It’s no secret that things evolve over time. Technology, jobs, even people.
One thing that people may not think of when they think of things that have evolved over the years is smoking. Specifically, how smoking started to decrease in popularity while vaping had an increase in popularity.
Smoking has been around for a long time, longer than what people would think. Brazilians invented the cigarette in 100 AD by rolling tobacco leaves in paper. In 1588, an Iranian physician invented the hookah pipe. John Rolfe, one of the early English settlers of North America, sold the first tobacco cash crop in 1612.
The pure form of nicotine wasn’t discovered until 1828. In 1850, cigarette making machines were invented to produce more cigarettes at a faster pace. Boris Aivaz, a Hungarian inventor, invented the cigarette filter made of crepe paper in 1925.
Despite this long history of smoking and the cigarette, U.S. scientists didn’t discover that smoking causes cancer until the 1950s. Tobacco advertising, except in sport, was banned in the U.K. in 1965 and in the U.S. in 1970. In 1966, health warnings on cigarette packs began popping up.
Airplanes didn’t get split into smoking and non-smoking sections until 1973. In 1995, California became the first state to ban smoking in the workplace. Delaware became the first state to comprehensively ban smoking in restaurants, bars and the workplace in 2002.
The electronic cigarette, e-cig, was born in 2006. Vaping only got more popular as time went on.
The more that vaping is growing in today’s society, the more it is frowned upon.
Some adults started vaping because they heard it helped them quit smoking. In a study published by The New England Journal of Medicine, it was found that “smokers who switched to e-cigarettes were much more likely to quit than those turning to nicotine patches, gum, or similar products.”
Those who vape have even said that vaping helps them feel relaxed. However, one thing that vapers may not know, is that vaping is a gateway to smoking.
“But now I think the question is whether or not we are masking another potentially addictive product under the label of a quote-unquote ‘healthy’ cessation tool,” said Dr. Yvonnes Chen, a professor of mass communications at the University of Kansas, in an article published by The Christian Science Monitor.
Another thing that those who vape may not realize is that the health risks of vaping have not been studied as much as the health risks of smoking cigarettes.
Even though e-cigs do not have the harmful chemicals that cigarettes have — urea (a major component of urine), benzene (a petrol addictive), formaldehyde (embalming fuel), ammonia (toilet cleaner), carbon monoxide (car exhaust fumes), arsenic (rat poison), hydrogen cyanide (poison gas chamber) — e-cigs still contain nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical that can cause a plethora of health problems.
Some even believe that vaping is becoming a hobby. Not only are people modifying their vapes to be exactly how they like them, but some people are even having vape parties. At vape parties, people get together to try different vaping flavors.
Even though people have realized the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes, not as many have realized how harmful vaping can be. It is not as bad to start vaping to help quit the cigarette habit, but there are those who just started vaping for no reason other than they saw their friends do it or they wanted to seem cool.
Photo by Tate Walden
