President Trump moves to ban flavoured e-cigarettes

With 450 young adults hospitalised in only a few weeks across the United States because of severe lung infections caused by vaping, regulators are now moving against the vaping industry.

It is widely recognised that electronic cigarettes such as Juul are attractive to teenagers wherever they are sold. These products look like high tech and come in a variety of flavours such as mango and crème brulee. Teenagers who try these products are unaware they contain nicotine and are very addictive. Before they know it, they are hooked on e-cigarettes. The evidence in America shows that almost 22% of teenagers who vape go on to try tobacco. Nicotine itself causes problems in cognitive development and memory loss in teenagers.

Coupled with nicotine comes cannabis in e-liquids. Cannabis is proven to have potentially life-long harming effects on brain function. But teenagers are vaping sweet flavours and cannabis unaware of the harm they are doing themselves until it is too late: they are addicted. The recent spate of hospitalisations across the US has revealed that vaping is causing severe lung infections. The one thing identified as linking these lung infections is all those affected use electronic cigarettes.

US President Donald Trump has stepped into discussion and is proposing to ban e-cigarette flavours to protect the youth in the US. The state of Michigan has already banned e-cigarette flavours whilst the city of San Francisco has banned e-cigarette sales completely. New York is moving to ban flavours also. The concern is so great with nearly 50% of American teenagers having tried an e-cigarette, legislation is needed to stop the youth from becoming addicted to nicotine and to vaping.

Though some medical scientists still point to the fact that e-cigarettes are not as harmful as tobacco, it has been pointed out that e-cigarettes cannot be compared to tobacco. Prof Charlotta Pisinger, chair of the European Respiratory Society Tobacco Control Committee has said there was no room for complacency in delaying legislation against e-cigarettes. “We are gaining more and more insight as to what is going on in the body when people vape, how it might affect the cardiovascular system, the lungs etc, and evidence is piling up that these products are harmful. We might be surprised that the harm is greater than we thought because there is a huge problem with all the research we have done so far. People are comparing this to conventional cigarettes, but the products are extremely different. We are looking for apples but maybe we should be looking for pears. This is something new.”

Sources:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49667688 — watch the videos in particular

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/11/trump-to-consider-e-cigarette-policy-amid-outbreak-of-lung-disease.html

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/09/11/donald-trump-wants-to-ban-flavored-vapes-discourage-young-people-from-e-cigarettes/2284270001/

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/15/new-york-ban-sales-flavored-e-cigarette

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/14/vaping-flavours-health-concern-children — quoting Professor Pisinger.

E-cigarette health effects:
https://www.naturalscience.org/publications/the-danger-of-electronic-cigarettes-creating-a-new-generation-of-nicotine-addicts/

Cannabis:
https://www.naturalscience.org/publications/cannabis-smoking-pot-is-neither-harmless-nor-healthy/

Published in the categories Smoking, Health

https://www.naturalscience.org/news/2019/09/president-trump-moves-to-ban-flavoured-e-cigarettes/