E-Cigarettes

By: Emmett R.

        20% of the modern day youth use electronic cigarettes; that’s only one out of every five!  Nowadays they’re found woefully everywhere. This is inevitably the result of the avaricious e-cigarette companies trying to trick us into buying their malicious products and thinking that they are only mere harmless devices. They only do this so the companies can yield money off of our own harm from the various toxic chemicals e-cigarettes produce. The plentiful hazardous chemicals and side effects of abusing e-cigarettes demonstrate that various e-cigarette brands are trying to trick us, and their deception is harming our society.

       Simah Herman, a promising 18 year-old woman who was tricked into abusing e-cigarettes, stated days after being in the hospital, “I just remember feeling like absolute...nothing. Like I just couldn't do anything, I couldn’t drink water. I couldn’t move. Like, I literally just wanted to crawl out of my skin.” The auspicious teen was hospitalized and put onto a ventilator after being unable to breath in the back seat of her frightened father’s car. She then fell into a medically induced coma, and once she rose up from this, she vocalized, “I asked for, like, a pen and paper because that was the only way I could communicate,” Simah Herman said. “And I wrote, ‘I want to start a no-vaping campaign.’ That was the first thing I did when I opened my eyes.”

       One of the leading factors in e-cigarette companies tricking us is the fact that e-cigarettes come in many different eye-catching colors and flavors. In an NLM (National Library of Medicine) article,  Kristen Jones, DO and Gary A. Salzman, MD stated, “This is especially concerning because studies have shown that flavor is one of the most important factors adolescents consider in trying e-cigarettes.” These various colors, flavors and even advertisements are aimed at adolescents and youth, in result, making them motivated to go out and try to find themselves an e-cigarette of their own. Another part of this problem is exposure from advertisements and others in our society, and one study showed that 78% of middle and high school students have seen at least one e-cigarette advertisement. 

       E-cigarette advertisements not only market e-cigarettes' distinctive flavors, but they also cloak the true identity of e-cigarettes in a whole other way. They do this by making them seem like a method to quit conventional cigarette smoking. But the evident problem with this method is that the companies did not have any pukka statistics or information to support their bold claims. The most dreadful part of these devices is the high risk of addiction from the nicotine these devices contain.  This problem is so salient because once you're addicted to these devices it is usually tremendously challenging to quit using e-cigarettes. This implies more exposure to all of the toxic metals, chemicals and substances that e-cigarettes produce, including nicotine.

       The harsh truth is that e-cigarettes are also a gateway drug; e-cigarette companies are realistically tricking adolescents into a much deeper and darker down spiral than they think is imminent. Once you're hooked on e-cigarettes, it is a threatening path up ahead. People that operate e-cigarettes are more likely to develop addictions to other drugs. According to Kristen Jones, DO and Gary A. Salzman, MD, “Adolescents who use e-cigarettes are 3.6 times more likely to report using combustible cigarettes later in life.”

       There is an abundance of toxic chemicals used in e-cigarettes that can harmfully conflict your life with serious illnesses. The American Lung Association discussed in an article that, “A study from the University of North Carolina found that the two primary ingredients found in e-cigarettes—propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin—are toxic to cells.” Some more of these atrocious chemicals include acetaldehyde, acrolein and formaldehyde. These chemicals can cause lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, acute lung illness, COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and many more diseases. Acrolein is also used in weed killer, along with that, the nicotine in e-cigarettes also increases depression, anxiety severity and sleep problems. Usually e-cigarettes have an even higher concentration of nicotine than conventional combustible cigarettes.

       As you can see, e-cigarettes are quickly becoming a bigger and bigger problem over the years, and increasingly more people are being tricked into trying one of these frightening, horrid devices. Just because more and more people around the world are being fooled into using e-cigarettes doesn’t mean you should, or that they’re harmless. So next time you see someone you know using or looking for an e-cigarette, try to inform them about the numerous consequences of using e-cigarettes. As a result, you could liberate them from causing themselves sizable harm to their bodies.