Author: Rachel Fernandes
The Australian government has taken a step forward to crack down on vaping, with plans to ban the importation of nonprescription vaping products. The policy also involves the introduction of minimum quality standards that vapes will be required to meet, effectively imposing limitations on colours, flavours and other ingredients that vapes contain. In addition to these rules, the allowed concentration and volume of nicotine in vapes will be reduced, with single-use vapes being banned completely.
Mark Butler, Australia's federal Health Minister, has emphasised that these reforms do not seek to punish people using vapes, but rather to target retailers who have ignored regulations by illegally selling vapes to under 18-year-olds or falsely selling “nicotine-free” products, which in actuality do contain nicotine.
Australia’s approach to vaping is one of the stricter ones currently. Let’s take a look at both the benefits and disadvantages that come with vapes.
As a product to help smokers quit, vapes have been useful in some ways. A Cochrane review found that people using vapes were more likely to quit smoking for at least six months than using traditional nicotine replacement therapies, such as patches and chewing gums. Since vapes do not contain tobacco or produce carbon monoxide and tar, they are considered less harmful than smoking cigarettes, which are known to increase the risk of lung cancer, coronary heart disease, pneumonia and many other diseases. This makes vaping an extremely useful option for those wishing to quit smoking.
That being said, most vapes do contain nicotine. While this is what makes vapes effective for smokers, it becomes a problem when non-smokers develop long-term nicotine addictions after frequent use of vapes. Vapes tend to have higher amounts of nicotine than regular cigarettes. Regulatory uncertainty and misleading marketing mean that this could become an enormous problem; a situation where a whole generation of young people are addicted to vaping. The issue is that a large proportion of vape marketing is targeted towards young people specifically, with a fun array of flavours and vibrant packaging creating a deceptive impression that vapes are absolutely harmless.
Despite vapes not containing tobacco and exposing users to the same dangerous chemicals that typical cigarettes do, they are still not risk-free. Metals, cancer-causing chemicals, and lung irritants could be present in the vapours produced by e-cigarettes. Asthma, chronic bronchitis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease risk are all increased by vaping. Asthma can be triggered even by secondhand exposure to e-cigarette vapours. Additionally, since vapes are relatively new, there is little clarity about their long-term risks.
Australia’s decision seems to be valid: vapes will still be available for smokers wanting to quit, yet much harder to obtain for those wishing to take up vaping recreationally. The main takeaway is to think twice about vaping. Only many years later did we realise how dangerous cigarettes are, vaping could be a similar story.
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https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/lifestyle/what-are-the-health-risks-of-smoking/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/can-vaping-help-you-quit-smoking-2019022716086
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