Attitudes to Vaping
As vaping has grown in popularity with users everybody else has developed an opinion about the practise.
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by Dave Cross
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“I gave up smoking,” Shane Watson said in The Telegraph. “And took up something far less socially acceptable. The ex-smokers at the party who don't vape are the ones with the thousand-yard stare, speed-drinking and gripping their glass stems with such force, you aren't safe standing anywhere near them.”
Watson recounts how he has been on the receiving end of stares from hosts who disapproved of his vaping, we’ve probably all been there. He continues: “‘Do you actually get any pleasure out of that,’ they will say. Or ‘Shouldn't you just stop?’ Or ‘Have you thought of nicotine patches?’ Clearly, they mean what you're doing offends me. If anything, vaping seems to wind people up in a way that smoking just doesn't.”
Vaping certainly offends Leona O’Neill, compelling her to declare: “Vaping is the new smoking among teenagers.” An ex-smoker, O’Neill’s writing reeks of a puritanical ‘do what I say now and not copy what I used to do’ attitude. Having spotted some kids vaping, her sons told her “everyone 'vapes' these days.”
They don’t Leona; the documented research tells us so. This doesn’t stop The Mirror running another scare story about children “as young as six and wearing primary school uniforms” though. Because this kind of coverage is more valid that the studies run by Cancer Research UK, right?
While it was OK for O’Neill to be “a teenage girl buying single cigarettes in a shop for 10p,” youthful experimentation shouldn’t be extended to this generation using a 95% less harmful product – with research saying it’s less addictive. But her fears are understandable. O’Neill won’t have sat over a pile of research documents and may be only barely aware of the RCP or the PHE reports stating that vaping is at least 95% safer.
The same can’t be said for the attendees of the Global Tobacco Dependency Treatment Summit 2016. Clive Bates reports 66% of the audience favouring smoking over vaping. An audience consisting of health care professionals and public health experts.
It’s true; the world holds an opinion on vaping now. It might not be one you agree with or remotely based on evidence – but hold it they do. It’s the feeling people have about the subject that’s important to them, and many find it a subject for mirth. Take, for example, Samantha Bee of TBS’s Full Frontal, as shown in the video below:“I gave up smoking,” Shane Watson said in The Telegraph. “And took up something far less socially acceptable. The ex-smokers at the party who don't vape are the ones with the thousand-yard stare, speed-drinking and gripping their glass stems with such force, you aren't safe standing anywhere near them.”
Watson recounts how he has been on the receiving end of stares from hosts who disapproved of his vaping, we’ve probably all been there. He continues: “‘Do you actually get any pleasure out of that,’ they will say. Or ‘Shouldn't you just stop?’ Or ‘Have you thought of nicotine patches?’ Clearly, they mean what you're doing offends me. If anything, vaping seems to wind people up in a way that smoking just doesn't.”
Vaping certainly offends Leona O’Neill, compelling her to declare: “Vaping is the new smoking among teenagers.” An ex-smoker, O’Neill’s writing reeks of a puritanical ‘do what I say now and not copy what I used to do’ attitude. Having spotted some kids vaping, her sons told her “everyone 'vapes' these days.”
They don’t Leona; the documented research tells us so. This doesn’t stop The Mirror running another scare story about children “as young as six and wearing primary school uniforms” though. Because this kind of coverage is more valid that the studies run by Cancer Research UK, right?
While it was OK for O’Neill to be “a teenage girl buying single cigarettes in a shop for 10p,” youthful experimentation shouldn’t be extended to this generation using a 95% less harmful product – with research saying it’s less addictive. But her fears are understandable. O’Neill won’t have sat over a pile of research documents and may be only barely aware of the RCP or the PHE reports stating that vaping is at least 95% safer.
The same can’t be said for the attendees of the Global Tobacco Dependency Treatment Summit 2016. Clive Bates reports 66% of the audience favouring smoking over vaping. An audience consisting of health care professionals and public health experts.
It’s true; the world holds an opinion on vaping now. It might not be one you agree with or remotely based on evidence – but hold it they do. It’s the feeling people have about the subject that’s important to them, and many find it a subject for mirth. Take, for example, Samantha Bee of TBS’s Full Frontal, as shown in the video below:
What do you think stands in the way of getting the good news about vaping across to the public? Are we really a subject for humour? Why not share your opinions about this on the POTV Forum.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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