One issue most Australians have heard or seen about in the media over the last year is the issue of vaping in schools.
It clearly has headmasters, teachers, parents and concerned citizens across Australia in an almighty panic about the health of our next generation.
When you consider that we are being told that kids are vaping everywhere and its big tobacco’s way of hooking a whole new generation, why wouldn’t you panic?
Most of us have a family member or know of someone that has lost someone near and dear due to to the perils of smoking, so it's understandable we feel extremely pissed off with Big Tobacco with a heartfelt deep emotional hurt for what is happening right now.
We should feel absolutely disgusted by the dirty tricks of what Big Tobacco companies have done in the name of profit. Only last week Tobacco Giant PMI announced how their combustible smoking business was increasing.
That’s the last thing anyone (with a heart) wants to hear!
Surely, we would prefer tomorrow’s leaders to be gaining an amazing education where they can help us all learn how to live on this planet for a better tomorrow, rather than being side tracked by having to be grabbed out of a school toilet block as they suck on Chinese robotic fairy floss smothered in nicotine, right?
Where do youth even get the crazy ideas in their mind that would make them want to even try and get hooked on nicotine via an adult device that helps more smokers quit smoking than any other nicotine replacement therapies?
In the 80’s and 90’s we were trying to keep our youth away from hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. At that time there was an interesting program in the USA called D.A.R.E. that was rolled out through their education system.
Their aim was to use the social influence approach to drug-use prevention.
The program would proactively teach the youth the perils of drug use by understanding what drugs do and where to avoid getting hold of them.
Sounds noble enough in theory and should be great right?
What happened was a well-documented disaster, some say that it may have significantly contributed to increases in drug related street crime in the following years, where many ultimately paid with their life.
Several governments are taking initiatives to prevent the surge of illegal vaping among teens across Australia by encouraging government funded programs throughout private and public schools.
During these programs, students learn about the different types of vaping devices, the liquids and where to buy them.
As the infamous D.A.R.E. program found out, that tact often leads to sparking curiosity about things they shouldn’t use, especially at such an impressionable yet rebellious stage of their lives.
As a parent or teacher, you should know that if you lie, or tell half truths for the sakes of protection of a teen, they will come back at you with fight or flight when they learn that you either didn’t know the truth or even worse, found out you lied to them, even if it was to protect them.
An interesting study done with Australian school children indicated that conformity decreases with age. In other words, there is a far less chance that kids will do as they are told or taught, the younger they are.
Regardless of that, so called experts have been called in to assist our schools to help divert the panic and help our precious youth steer clear of nicotine vaping products.
They have rolled out a video to be seen as much as possible throughout the schools that shows the youth how to use vapes and where to buy them.
Wait what? What’s wrong with that?
It's fair to say by the rising use of teens using vaping products, it's been an astounding success.
A recent new study by George institute disturbingly quotes
"Most of what we know about student vaping comes from research conducted in secondary schools in the United States"
As you read on you will find out why that is particularly disturbing.
“Our study suggests many Australian students can readily access e-cigarettes and that vaping in schools is becoming more prevalent, including in primary schools,”
said Professor Pettigrew.
I see myself as fairly tech savvy, but there is a kid who knows how to do something
2 years before I do these days, so what would make things any different when it comes to vaping?
Most youth know there is a very small element of risk from nicotine vaping, they know they shouldn’t do it and that is well before a video that makes most teens think
“why are you showing me this old man, I already know this?” is put before their eyes.
The video even encourages parents to stop vaping.
One dangerous thing to do with our current generation is to lie to them.
They have had enough of previous generations mismanagement of climate issues and many other issues that are the result of problems caused by previous generations.
Do youth need any other catalysts to rebel?
The more that youth are being forced into Soloman Asch style conformity studies adapted for smoking and vaping in schools around the country,
the more it is likely youth will push back and rebel, particularly when it contains misinformation!
Here's a small example for an actual teachers guide in NSW schools:
1. “Activities 1, 2 and 3 are designed to see what students know and all viewpoints about the use of tobacco products including vaping in Australia.
2. Designate each corner of the classroom as either ‘Strongly Agree’, ‘Agree’, ‘Disagree’ or ‘Strongly Disagree.
3. The Teacher or a designated student reads a statement out loud to the class.
4. Students to the designated corner of the classroom which represents their opinion/values.
Youths learn things they can recite to their former smoking vaping parents, so they can recite things like:
Hey Mum/Dad!,
“More than 60 people worldwide have now died from vaping and thousands more have become very sick.” (contained with in actual teachers guide)
There could be panic instilled in that vaping parent.
Considering the reason why more than 99% of parents vape is to quit deadly smoking with a 95% safer alternative, it’s possible they may go back to smoking.
The fact is, in 19 years with 100 million people vaping across the planet, there has never been one evidenced death caused by vaping nicotine, NOT ONE EVER.
Maybe a lot of headmasters, teachers, parents and concerned citizens have been fooled into thinking that vaping nicotine is a massive Big Tobacco conspiracy that is going to cause massive health issues, as mass media campaigns would have you believe.
