watermelon, for example.

Penalties for selling or giving vaping products to youth should be toughened.

If authorities don’t act swiftly on vaping products, society may well be dealing with the negative health consequences for decades to come.