The truth about e-cigs

By: Dorian Jenkins

Electronic cigarettes are also known as e-cigs. The e-cigs are battery operated devices designed to help someone quit someone by breathing in vapor instead of cigarette smoke. They deliver the nicotine to the users by vapor instead of smoke, while adding flavorings and other chemicals. E-cigarettes can be manufactured to resemble traditional tobacco cigarettes, cigars or pipes, or even everyday items like, pens or USB memory sticks. Newer devices, such as those with fillable tanks, may look different, however. More than 250 different e-cigarette brands are on the market today. A sophomore at Seckman High School, Jack Weindel, says, “I see students smoking different flavors, and different types of e-cigarettes…all the time.”

While e-cigarettes are being promoted as healthier and a better alternative to smoking than traditional cigarettes, many health risks of using these devices are unknown. Most e-cigarettes consist of three different components, including: a cartridge, which holds a liquid solution containing varying amounts of nicotine, flavorings, and other chemicals, a heating device (vaporizer), and a power source (usually a battery). In many of the e-cigarettes, puffing activates the battery-powered heating device, which vaporizes the liquid in the cartridge. The resulting vapor is then inhaled, known as “vaping.”

E- cigarettes have become very popular with teenagers. Most students do not know much information about the e-cig; however, they believe that it is not bad for you and is known as the “cool” thing to do, which just isn’t true. A senior at Seckman High School, Dillon Jenkins, says, “I have smoked an e-cigarette before because I was told that it was the ‘cool’ thing to do at the time; however, I now realize that it is not that cool and it seems just as nasty as smoking a regular cigarette.”  

E-cigarettes are designed to simulate the act of tobacco smoking by producing an appealingly flavored aerosol that looks and feels like tobacco smoke and delivers nicotine but with less of the toxic chemicals produced by burning tobacco leaves. Because they deliver nicotine without burning tobacco, e-cigarettes appear as if they may be a safer, less toxic alternative to conventional cigarettes. That’s just not the case. Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, says, “In the absence of any meaningful regulation, the e-cigarette manufacturers have acted as if it’s the wild, wild West, with no rules and no restraints,” Myers said. Their advertising is exactly the same type of advertising that made cigarettes so appealing to young people decades ago.

Much research still needs to be done on e-cigarettes in order to determine exactly how harmful they are to your body. Many people have said that the e-cigarette has helped them to stop smoking regular cigarettes. Even though it helps people stop smoking, this does not necessarily mean it is good for you.