There is a reason why most youth know how to use the remote control better and play computer games better than their older mentors, because they’re not imbeciles.
They won’t stand for lies, especially if a vulnerable youth goes home, tells their parent(s) that vaping could kill them and their parent dies from smoking sooner than they should have as a result.
How justifiably dam angry would that youth be then?
That could cause an intergenerational war with those who lied/misinformed them in the future!
Youth often know technology products like vaping better than their teachers and well before they are being taught about it, especially when it comes to vaping.
Most youth know that vaping is far safer than smoking as much as the kids hiding behind the smokers shed these days know there is less chance of being caught because most of the school resources are going towards stamping out vaping.
The other irony is that this is an adult problem that has become a youth related issue when it didn’t have to be. There have been opportunities to regulate vaping to help smokers quit in a similar way to what is currently applied to the really deadly products like smoking or alcohol, yet our government has failed!
Hence a massive black market of illegal disposable vapes keeps flooding our schools, panicking
ill-informed headmasters, teachers, parents, and other concerned citizens.
Until some sensible regulatory framework is installed the youth vaping numbers will keep skyrocketing!
Our governments need to quit supplying misinformation to the public and school systems because during this time there are those youth, hundreds of thousands of
ex smoking adult vapers, and ethical academics who know better who are fast losing respect and faith in our public health system.
In this age of pandemics, that is a very dangerous position to contemplate.
Unnaturally, youth are forced into peer agreement about information that they will rarely question, mainly because they know better and the information is delivered in a way that is more about what corner the cool people stand in, rather than independently thinking for themselves.
Its past time Australia educated youth and adults with the truth about vaping otherwise Australia could continue to see more of our loved ones go up in smoke!
We need to be honest and let people know that the reason why Big Tobacco profits are going up is because of the demand for deadly cigarettes rather than zero death nicotine vaping products.
If we want to harm the profit margins of big tobacco companies, support adults switching to far safer alternatives like vaping products.
Big tobacco companies don’t run proper vape shops in Australia, most are independent small business owners.
The products sold in vape shops are mostly from independent technology companies, not big tobacco companies.
Any of the small amount of vapes that are sold via partly owned big tobacco companies, make them far less profit than deadly combustible cigarettes.
Support smarter regulation and enforcement of age of sale for all vaping retailers.
Licence retailers selling vaping products allowing them to retail nicotine containing products responsibly as they do in every other modern country that enjoy declining smoking rates far faster than Australia.
Stamp out dodgy illegal operators with tough penalties.
That’s similar to how we regulate smokes and youth smoking rates have never been as low as they are now!
It’s important to take a balanced approach and consider the risks and benefits of vaping products as we progress according to a study Quit Victoria recently shared on their twitter feed yesterday.
The panic has to stop, unless we would prefer to keep telling half-truths to intelligent yet rebellious youth and make big tobacco even bigger and more profitable?
Recently low nicotine cigarettes were approved by the US FDA for sale across America.
Most smokers and former smokers will tell you the lower the nicotine is, it usually ends up in smoking even more.
What has that got to do with youth vaping?
Companies who sell low nicotine cigarettes would love to get similar open sesame rights here in Australia.
It’s important to understand that nicotine is not the part of a smoke that kills people, although many may not understand that yet, rather it is the smoke and the tar that is the real killer.
That’s why people die from smoking and not from vaping nicotine.
To get low nicotine cigarettes approved by the FDA, the companies who sell them relied on a study that was based on giving 15-19 year olds cigarettes.
Could this happen in Australia?
Remember near the beginning of this article I said to keep this quote in mind:
"Most of what we know about student vaping comes from research conducted in secondary schools in the United States"?
Will we learn by the mistakes made in the USA or will we replicate them?
So far most of what is happening now with vaping in schools in Australia happened in the USA a few years ago.
It created panic and an illicit market for vaping products to youth.
Sadly there were actually 68 deaths attributed to vaping, but it wasn’t from vaping nicotine, it was caused by street cut vitamin E acetate in THC cannabis eLiquids.
Despite what some may say, there has been NO evidence of ANY death caused by vaping nicotine EVER!
So now there is a few things to consider here before we continue on a path of misinformation to Australian youths about nicotine vaping.
Do we tell them the truth of why kids died in the USA, or scaremonger them and their vaping parents while insulting their intelligence?
Do we follow the same trends that see our youth become exposed to harmful tar and smoke-filled cigarettes while being used as guinea pigs so our government can justify allowing new low nicotine smokes on the Australian market?
Or do Australians become the clever country again by regulating all nicotine products sensibly and decrease smoking rates, so we can all begin paying less in taxes and enjoy more time with a loved one?
It’s past time to get honest with ourselves with this issue, because if we don’t the ramifications could be very dire!
A Canadian doctor has already sent a youth home after misdiagnosing a health issue that he thought was caused by vaping on the back of misinformation, that young man died with a totally unrelated issue the following day.
That could be your child, your son or daughter, your niece or nephew adding just another reason why the misinformation about vaping must stop now!
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