Ever since human beings discovered tobacco, the most potent source of nicotine, a ridiculously addictive parasympathomimetic alkaloid, i.e., stimulant, we have sought to develop more efficient and pleasurable delivery mechanisms for it.
Now that we understand the science behind it, nicotine is widely considered the most addictive substance known to man and, not surprisingly, has thus been used in trade and for ceremonial purposes for millennia.
We have, throughout time, chewed it, sniffed it, drunk it, smoked it and ingested it in a variety of other ways.
Grand and elaborate traditions and rituals developed around it. Cuban cigar rollers became legendary, for example. Smoking the finest of the finest became a status symbol for the rich. Everybody else stuffed their pipes or rolled up the dregs in a variety of ways.
In the industrial age, corporations recognized the potential for mass addiction and developed the mass-produced cigarette. During the World Wars, governments provided their troops with free smokes.
Long before the overwhelming evidence proved smoking tobacco was bad for us in the mid-20th century, everybody already knew it was related to a plethora of conditions, diseases and general nastiness.
But the powerful tobacco lobby fought back, or so the myth goes. In reality it wasn’t much of a fight because, as I mentioned before, this stuff is so ridiculously addictive it makes heroin look like a lightweight (although, once addicted, heroin might kill you much more quickly, tobacco addiction as we have learned is a long, slow death).
Nevertheless “Big Tobacco,” as it has been dubbed, has taken a beating in recent times. That is because tobacco smoking, chewing and sniffing etc. are crappy delivery systems for nicotine from a health standpoint and government legislation coupled with health authorities’ and other anti-smoking organizations’ educational efforts have managed to attach a social stigma to them.
Enter vaping. When I first saw an e-cigarette, which was not that long ago, I mistakenly took it for another potential tool in the fight to help people stop smoking.
It is not. It is the newest, arguably most efficient and possibly most insidious nicotine delivery system ever. It is simply an alternative to smoking. It is a workaround for getting a nicotine fix where people can no longer smoke, like in public places or in the presence of children. And it is a pusher’s, er, marketer’s dream for hooking new nicotine addicts. Largely unregulated because it is so new, the flavours it comes in are virtually limitless. It even comes in bubble gum and you cannot tell me that isn’t targeted at children.
In fact, in 2012, 20 per cent of American high school students had tried vaping. Statistics for Canadian youth were not available, but you can bet they are similar. And, surprise, surprise, studies are starting to prove vaping has its own health hazards and surprise, surprise, they’re basically the same as smoking. Soon, we will find out second-hand vaping is a problem for non-vapers.
I am not judging. I have smoked cigarettes, on and off, for probably half my 52 years on this planet. I always wanted to be one of those people like Christopher Hitchens, who was a non-apologetic smoker right up until his death from lung cancer, or a guy like my buddy Michael, who somehow manages to be a social smoker lighting up only now and again.
I couldn’t be either of those guys, though. So, I quit. I didn’t chew gum. I didn’t wear patches. I didn’t vape. I quit, cold turkey, because I didn’t want to be addicted to nicotine anymore. I know it is [expletive deleted] hard, but it can be done. I highly recommend, and so do health professionals, to quit vaping before you start.
