Vaping: Looking through the smoke screen

Starting out in China in 2003 by pharmacist Hon Lik, and quickly making its way to the U.S market, e-cigarettes have been a topic of controversy over health safety and whether they should be regulated like regular cigarettes, according to dailykos.com.

As of 2015, e-cigarettes generate $3 billion in sales worldwide. The controversy at high schools is whether its is acceptable to use vapors at school.

Arrowhead seniors Bryce Greenhagen, Jasmine Case, and Alana Schiefen all agree that vaping should be kept outside of school. In their opinion, vaping for students is just a way to act cool, but really they’re just making a dumb decision that could get them in trouble.

“I think some students are almost just waiting to get caught because why do it at school? Can’t they wait till they get home?” says Schiefen.

Schiefen says she believes smoking is bad for you and causes lung cancer. Schiefen grandfather had lung cancer and she says it’s one of the worse ways to die.

“Vaping is actually worse for you than normal cigs, and people just think their cool when they do it and they’re really not,” says Case.

A lot of teenagers are under the impression that vaping is a healthier alternative to smoking, but vaping contains free radical toxins similar to those found in cigarette smoke and air pollution.

Vaping can cause cancer due to the chemicals nitrosamines and formaldehyde, according to United States Food and Drug Administration. The U.S FDA also found that chemicals found in e-cigs are a thousand times lower than the ones found in conventional cigarettes but vaping is still dangerous.

Like cigarettes, vaping has been found to increase the susceptibility to respiratory infection. According to Teen Therapy Center, vape pens can lead teens to cross over into smoking THC. This is more dangerous than smoking street marijuana because of the high concentration of THC. The waxy liquid form of THC see has no smell so parents and teachers wouldn’t be able to recognize it as marijuana.

“I thinking vaping is kind [of] dumb to do in school, I used to vape, but I stopped cause I broke it, and they’re expensive, so didn’t want to buy a new one,” says Greenhagen.