We now have a new generation of youngsters who wouldn’t ever think of lighting a cigarette but will vape endlessly, writes Catriona Thomson.
Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, a lot of people smoked.
As a child, you could play copycat with a quick drag on a paper-wrapped candy cigarette. Once you perfected the art, you could then move on to the real deal, by either pinching them from a relative or buying a single fag from various newsagents.
To me, the 1980s adverts featuring Superman facing off against evil Nick O’Teen made it pretty clear that smoking was bad, and that you could get hooked from just one cigarette.
Following years of anti-smoking public health messages, things changed. I clearly remember M&C Saatchi’s advert for Silk Cut, with the purple-clad opera singer, which marked the end of their advertising in the UK.
Increasingly large and stark warnings and graphic images appeared on packets of fags – until now, when cigarettes and tobacco are sold in plain wrappers, hidden out of sight behind blank shutters.
Vaping arrived in the UK in 2005 as a way to help smokers give up or find a less harmful way to get their fix. But, since then, the market has been flooded with various different colourful devices, and a bewildering array of sweet flavours; it comes as no surprise that vaping has enticed younger people hoping to look edgy and cool.
We have taken our collective eye off the ball
Scotland became the first country in the UK to ban smoking in public places – 17 years ago, on March 26, 2006 – and I was delighted to kiss goodbye to that stale fag odour on a night out.
Vaping may not be as bad for your health as smoking, but we now have a new generation of youngsters who wouldn’t ever think of lighting a cigarette but will vape endlessly.
Not every teen vapes, but you’d be surprised by how many do. I certainly was, when I spotted my 14-year-old shrouded in a cloud of vape smoke, heading back into school after lunchtime.
That’s despite the fact that it has been the law in the UK since October 2015 that you must be 18 or over to use or purchase e-cigarettes or e-liquids for vapes. And it is illegal for anyone over 18 to purchase vaping products on behalf of someone underage.
The reality is that teenagers can buy vaping paraphernalia and fluid as easily as they can buy sweets, crisps and caffeinated energy drinks.
In places like Mexico, India, Vatican City, Nicaragua and Cambodia, e-cigarettes are completely banned. Here in the UK, we have taken our collective eye off the ball and allowed the same addictive substance that is in cigarettes, nicotine, to be easily acquired by non-smoking teenagers.
This vape generation has its head in the clouds, oblivious to the possible long-term health consequences of a habit that they think is no big deal.
Catriona Thomson is a freelance food and drink writer
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