The slow drawl of vapour is followed by the slow exhale as a fruity smell fills the room.
As more and more people turn to vaping to get their nicotine fix, the health implications start to add up.
E-cigarettes were introduced into the market as an item advertised to help people quit smoking, originally being brought into Canada in 2004 and becoming popular between 2013 and 2015.
Due to fruit, and sugary flavours, vaping appeals to a crowd much different from the original intentions. According to childmind.org, around 2.1 million middle school and high school students were e-cigarette users in 2017.
Andrew Morrell, an employee at One Stop Vape Shop, talked about how flavours can be appealing to a younger audience.
“They may see it as a better alternative to smoking. It’s like how smoking used to be popular as well there is better flavours and it’s not quite as harsh on the lungs,” said Morrell.
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The vape shop employee said that the unregulated black-market vaping products can cause larger problems in the community, as without regulations, medical situations can arise.
For some people who were a part of the community that started vaping at a young age, they have reached a point where they now want to quit.
Jay Logan is a general studies student at Lethbridge College who started vaping and using nicotine products while underage and now has reached a situation where he wants to stop vaping all together.
Logan has attempted to quit multiple times, but has struggled and relapsed.
“Trying to quit time and time again, I have tried to quit and haven’t. It isn’t the flavours or vaping; it’s the nicotine. I like the nicotine,” said Logan.
He talked about he wants his life to not have this issue in his life, but it has it become a part of his life now.
For Logan, he talked about how he wants to quit because he has been offered chances to go high level in some track events, but to his lung issues had to turn them down.
“I know I have a chance to go far in track and I don’t want vaping to be the reason this doesn’t work out,” said Logan.
In some people’s cases, vaping has become a strong factor in their lives that, now holds strong side and with that the steps are being taken in an attempt to overcome addiction.
