E-CIGARETTES ARE CAUSING DEATHS IN THE US: ARE WE HANDLING IT MOST EFFECTIVELY?

Vaping (or e-cigarettes) is the modern alternative to smoking cigarettes, but recently there has been a series of mysterious illnesses and deaths that have led to it fast becoming a major public health concern. 

The Trump administration has even hinted at planning to ban e-cigs in response, but that only brings in the dilemma that e-cigs are being banned before conventional tobacco cigarettes – the ones responsible for over 480,000 deaths per year (per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).  

For years, e-cigs weren’t deemed completely safe, but a lot of people wrote them off as such because it wasn’t tobacco, carcinogens weren’t being inhaled and it seemed like a healthier, more discrete option to smoking. But the public is now seeing the consequences of this attitude.  

Vape products appeal to middle schoolers, high schoolers and young adults the most. They come in all kinds of sizes, colors and shapes. One of the main companies that is producing e-cigs is Juul: This brand has coerced the youth market through its flavored nicotine pods. One pod has the same nicotine content as one pack of 25 cigarettes, making Juul products highly addictive. Quickly, it got to the point where mango-flavored pods were banned from many stores.

This didn’t stop teens from abusing the product, however. 

In the past month, in Oregon and across the U.S., hundreds of new cases have popped up at an alarming rate, where users of vaping products, particularly the Juul, have suffered serious lung and cardiovascular illnes, despite the trend being less than a decade old.

Not only does this highlight the health risk of vaping, it shows the amount of attention this health crisis is getting compared to cigarettes. 

The tobacco industry has been dominant since the creation of the American colonies and evolved into a powerhouse of American consumer culture. Smoking cigarettes was the norm from the 1900s until numerous public and private entities banned indoor smoking, a generation ago.

Most people now know about the lies the tobacco industry told about cigarettes being healthy and the amount of advertisement put into that effort. Our society is lucky to even have the U.S. Surgeon General warning on tobacco and nicotine products, although this doesn’t stop users from consumption. People know that smoking is unhealthy, and not long ago, we were very close to ending nicotine abuse for the new generation. But then teens found out you can get nicotine in a mango-and-cucumber flavor. Having flavored nicotine products changed the way nicotine addiction could be marketed. 

Its too soon to know the specific health risks of vaping, because long term studies cannot yet be published. It took half a century for people to see the risks of tobacco, but it has only taken a few years for vaping relating-troubles to make headlines.

Still, given all the other crises in America, such as gun violence, poverty, mental illness and healthcare access – it calls into question, does the government really need to make a move on e-cigs right now? The dangers of addiction and mental health are affecting youth, but the same thing can be said of school shootings that are still to be answered for.

We at The Advocate believe that rather than treating the problem of nicotine and drug addiction as a criminal issue that needs to have some onerous sort of regulation, we should treat it like a medical issue. People are attracted to the trend of vaping and stay because it makes them feel good, and there needs to be recognition of the healthier alternatives to treating this problem.