E-CIGARETTE
– SCI & TECH
News:
Urgent action needed to
protect children and prevent the uptake of e-cigarettes
What's
in the news?
●
Urgent action is needed to control
e-cigarettes to protect children, as well as non-smokers and minimize health
harms to the population.
Key
takeaways:
●
E-cigarettes as consumer products are not
shown to be effective for quitting tobacco use at the population level.
Instead, alarming evidence has emerged on adverse population health effects.
Concerns:
●
E-cigarettes have been allowed on the open
market and aggressively marketed to young people.
●
Thirty-four
countries ban the sale of e-cigarettes, 88 countries have no minimum age at
which e-cigarettes can be bought and 74 countries have no regulations in place
for these harmful products.
E-cigarettes:
●
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat a solution of nicotine and
different flavours to create an aerosol, which is then inhaled.
●
These belong to a category of vapour-based nicotine products called
Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS).
Government
ban:
●
In 2019,
the Indian government banned the production, manufacture, import, export, transport,
sale, distribution, storage and advertisement of all ENDS.
Ingredients:
●
E-liquid is composed of five ingredients: vegetable glycerin (a material used in
all types of food and personal care products, like toothpaste) and propylene glycol (a solvent most
commonly used in fog machines.)
●
Propylene glycol is the ingredient that
produces thicker clouds of vapor.
●
The World Health Organisation says, adding
that these solutions and emissions also contain some solutions that are
considered to be “toxicants”.
●
The aerosol containing a suspension of
fine particles and gases simulates cigarette smoke. Following a puff, the
aerosol is delivered to the user’s mouth and lungs and the rest is exhaled.
Impacts
of E-cigarette:
●
The use of ENDS or e-cigarettes adversely
affects almost all the human body systems with impact across the life course,
from the womb to tomb.
●
The cartridges used in ENDS or
e-cigarettes are filled with liquid nicotine, flavouring agents and other
chemicals.
●
A typical cartridge contains about as much
nicotine as a pack of 20 regular cigarettes and can act as a potential source
for nicotine addiction.
●
Studies on these nicotine solvents had
shown a varied degree of release of potential
carcinogens depending on the battery output voltage.
●
The liquid-vaporizing solutions also
contain toxic chemicals and metals that have been demonstrated to be
responsible for several adverse health effects, including cancers and diseases
of the heart, lungs and brain.