What is the Real Purpose of the E-cigarette
Without a doubt, when the notion of e-cigarettes comes to mind, it’s essential to point out the significant growth in its use by Americans over the years. Today, it is a booming 2.5 billion dollar business in the US. The industry used a heavy cut as of 2014 to advertise the product to the tune of a whopping 125 million dollars. The target audience is especially the youth and teenagers, who comprise the largest user percentage. Essentially, the manufacturers maintain that e-cigarettes are a better option for nicotine smokers. Subsequently, the marketing and advertising of this alternative form of tobacco have drastically advanced this product’s sales to the youthful American population, and a worrying trend is escalating amongst teenage users. Accordingly, through these advertisements for e-cigarettes, more youth are using them, in stark comparison to those who are not exposed to the advertising. Therefore, it suffices to maintain that the American government should curb the advertisement of e-cigarettes because of the significant abuse by teenagers, largely from the advertisements and marketing.
E-cigarette advertisements and marketing should be regulated for various reasons. First and foremost, e-cigarettes, like the traditional smoking of tobacco, are laced with nicotine, which is highly addictive. Consequently, tobacco usage is fatal due to the health complications it causes, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and pulmonary disease. Furthermore, smoking e-cigarettes is a risk factor for respiratory tract infections, including reproductive disorders, prolonged delays in wound healing, and gastric ulcers, among other ailments, due to nicotine addiction. According to Benowitz (2010), the simulation of dopamine cholinergic receptors in the brain signals the commencement of the pleasurable experience, vital in reinforcing the effects responsible for promoting nicotine self-administration. The nicotine in the e-cigarettes releases dopamine in the mesolimbic area, eventually leading to heavy reliance on cigarettes. A recent study posits that it plays a key role in social maladjustments, “…including poor learning and academic performance, increased aggressive and impulsive behavior, poor sleep quality, attention deficits, impaired memory, and cognition, and increased depression and suicidal ideation” (Tobore, 2019). Accordingly, this phrase implies that the government must take a firm stand against the marketing of these e-cigarettes as an option for traditional tobacco smoking.
Secondly, e-cigarettes contain other toxic substances that are harmful to the body of the users. A study involving an average of 16-year-old users hooked to vaping found that their urinal matter contained metabolites of acrolein, acrylonitrile, crotonaldehyde, acrylamide, and propylene, and the volatile organic compounds were deemed to be carcinogenic (Rubinstein, 2018). For instance, acrolein is often used in the making of acrylic acid; thus, its usage is seen in controlling the plants and algae growing in the irrigation canals. It is also seen as a productive controller of microorganisms and bacteria in oil wells, cooling water towers, liquid hydrocarbon fuels, and water treatment ponds. Therefore, the continued usage of e-cigarettes could escalate the possibility of getting irreversible damage to the lungs over time. Also, in another instance, benzene is used by industries in the formation of other chemicals used to make plastics, nylon, resins, and other synthetic fibers. Its usage also spills over to making various types of lubricants, rubbers, detergents, and pesticides. Consequently, its effect on humans includes the possibility of escalating the ramifications of nerve damage and leukemia. With this in mind, it suffices to assert that the introduction of e-cigarettes to the American market and its advertisement as the best weapon to combat traditional smoking is untrue.
Additionally, the nicotine present in the e-cigarettes exposes the smokers’ unborn children to harmful substances, having negative repercussions for them. The passive exposure to tobacco “…in utero exposure to tobacco smoke causes poor birth outcomes and influences lung, cardiovascular and brain development, placing children at increased risk of a number of adverse health outcomes later in life such as obesity, behavioral problems, and cardiovascular disease” (Peterson, 2017). This trend that makes e-cigarettes seem to be a device of nicotine delivery that diminishes harm appears to provide a leeway to the usage of combustible adolescent smoking cigarettes. Moreover, a study by Peterson found that women who smoke while pregnant in the United States form about 12.8% of the population in the last trimester of their pregnancy, influencing infant morbidity and maternal and fetal mortality. In a recent review of this study, e-cigarette use by pregnant women is closely interlinked with stillbirth, perinatal death, and neonatal death. Subsequently, it is essential to emphasize that the shortening largely affects the telomeres, which are the areas of repetitive and perennial nucleotide sequences at the periphery of each chromosome and protect them from deteriorating with neighboring chromosomes (Peterson, 2017). The shortening is linked with several severe health results, but the most dominant reason is e-cigarette smoking. This discovery shows that e-cigarette smoking is not the better alternative for persons wishing to cease nicotine-infested smoking. Besides, women who smoke e-cigarettes expose their children to secondhand tobacco smoke that leaves children often struggling with asthma, phlegm, cough, breathlessness, wheezes, lower respiratory illness, middle ear diseases, and the aspect of sudden infant death syndrome. Also, the study discovered that about 48.0% of the never-tobacco users reported exposure to secondhand smoke, with 15.5% maintaining that they got it from their homes, 14.1% in vehicles, 27% in the workplace, 35.2% in public or indoors, and 16. 8% within the confines of the learning institutions (Peterson, 2017). Astoundingly, the study quipped that close to half of students in grades 6 through 12 are extensively exposed to secondhand smoking as of 2013, illustrating that secondhand smoking is a tremendous problem.
