Another wheeze?
MORE vaping stories have sparked up fears this week. And I worry we’ve been sleepwalking into another cynically manufactured and dangerous social trend.
We’re now hearing it could damage the brain, heart and blood vessels, and cardiologists are calling for a ban.
Researchers say vaping is creating a new generation of nicotine addicts who don’t really think they are inhaling nicotine, and who’ve been told it’s OK.
If scientists found a safe type of alcohol that gave you no hangover, we’d rush at it, right?
Smoking at first was sold as glamorous – all the Hollywood legends did it.
Bette Davis smoked 100 a day until she died – she even smoked while I interviewed her live on air.
In the 60s, the first headlines linking ciggies to cancer started appearing and I was terrified because both my mum and dad smoked.
Once the science became clear, Dad gave up his 50 a day overnight but Mum didn’t find it so easy. She’d hide packets of ten around the house.
Fast-forward 50 years and e-cigs are taking hold, with vaping boutiques filling gaps on high streets and parents having cheeky drags at the school gates.
Yes, clearly, vaping has helped many people quit. So it might have saved countless people from the horrors of cancer. You can’t argue with that.
But there’s a whole load of youngsters who have taken it up simply because it was seen as cool, with fruity flavours as appealing as a sugary alcopop. The industry has created a new market. Keep smokers addicted and recruit more.
Public Health England claims e-cigs are “95 per cent safer than traditional tobacco”. But other, well-respected researchers worldwide are blowing the warning whistle. So we need to be demanding more evidence and real facts. Better still, don’t trust them alone, make up your own mind. I have two grown-up kids who smoke and I try my very, very best to dissuade them.
Of course, when you’re in your 20s, you don’t think you’re destroying your health. You don’t think long term.
But to have health officials telling you it’s OK to vape? Does that sound responsible to you?
History tells us we may be being duped – and to whose profit?