Harmful Effect of E-cigarettes - Essay Example

Editing, English Topic: E-cigarettes: Are they harmful for health? The wise saying goes ‘After dinners sit a while and after suppers walk a mile’. The smoking community has changed the definition to suit their convenience. As soon as they get up from the dining table, their fingers are desperate to open the cigarette packet. The lips extend a cordial invitation to the cigarette. Everyone knows that smoking is injurious to health. The legal warning is also printed on the cigarette packets. Notwithstanding several health hazards related to smoking, the smokers are an adamant and helpless lot and are not willing to give up smoking. The smoker is to be pitied rather than condemned, because the contents of the cigarettes are addictive. Tobacco contains nicotine which is enemy number one of the smokers. As long as the cigarettes contain 0.5 mg of nicotine, people will be addictive. Nicotine into the body stimulates the optic nerve on the brain, and then people have exciting feelings. So when smoking becomes the long-term habit, smokers get accustomed to the stimulation and excitement derived out of the habit, and if stopped abruptly they will suffer from depression, weakness, yawning and they may even feel like crying. So, with the arrival of a new competitor in the world of smoking, it was time for the advertisement agencies to take over. They began to overstate the merits of the new product and to attract the kinds and the younger generation they used candy and fruit flavors and made suggestive health claims to reassure smokers and advised them to switch over to the new product. The produced research evidences to support their claims. The e-cigarettes stormed the market. E-cigarette has been suggested as the alternative to challenge the smokers of regular cigarettes. Electronic cigarette is supposed to be the product of advancement in the technology on the subject of smoking. The smokers, desperate to get out of the habit of smoking, availed the option of this new brand of cigarette immediately. The love for this brand spread all over the world, thanks to the marketing drive to promote the product. The electronic cigarettes have been in the market for the last about 7 years and they were first introduced in the U.S. in 2007 and extensive publicity was made that they offer the nicotine-addicted an alternative to smoking tobacco. Most e-cigarettes are identical in appearance to the regular cigarettes but as you look at their interiors, the difference becomes obvious. E-cigarettes do not have tobacco and in its place a mechanism that heats up liquid nicotine, which turns into vapor that the smokers inhale and exhale. Manufacturers advertise and the customers are satisfied that this nicotine vapor has many advantages over traditional cigarette smoke. But the regulatory agencies and health experts think that this is a contentious issue. Apart from the research findings whatever they may be, it appeals to commonsense that if nicotine is injurious to health, it is so in any form. Now, e-cigarettes too are amidst controversy. Five States in the US and the District of Columbia have already included e-cigarettes in the list of banned products and placed restrictions about their use. In my opinion, e-cigarettes should be treated the same as “regular” cigarettes. There are three main reasons. Electronic cigarettes are battery-operated devices that deliver users a hit of nicotine in vapour form without the carbon monoxide or tars that come from burning tobacco leaves. The CDC estimates that 10% of American high school students and nearly 3% of middle school students used e-cigarettes in 2012. First of all, e-cigarettes are as harmful as the cigarettes containing tobacco. The electronic cigarette is not completely harmless. E-cigarettes damage the body on two counts. According to David and Marisa, “Critics warn that the electronic devices, which produce a nicotine-laced vapor insurgence in tobacco use among young adults.” As such those addicted to the e-cigarettes may suffer from lung inflammation. Secondly, its high nicotine content causes cancer. In order to put the liquid nicotine in smoke flare to evaporate, and to make an effective product for smoking, e-cigarette manufacturers add propylene glycol in good quantity. Propylene glycol stimulates the respiratory tract, and causes some acute symptoms. So, the electronic cigarettes have excessive amounts of nicotine, and contain carcinogenic substance. In addition, the electronic cigarettes heating speed is too fast, in the process they also produce toxic molecules called acrolein. Inhalation of acrolein may damage the respiratory tract and cause sore throat problems in the chest and abdomen and bronchitis; a large amount inhaled can cause pneumonia pulmonary edema, shock, nephritis, and heart failure. As such, viewed from any angle, e-cigarettes cause harm to the body in a very big way. Secondly, electronic cigarettes will produce second-hand smoke too. As per the propaganda of electronic cigarette manufacturers their cigarettes produce no tar and there are no harmful components such as aerosol products. Electronic cigarettes have always been considered as producing no second-hand smoke. However, recent studies have shown that e-cigarettes do generate second-hand smoke. David and Marisa write, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public of Health, said the growing acceptance of “vaping”– as e-cigarette use is known — threatens to undermine decades of public education efforts aimed at stigmatizing smoking. Other e-cigarette opponents said they do not want to risk the possibility that the secondhand vapor will be found to be harmful. “We have a right to … choose to breathe clean air,” Councilwoman Nury Martinez told her colleagues. “And if this device turns out to be safe, then we can always undo the ordinance. But if this device proves not to be safe, we cannot undo the harm this will create on the public health.” People who are exposed to passive second-hand smoke for a long time have the risk of developing diabetes and cancer and that risk is more than the risk to which an average person is exposed to, especially the women. Influenced by the advertisement, e-cigarettes have caught the fascination of the youngsters and they have become addicted to nicotine more. In preference to the regular cigarettes, the youngsters like the e-cigarettes, considering them less harmful. As also there are many flavors to choose in the e-cigarettes category. Ultimately they become as addictive to e-cigarettes as with the case of regular cigarettes. This is the dangerous trend and health of the younger generation will have adverse effect on either counts. The younger generation is the hope of the future of the country and they are the would-be professors, doctors, engineers and army officers and if their health remains poor, their output of work and efficiency will also be poor. Smoking is not a “cool” habit. Smoking is not “cool”. It can never lead to any good and useful effects. According to David and Marisa, “But Council President Herb Wesson balked at the exemption, telling lawmakers that he has been hooked on cigarettes for nearly 40 years — and will probably die because of them. Calling himself “the council’s No. 1 smoker,” Wesson said he took up the habit as a 20-year-old factory worker because he wanted to be “cool.”“I’m telling you, the high percentage of kids that smoke, smoke because it’s cool. And when you’re 15 you want to be cool,” he said. “I will not support anything — anything — that might attract one new smoker.” Conclusion E-cigarettes and the regular cigarettes are both harmful and they are like two sides of the same coin. Rather going by the latest research findings, e-cigarettes are more harmful and they also produce the second-hand smoke. Somehow, the youngsters are easily attracted to the e-cigarettes and become addicted to it. So no special consideration can be given to the e-cigarettes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified a new health problem related to electronic cigarettes -- the risk that the devices themselves or the liquid nicotine that goes into them will cause injury to eyes, skin or other body parts. The question related to passive smoking is as important as active smoking. Why should an individual suffer, when he is affected by the smoke by the regular smoker? Since the research on e-cigarettes is incomplete, use of e-cigarettes needs to be banned, until and unless proper research on the subject is completed. Proponents of the e-cigarettes have haphazard justification for continuing with the habit of smoking. They argue that the e-cigarette is better as compared to the tobacco cigarettes. Since the e-cigarette is reusable, it saves money and the youngsters are happy about it. Many have given credit to the e-cigarettes that they have stopped smoking the tobacco cigarettes. That which is harmful is harmful. The arguments about less harmful and more harmful are futile exercises as such smoking should be given up altogether. The Governments need to play an active role in curbing the growth of tobacco manufacturing units and try to shut them down altogether. . Read More