E-cigs a dangerous health epidemic, teens and youth health at risk - report
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy calls e-cigs an emerging health threat for youth and teens. The meaning is crystal clear in the report: any product added with nicotine including e-cigs is ultimately not safe for the health because nicotine has a direct effect on the pre-frontal cortex.
Dr. Adam Leventhal, the director of USC'S Health, Emotion and Addiction Laboratory said that youth who start vaping at a tender age are more likely to develop traditional smoking habit soon.
Even the aerosol from electronic cigarettes is not safe. The most people to come under concern are children, teens, and youth because the brain keeps developing until the age of 25. Nicotine, as researchers maintain, can damage the outer layer of the cerebrum which improves executive function, executive decision-making, and impulse control, reports ABC 7.
E-cigs started as a rare product in 2010 and became frighteningly common nicotine product among the youth. The hard-fought progress spread over 50 years for curbing tobacco intake is threatened by the speedy development of e-cigs, said Murthy. The new generation is at the risk of addiction, writes USA Today.
While Vapor Technology Association maintains that the Surgeon General is not admitting that millions of adults, who depend on vaping, actually stay away from the lethal organic cigarettes. However, Leventhal expresses his clear fear of youth getting addicted to nicotine once they enjoy e-cigs.
E-cigs are leading the whole new generation to nicotine addiction, and this can lead to other related tobacco products reversing all the progress made by anti- nicotine and anti-tobacco efforts.
Murthy says that e-cigs are the most commonly used tobacco-linked product among the youth. Meanwhile, young people are found to be eagerly buying the "liquid" nicotine in different favorite flavors like ice-cream and smoothies.
Vapor Technology Association focuses on the fact that e-cigs do not contain tar, but it cannot say that the liquid nicotine is harmless for the developing brain of the youth!
Murthy is right when it gives an action call to the parents and says that their kids are not a tool to experiment liquid nicotine effects.
Vaping industry, to maintain a strong foothold, argues that restrictions against e-cigs will remove the small companies for other harmful tobacco products that people will eventually depend on.
Murthy's report urges parents and health workers to become alerted to the fact the e-cig vaping is increasing among the teens and youth and frame policies that stand as a deterrent to the epidemic!