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Mthandazo Ndlovu
Looking around our communities, we will realise that there is little activity of tobacco roll-up smokers, among our youth. Is it a true reflection of the youth of today that they are now non-smokers and not nicotine dependants?
If you open your eyes as you walk around in some of the city shops, you will see what are called e-cigarettes (electronic cigarettes) and other implements called vaping utensils. Also been sold are various flavourings that are used in the process.
E-cigarette (short for electronic cigarette) are battery-powered devices that disperse nicotine and other chemicals as tiny airborne particles that users can inhale. They were originally developed as a safer alternative to cigarettes that users could use as they tried to slowly break their addiction to the nicotine in tobacco products.
The flavourings used sometimes resemble fruits, candy, mint or chocolate. This then makes it difficult for one to realise or know that one is now into smoking or using other chemicals to enhance their moods, as no smell of tobacco is detected.
Some shops in the city are now vaping spots and there you observe the youth vaping their youth away in the late afternoon after school. Some of the flavourings used contain chemicals that are a danger to health.
Vaping is the slang word for the use of e-cigarette, a tiny light at the tip turns on when someone takes a puff. This is meant to resemble the burn of a regular cigarette. So to the eye, e-cigarettes may resemble traditional cigarettes or cigars. But instead of burning tobacco, a small battery inside powers a device that heats a liquid solution to create an aerosol spray. It emerges like an invisible mist. This is what the user will inhale.
People think electronic cigarettes, which don’t contain tobacco, are a safer alternative to true cigarettes. But smoking e-cigarettes, or vaping, exposes people to toxic gases that can harm the lungs and cause other health problems. Studies have shown that the hotter an e-cigarette gets, and the more it’s used the more toxic compounds it gives off.
Key to vaping is the e-liquid that is drawn through an e-cigarette, manufacturers dissolve flavourings, and usually put nicotine, into this solvent. In most cases, this solvent is known as food-grade, meaning it should be safe enough to eat. (But that rating is meaningless if the solvent will be inhaled into the lungs, not ingested into the stomach, where it can break down.
As a vaper inhales, some of the flavoured solvent will flow through the e-cigarette. As it passes over one or more hot metal coils, that liquid vaporises into a gas.
These flavoured vapours can be a rich source of toxic chemicals, added to the starting liquid to stimulate a user’s nervous system the same way that tobacco cigarettes will.
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Online Reporter