Every time I’m out and about and I see someone vaping, I do a slight double take as half the vaping gear out there looks pretty much identical to Doctor Who’s sonic screwdriver– which sonic screwdriver? Well take your pick there have been plenty in the last 50 odd years, enough to go with the the variety of vaping gear.
My views on vaping though are coloured by three things. Firstly I don’t smoke and never really have. Secondly my parents both spent my childhood puffing away in the manner that only people in the late 70’s and 80’s really could. And thirdly, I’m a parent with kids.
My parents smoked a lot when I was little. My mum had an ashtray next to her bed and must have smoked 60 a day, most of them in the house, and my dad smoked cigars- a packet of cigars a day- we still have a lemon sorbet tub full of the collectors cards. What this meant was I tended to go to school stinking of cigarette smoke. The house stank of it, my dad’s car reeked of it. When I used to get a lift to school with my Dad, he’d often have his first cigar of the day while getting cross with other motorists.
Mind you, something like the ELEAF ISTICK 40W, that a chap I know puffs on, doesn’t look like Tom Baker might have wielded it but like the whole vaping thing, it doesn’t have the massively detrimental health effects that actual cigarettes have. I keep up to date on the health and science side of it, and whilst some campaign groups might complain that vaping could be a gateway to actual smoking but the research isn’t there to show this is the case. Yes, it’s not possible to present a long term study as vaping hasn’t been around long enough yet but the science on lung cancer is pretty conclusive.
I can remember a chap I used to work with around ten years ago called Phil Bill (names have been changed to protect the innocent). He actually had a mild addiction to nicotine chewing gum, despite never being a smoker himself. His reason was he liked the hit of the nicotine but wasn’t stupid enough (his words, not mine) to actually smoke. I suppose the gum is okay but the thing about a vape do-dah is it physically replaces the fag, and gives you something to hold and use in the same way. Familiarity and habit is a good part of it, so psychologically I think vaping is probably better for an ex-smoker.
Yes, I smelled like I had a 40 a day habit when I was a kid, and probably passively smoked half of that without actually having any the benefits of actually smoking. That’s why I don’t smoke, I can see the effect it has on kids as I was on the receiving end myself. I suppose it tends to go one of two ways; you either are sworn off them for life or you see smoking normalised and pick it up yourself. Now days we know a lot more about the effects of smoking than we did in the 80’s and I sincerely hope that vaping replaces the ciggie until they are no more.