Pick your poison

Farhnaz Fazli | Contributor

Featured image: Which is the lesser of two evils? | Isabella Mendes

Electronic-cigarettes (also known as e-cigarettes) are a relatively new product on the market. They are battery-activated to release vapour, which can be inhaled to mimic the appearance and feeling of using a cigarette. While cigarettes burn tobacco leaves, e-cigarettes contain a liquid composed of chemicals like propylene glycol, flavourings, and often nicotine.

Nicotine is a drug that is severely detrimental to one’s overall health, due to its addictive properties. However, advocates for e-cigarettes argue that their product, though it contains nicotine,” is safer than regular cigarettes, due to reduced exposure to carbon monoxide and tar that comes from regular cigarette smoke.

Carbon monoxide is a gas that is readily absorbed by the bloodstream and rapidly affects a person’s physiological functioning, and is found in high levels in cigarettes. The average daily smoker will breathe 12 puffs per cigarette, which translates to 240 puffs a day, and over 87,000 a year.

Vapes also deliver a lower quantity of nicotine to the bloodstream in comparison to cigarettes. Regular smokers continue to smoke to maintain a certain level of nicotine in their bodies to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

Due to these characteristics, e-cigarettes have been considered a better substitute or therapy for cigarette smokers that wish to slowly quit and wean themselves off of cigarettes.

However, oftentimes smokers will use higher quantities of a substitute substance to gain the same effects of the original.

A study from 2014 found that vaping allows cigarette smokers to cope with the behavioural (holding a cigarette) and physical (nicotine) component of nicotine addiction, something other nicotine replacement therapies do not provide.

However, other studies have found that vaping is far from risk-free, and is not the most reliable source of therapy for nicotine addiction. Nicotine, regardless of how it is delivered, puts the individual at risk for developing an addiction and exposure to toxins and carcinogens. A few short-term side effects of smoking include throat irritation and inflammation of the mouth and lung tissue.

When tested as an effective therapy, there simply isn’t enough data to conclude its effectiveness.

The majority of students at York who were asked which they preferred between vaping and cigarettes responded with cigarettes.

While vaping is relatively new and requires long-term studies to ensure its safety, the debate about whether vaping is better than smoking is inconclusive, according to the World Health Organization. This could explain why many students”and perhaps others, too” have stuck to the familiarity of cigarettes.

The uncertainty behind e-cigarettes and their long-term effects are perhaps just as frightening as the known consequences of cigarette smoking, such as lung cancer.

Many smokers have stuck to their habits and find it difficult to make the switch”especially if their effects will reap the same benefits and consequences.