Also, e-cigarettes neither prevent cigarette smoking among adolescents nor influence the cessation of smoking altogether. In the study, one of the main reasons why using e-cigarettes is popular among adolescents in the United States today is the aspect of curiosity, friends use, good flavors, and the aspect of ‘being cool’ when seen using it by peers. These e-cigarettes do not help alleviate the concerns raised about tobacco smoking because they have been modified to accommodate the youth and teenagers. For instance, they contain pleasing flavors and good smells, are easier to hide from parents and guardians and conform to social norms. Accordingly, unlike traditional smoking, which is banned from usage in public places, these are allowed (Bold, 2016). Subsequently, from these findings, the government needs to ensure that there are considerations for creating and enforcing regulatory bans on e-cigarettes to prevent continued e-cigarette usage among the youth. E-cigarettes are seen to be more affordable than traditional tobacco smoking, whereby the government raised taxes to reduce the excessive usage of it among the populace through tobacco control policies. The rise in taxes proved to be a productive method that can be replicated with e-cigarettes, which are considerably cheaper as a way for the manufacturers to take over traditional smoking completely.
Furthermore, the usage of e-cigarettes only increased the odds for traditional tobacco smokers to get to cheaper ways of smoking after the former got more expensive. As such, e-cigarette smoking did not become a way of cessation but instead became a cheaper alternative. Meaning that the traditional smokers of tobacco had no intention of ceasing to smoke. With this in mind, there should be a bolstered effort by the government and healthcare providers to ensure that they play a vital role in “… screening youth tobacco use, advising abstinence from all tobacco products, and suggesting alternative cessation strategies for youth who are traditional cigarette smokers” (Bold, 2016). Consequently, it would ensure that adolescents whose brains are still in the development stage and very sensitive to tobacco are prevented from damaging the brain cells.
On the other hand, some scholars believe that e-cigarettes are better than traditional smoking in that they help in the gradual change from tobacco smoking to cessation altogether. They dismiss claims of the adversity of the presence of carcinogens as potentially harmful to humans. Also, they argue that they are essentially not cigarettes despite being called e-cigarettes, as they have no tobacco and no combustion. Middlekauff (2015) maintains that tobacco cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor have differently marked constituents. Subsequently, this implies that tobacco smoke is generated by the combustion of the organic material, creating particulates containing high toxic levels. In sharp contrast, “…e-cigarette vapor contains trace to no detectable toxicants, such as volatile organic compounds, carbonyls, tobacco-specific nitrosamines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The level of any of these toxicants in e-cigarettes …is orders of magnitude less than that found in tobacco cigarette emissions” (Middlekauff, 2015). The study also posits that the NRTs (Nicotine Replacement Therapies), approved already by the FDA, have levels of tobacco-specific metals present.
In conclusion, from the discussion above, it is clear that in as much as there are various contentions from the academic spheres, it is clear that the negativities surrounding the question of whether e-cigarettes are harmful are proven widely in the scholarly circle as being entirely detrimental to the health of the populace. With this in mind, it suffices to assert that the government should deny the advertisement run by the manufacturers of the e-cigarettes as it is entirely misleading.
References
Benowitz, N. L. (2010). Nicotine addiction. New England Journal of Medicine, 362(24), 2295-2303.
Bold, K. W., Kong, G., Cavallo, D. A., Camenga, D. R., & Krishnan-Sarin, S. (2016). Reasons for trying e-cigarettes and risk of continued use. Pediatrics, 138(3).
Middlekauff, H. R. (2015). COUNTERPOINT: does the risk of electronic cigarettes exceed potential benefits? No. Chest, 148(3), 582-584.
Peterson, L. A., & Hecht, S. S. (2017). Tobacco, e-cigarettes, and child health. Current opinion in pediatrics, 29(2), 225.
Rubinstein, M. L., Delucchi, K., Benowitz, N. L., & Ramo, D. E. (2018). Adolescent exposure to toxic volatile organic chemicals from e-cigarettes. Pediatrics, 141(4).
Tobore, T. O. (2019). On the potential harmful effects of E-Cigarettes (EC) on the developing brain: The relationship between vaping-induced oxidative stress and adolescent/young adults social maladjustment. Journal of Adolescence, 76, 202-209.
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Question 
IND101 Final Paper
Submit a completed 3-5 page (approx. 750- 1250 words) research paper on your topic choice made in Module 1 that incorporates your work from Milestones 1-6. Use the Final Project Template for an example of how to create and format your final paper.
What is the Real Purpose of the E-cigarette
It should include:
- At least 4 references
- A title page and reference page in APA style
- In-text citations in APA format
- An introductory paragraph with your clear, one-sentence thesis statement (this should NOT be underlined at this point)
- Body paragraphs that use information from the sources as evidence to prove the thesis statement
- A conclusion paragraph that offers final thoughts and reiterates the thesis statement
- Proper spelling, syntax, and grammar
- Improvements based on your instructor’s feedback on your previous milestone work (i.e. to the thesis statement, introduction, organization, use of sources,APA style, etc .)