The promoters of vaping – largely the e-cigarette divisions of tobacco companies – market it as a way to quit smoking.
Vaping involves the use of e-cigarettes, roughly the size and shape of a pen, that can be loaded with a liquid, usually flavoured, that is heated and vaporizes into an aerosol that can then be inhaled.
By shifting the delivery of nicotine, to which smokers are addicted, from cigarettes to vaping, it would mean you are no longer inhaling cigarette smoke and its carcinogenic and other harmful components into your lungs.
And that all sounds good, but if vaping offers a road out of the world of cigarette smoking, it also offers one into nicotine addiction and various other health hazards for people who were not previously smokers.
Particularly susceptible to the marketing are youth, targeted by a wide array of vape liquids available in hundreds of different flavours designed to appeal to young pallets, ranging from chocolate and fruit to cotton candy and various kinds of dessert.
Youth also happen to be most vulnerable to nicotine addiction, as their brains are still developing, and to harm from the chemicals in the vapors they inhale. The Canadian Lung Association says that, when heated, vaping liquids create contaminants such as nickel, tin and aluminum, and that there is growing evidence that vaping causes lung disease.
Local healthcare spokesperson Nicole Boucher-Lariviere warns us that the particles of vaping are just as harmful as those of secondary smoke. Vapers may think they are not harming themselves or people around them, but it is simply not the case. In an article in this issue of THE EQUITY, she talks of the above average rates of respiratory problems and heart conditions we have in this area, their connection to high consumption of cigarettes and vaping, and leading to lower life expectancy.
A group of Pontiac youths is doing something about it. They ran a car wash on Saturday to raise money that will be used to educate their peers in Pontiac high schools about the hazards of vaping, and they’ve raised $500.
There are many challenges in life, but if we are going to have a chance to overcome any of them, it starts with our own health. If we are going to realize Pontiac’s great potential, we have to realize our own, and that starts with taking care of ourselves, and each other.
The Pontiac Youth Council is on a path to do just that, by helping Pontiac’s youth – Pontiac’s future – protect their health.
Good for them. Good for all of us.
