25 May 2023
Nine percent of school children under the age of 15, in the UK, have reported that they have vaped in 2023, but this percentage could be a lot higher as not many people are going to confess that they vape. In 2023 vapes have been found to have double the amount of lead and nickel than the legal allowance. This is extremely alarming as this is an illegal amount of lead to be put in vapes. Chromium and nickel have been found in multiple e-cigarettes brands. Eight have been linked to respiratory diseases, including lung cancer.
As vaping evolves, the amount of nicotine changes over time. Companies like Elf Bars and Lost Mary have been using nicotine salts. According to the BBC, as this is cheaper and they can make the same amount of profit on the vapes.
Vaping is an alternative option to smoking and has proven to be a way into quitting smoking . Infact some research shows that vaping just gets one addicted. On average, a vaper spends 2000 pounds on vapes annually.
Vaping is a big problem in schools. In 2022, seven percent of 11-17 year olds were current users. I, Yegor, decided to interview our DSL, safeguarding head of our school. I asked some questions about vaping in our school.
‘What is your opinion on vaping?’, I asked. In his opinion, it is better than cigarettes but it is still bad.
He said this school hasn’t had to deal with vaping as much, because this is a prep school and it is very unlikely that anyone might bring them to school, but there is no doubt some may outside of school. Talking about vape alarms he said, “We will only consider them if it is a real issue.”
When we asked him if there was a case in school, he said yes, once, they have already left.( they will be left anonymous ). They have stolen their dads vape, came to school and vaped in the police box.
We have taken a survey to see which vape looked the best. We had one colourful one, one a bit less colourful and 2 black ones. We had thirteen votes all together and elven for the first one. This proves how more colorful vapes like Lost Mary are targeting children.
A school in Scotland, has put smoke detectors in the toilets. Two boys called Oscar and Leon have confiscated these vapes and have examined them.
The boys say it’s easy to ignore the risks. “You won’t really care, if you’re addicted to it –you’ll just forget about it,”. Oscar said.
Leon said “regulations and policing should be doing more to tackle the problem they’re not really as bothered as they should be,” he said. We can clearly see that through this schools information, way too many people are addicted to vaping.
Vape boxes also do not have the disgusting images like cigarette boxes do as the images mostly put people off. Vapes are colored and this attracts teenagers and younger people to go and start to vape. These include vapes like Crystal and Elf bar.
By Yegor S and Freddie S