Since we're on the topic of regulation etc, I thought I'd put this up for discussion here. One of my work colleagues and I got chatting while having a vape, and she was telling me how her friend caught her 14yr old son smoking. He said that he didn't really like smoking but wanted an ecig like hers because "all the other kids had them" at their school. So this friend is now considering buying her 14yr old son an ecig and zero Nic liquid to keep him off the cigarettes.
Until thus point, I had always assumed ecigs would be "uncool" with kids, but it seems they offer an undetectable way for kids to "smoke" which they still see as cool. I was a bit unsure how I felt about the idea of a 14yr old vaping. Surely, given an absolute choice between cigarettes and zero Nic ecig, the ecig is the lesser of two evils, but it didn't feel right to me. What do you guys think about this? Does it justify concerns about vaping renormalising smoking? Would these kids be smoking anyway, so this is at least safer? What are the long term repurcussions?
Until thus point, I had always assumed ecigs would be "uncool" with kids, but it seems they offer an undetectable way for kids to "smoke" which they still see as cool. I was a bit unsure how I felt about the idea of a 14yr old vaping. Surely, given an absolute choice between cigarettes and zero Nic ecig, the ecig is the lesser of two evils, but it didn't feel right to me. What do you guys think about this? Does it justify concerns about vaping renormalising smoking? Would these kids be smoking anyway, so this is at least safer? What are the long term repurcussions?