Recently, discussions about electronic cigarettes have been appearing in newspapers. Including the principle of electronic cigarettes, whether electronic cigarettes can be used as propaganda claims to help quit smoking, entrepreneurship issues in the field of electronic cigarettes, etc., have become a hot topic of public discussion. This week, the U.S. government announced plans to ban all fragrant e-cigarettes to curb the trend of young people smoking e-cigarettes. The first step taken by the U.S. government in monitoring e-cigarettes is likely to have an important demonstration effect on other countries. This is because the harm of electronic cigarettes to adolescents around the world is receiving more and more attention.
According to statistics, in the United States, more than 3.6 million middle school students smoked electronic cigarettes in 2018, a sharp increase of 1.5 million compared with 2017. In order to attract young people, many electronic cigarette products provide fruit, chocolate, butter and other flavors. In China, e-cigarettes have also been rendered as trendy and young signs, such as “caramel popcorn”, “blue cotton candy”, “vanilla cola” and other new taste of e-cigarettes emerge endlessly. Despite the lack of accurate statistics, the results of the 2018 China Adult Tobacco Survey released by the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention show that the majority of people using e-cigarettes are young people aged 15-24, and 45.4% of the users get e-cigarettes through the Internet. On short video platforms such as tremble and fast-hand, the propaganda video of electronic cigarette is very rich. For example, more than 17 million people read about a Japanese e-cigarette brand on tremolo alone. It can be inferred that the popularity of e-cigarettes among young people in China is increasing rapidly.
In 2003, Dr. Han Li invented the first domestic electronic cigarette. After that, domestic electronic cigarettes, such as Internet products, have undergone rapid iteration and become a new favorite of the investment community in recent years. For example, in April 2018, IJoy received 300 million yuan in round A financing; in July 2019, vvild electronic cigarettes received 30 million yuan in round A financing. During this period, at least 20 e-cigarette companies have received more than 30 financing. As far as the product itself is concerned, its innovation is mainly manifested in appearance, taste and taking a trendy name.
Although many brands of electronic cigarettes claim that smoking electronic cigarettes can help quit smoking, this is not the case. Compared with ordinary smoke, the biggest difference of electronic smoke is that ordinary smoke is burned, and in the process of combustion, tar and carbon monoxide and other carcinogens will be produced; while electronic smoke is a smoke generator, generally does not contain the above two carcinogens. But this does not mean that electronic cigarettes must be healthy, although they do not contain carcinogens such as tar and carbon monoxide, but electronic cigarettes still contain alcohols such as propylene glycol, which is harmful to health; more importantly, nicotine still exists in electronic cigarettes, but only in a different way, long-term smoking is harmful to health. But no profit.
The World Health Organization has issued a report that there is insufficient evidence that e-cigarettes can help quit smoking. The most commonly used nicotine replacement therapy in the world is to gradually reduce the amount of nicotine inhaled by smokers, generally from high to low, gradually reducing. In fact, e-smokers are not sure how much they smoke. Therefore, smoking electronic cigarettes may increase nicotine consumption.
There is false propaganda in electronic cigarette enterprises, which is only one aspect of the controversy. Another important reason for the public’s concern about e-cigarettes is the impact of e-cigarettes on teenagers. For many minors, e-cigarettes are regarded as representatives of fashion trends because of online red display and corporate publicity. In order to win the recognition of the same age group, smoking electronic cigarettes has also become a means of displaying personality. However, the reason why minors can easily buy electronic cigarettes is directly related to online sales. On the online shopping platform, the buyer’s age does not constitute resistance to transactions. Of course, in public places, many local anti-smoking regulations have failed to include electronic cigarettes, so the lack of legislation constitutes a basic problem of electronic cigarettes control.
In July this year, Mao Qun’an, Director of Planning Department of the State Health and Health Commission, said at a press conference that the harm of electronic cigarettes should be paid great attention. At present, the State Health and Health Commission is working with relevant departments on the supervision of electronic cigarettes, and plans to regulate electronic cigarettes through legislation. In addition, many electronic cigarette products contain vague nicotine concentration labeling, which can easily lead to excessive consumption of users. Electronic cigarette appliances also have safety risks such as battery explosion, smoke infiltration, high temperature scald and so on. These problems must also be answered at the legislative level. The electronic cigarettes with many problems should not be the leaking fish in the whole war of tobacco control.
Verdict
This news is from the People’s Daily, China government’s direct newspaper. It looks vapes are going to step on the same way like in the USA.
