Vaping is making me fear for my daughter
Like many parents, i’ve been following the growing questions about the safety of vaping with some trepidation. the past few months have seen a steady stream of vape-related horror stories, all pointing to the same conclusion: e-cigarettes might not be as harmless as we thought.
the latest is the tale of ewan Fisher, a teenager from the Midlands, who was hospitalised with severe respiratory failure after suffering a reaction to chemicals in his vaping liquids.
Fortunately, he’s made a full recovery; but it shook me because my own daughter — who is 16 — has recently taken up the habit, which is rife among teenagers.
as far as i can tell, vaping is quite simply the coolest thing ever for this generation, in the same way that when i was my daughter’s age we all wore winkle-pickers and smoked multi-coloured sobranie Cocktail cigarettes at parties (bunions and mortality being very distant prospects back then).
and the reason it’s cool (apart from the fact that i don’t like her doing it, of course) is largely because the vape manufacturers have spent millions making it so.
teenagers live and die by social media, and the companies know this. all over twitter, instagram, Facebook, snapchat and tiktok, the message is relentless.
Vaping is harmless fun, nothing to worry about. sure, maybe your parents don’t like it, but it’s better (and cheaper) than cigarettes and besides, it’s another trendy musthave plug-in tech device.
Vapes appeal to a young generation obsessed with gadgets and social media, but also with that other great scourge of the modern age: sugar. sickly flavours reminiscent of pocket-money chews abound, ruthlessly aimed at the teenage palate.
they are the nicotine-laced equivalent of alcopops, highly addictive ingredients dressed up as fun.
add to all that the inevitable celebrity seal of approval, from Cara Delevingne to katy Perry, and you have the perfect marketing storm (not to mention the perfect parental headache). No wonder the things are everywhere, filling our pavements with choking clouds of smoke. and no wonder they represent such a potentially huge public health disaster.
Because the more evidence begins to emerge of how vape liquids can damage the lungs, the more it seems these devices merit an urgent rethink. in america, where the use of e-cigarettes has risen sharply among teenagers, from 1.5 per cent in 2011 to 20.8 per cent in 2018 — and where at least 40 people are said to have died from vaping-related lung disease — the trump administration is about to unveil new restrictions.
it’s a move that has angered many, and which some believe may cost Donald trump dearly at the polls. at least you can’t accuse him of pandering to the tobacco giants which, with utter cynicism — painfully aware that tobacco sales are in decline — have made sure they own chunks of the vaping market.
For years we were told smoking was harmless: advertised by doctors and dentists, cigarettes were even marketed at pregnant women and asthma sufferers.
Who would have thought back in the 1970s, when Marlboro Man was the height of cool, that cigarettes would now be emblazoned with graphic health warnings and sold from behind metal shutters?
AND yet we face a situation with vapes where, despite growing fears about their safety, a blizzard of marketing tells us to fire one up. Go into any large branch of Boots, and you will find Juul pods behind the pharmacy counter. Vapes are at every supermarket checkout till. in just a few years, this alarmingly unchecked technology has become legitimised.
i may be unduly worried. this may all be a misunderstanding. Vaping may be vindicated as a safe alternative to cigarettes (Public Health england says it’s 95 per cent safer than smoking, though admits it’s not without risks).
But until we know for sure, shouldn’t we at least err on the side of caution...before the health of a generation goes up in smoke?