Fighting the allure of the new vaping craze
Somewhere deep in our subconscious we’re all drawn to death, or so said Sigmund Freud. He thought our death-drive lived in constant conflict with the stronger life-drive, but in cases of mental distress he said these drives became unbalanced. In everyone, he said, this death-drive would sometimes come to the surface through aggression and self-destructive behaviour.
Freud had some really weird ideas. Some were pretty preposterous. But seeing the pushback to the Government’s plans to forge towards to its Smokefree 2025 goal, I thought he might have a point here.
Associate Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall has released a proposal to stop dairies selling cigarettes and gradually lift the age at which people can legally buy cigarettes. She hopes a generation of Kiwis, anyone born after 2004, will never be able to smoke.
This goal is ambitious and, on the face of it, incredibly wise. Smoking kills. Each day, it kills more than 12 New Zealanders. It’s an objectively bad activity.
Despite being presented with the facts, many people still choose to smoke. There are 464,000 people still regularly smoking in New Zealand. However, fewer and fewer young people are persevering with the expensive and deadly habit.
Don’t be fooled. Young people today are no healthier than their predecessors. Although they don’t smoke, they still enjoy inhaling nicotine. These days, you do that via vapes.
The verdict is clear: Vaping is healthier than smoking, but is not healthy. It is a harmful practice which increases your likelihood of developing cancers. As it is relatively new, doctors say the worst effects of vaping may not yet be understood.
Nevertheless, vaping is hugely popular. You can buy vapes online, and many young teenagers do. All you have to do is tick a box saying you are certainly, 100 per cent, not lying by saying you’re aged 18 or older.
Educators declared a ‘‘vaping epidemic’’ among their students in 2019. It had become so commonplace that students would vape in class and school counsellors were addressing nicotine addiction en masse.
We may be going smoke-free, but the cloud has simply become candy-flavoured.
The April copy of North & South dives deep into vaping’s surge of popularity among teenagers. I revisited writer Don Rowe’s reporting this week, and was caught out – at one point – as my mind wandered down a track towards thinking a vape sounded kind of nice. Strawberry-flavoured chillout steam, what could be wrong with that? Of course, Rowe had dutifully detailed the numerous issues with it . . . For one, it might eventually prove fatal.
But the mind wanders. And it’s not always logical. Is that because, as Freud predicted, we fly like moths into gaslights of destruction?
I asked Otago University psychologist Jude Ball. She researches adolescence and public health, having become an expert on addiction, drugs, sex, and perhaps rock’n’roll. ‘‘Gosh,’’ she replied, when I shared my theory. ‘‘That’s pretty dark, Glenn.’’
‘‘With addictive substances, some people do go really hard out and that could be self-destructive. But for the majority of young people, it is about trying new things.’’
TVaping is healthier than smoking, but is not healthy. It isa harmful practice which increases your likelihood of developing cancers.
rying new things does come with a rush, no amount of legislation can deny that. But what we choose to try is heavily influenced by simple things, Ball tells me, like colours. The vapes in the magazine popped off the page. The cover was bright pink.
Bell says the normalisation of vaping has made it more than a fad, but a way of life for many. It’s no longer rebellious, she says. It’s a commercial trap the country fell right into, while we tried to get rid of cigarettes. ‘‘Smoking is not the norm any more in high schools, but unfortunately vaping now is because we had an unregulated market.’’
The Government introduced vaping laws last year, trying to catch up with a fad funded by multinational corporates which had found the new tobacco. Those corporates, such as Silicon Valley’s Juul and British American Tobacco, have been effective. They made hay while the sun shone, and with vapes now commonplace across universities and high schools, they look set to reap the rewards. They changed the way we think about nicotine.
Vaping used to be seen as try-hard and fairly pointless. Through sponsorships, advertising, sleek design and a bright colour palette, that has changed. It’s the same technique used to mainstream cigarettes. And even though we know the risks, myths about vaping continue to stick in the back of many people’s minds. The steam looks harmless.
I’m hesitant to support heavy-handed government intervention. Well-intentioned tobacco taxes have taken food from children. But I despise the fact that parasitic companies profited from a lack of information, blasting their addictive products into the market during a window of underregulation. In principle, we can’t let them get away with that. It’s very uncool.