“There’s no way e-cigarettes are totally safe. The only things our lungs were meant to take in is oxygen”
that is simply how God designed us, to JUST breathe air. Today we will be discussing that not only are electric-cigarettes not healthy but that tobacco companies lie to us any time that they tell us that electric-cigarettes are tobacco free and also when ever they tell us that they are healthy. I will be doing this in several steps, first I will tell you about why they were invented, I will tell you a few of their many health concerns, I will tell you how they are being misused, and finally I will tell you what you could do to help solve this problem.
According to Matthew Stanbrook of the Canadian Medical Association Journal,
“Addiction now comes in its own “e” version: electronic cigarettes. By allowing the user to inhale a vapor in a manner resembling smoking a cigarette, e-cigarettes provide a uniquely appealing means of obtaining nicotine without exposure to the other harmful constituents of tobacco smoke. Their increasing popularity is paralleled by growing controversy over whether e-cigarettes represent a highly promising therapeutic intervention for smoking cessation or a Trojan horse that will allow the tobacco industry to reverse decades of global progress in reducing smoking prevalence.”
Electric cigarettes were originally designed in 1963 by Herbert Gilbert as a crutch for smokers to help them quit smoking. Smoking E-Cigarettes was supposed to provide a similar feeling to smoking an actual cigarette. E-Cigarettes are actually being used as a bridge, a bridge for non-smokers to get addicted to nicotine because electric cigarettes are marketed as a healthy substitute for smoking, but while they are somewhat healthier than regular cigarettes they are still horrible for your body.
Now does this information make you want to smoke E-Cigarettes? When I saw that E-Cigarettes were marketed as healthy I was much more interested in learning more about them. Fortunately when I researched to see if E-Cigarettes were as healthy as they were marketed to be I found out that they contain cancer causing chemicals such as formaldehyde and acetaldehyde at such levels as high as 15 times that which is considered acceptable in normal cigarettes.
E-Cigarettes are composed of four main parts, there is a mouthpiece, a nicotine cartridge or a re-fillable tank for the liquid nicotine, a built in atomizer and a rechargeable battery. Although electric cigarettes are supposed to be tobacco free the liquid nicotine in E-Cigarettes is extracted directly from the actual tobacco plant so technically these should still be considered tobacco products.
Unlike plain tobacco leaves liquid nicotine can be deadly. Even amounts such as one tablespoon of liquid nicotine could prove deadly to an adult and one teaspoon could kill a child. Two main harmful chemicals in liquid nicotine are formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. There is actually more formaldehyde in electric cigarettes than there is in a normal cigarette. Formaldehyde is a known cause of throat cancer, lung cancer and leukemia. It has also been proven that formaldehyde kills off brain cells. it can also harm lung growth in children, so juvenile e-cigarette users may grow up with under developed lungs.
Acetaldehyde, though less known than formaldehyde, still presents some major health risks, such as impairing your breathing, harming your lungs, and damaging your skin and eyes. It can also cause amnesia.
Another problem with E-Cigarettes right now is they are not necessarily being used how they were designed to be used. E-Cigarettes were originally designed to help smokers quit smoking. What is actually happening with them now is many people think that they are 100% safe so more and more people that would never have picked up an actual cigarette are trying E-Cigarettes and getting addicted.
So far I have shown you that E-Cigarettes are not being used as a crutch like they were designed to be but instead they are being used as a bridge for non-smokers to become addicted to nicotine. I have also shown you that E-Cigarettes are technically still tobacco products and that just small amounts of liquid nicotine could kill someone or make them extremely sick.
What I think could be done about this is to make smoking electric cigarettes as unattractive to smokers and non-smokers as possible. I suggest that we raise e-cigarette prices to the breaking point to make smokers more hesitant to pay massive amounts of money to smoke. I would also like to suggest that there be a limit to how much liquified nicotine a person can purchase each week. I think that e-cigarettes should not be sold in grocery stores and gas stations and only be sold in authorized cigarette stores. I would also like to propose that since e-cigarettes are just as harmful as regular cigarettes that we regulate them the same way. And finally I suggest that we follow New South Wales and ban the practice of selling e-cigarettes to minors. Now for what you could do, I recommend that each of you call your local congressman by going to contactingthecongress.org and urge that he place regulations to prevent the smoking of electric cigarettes in your general public area.
According to Reuters formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, are just a couple of toxic chemicals that about one out of every 10 people you meet have been exposed to and are exposed to every time they smoke because about 10% of all people in the U.S. are e-cigarette smokers. These chemicals have the potential to do serious harm to your body. Formaldehyde is a known cause of throat cancer, lung cancer and leukemia. It has also been proven that formaldehyde kills off brain cells and also significantly harms lung growth in children. Acetaldehyde also presents some major health risks, such as impairing your breathing, harming your lungs, and damaging your skin and eyes. It can also cause amnesia. As I said before 1 in 10 people you know and interact with are e-cigarette smokers and they risk having any of these things happen to them on a daily basis, wouldn’t you like to help them?
“If not us who? And If not now when?”
- Ronald Reagan
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