Bizarre new fad favours cigarettes over vaping

Is smoking cigarettes a great way to quit vaping?

If you’ve spent the last year of your life at university amongst students, you can almost guarantee that you have been around someone vaping. It has taken Aotearoa by storm, plaguing every smoking area, classroom and university hall.

Vaping was originally marketed as a safer and tastier way to get a nicotine fix, with big brands like Juul stating that their goal is to “save the lives of billions of smokers”. The irony in this statement is Juul has been pumping kids with more nicotine than they can handle, effectively being more detrimental to teens and young adults than smoking would have been.

Recently, there has been an influx of young people pulling the uno reverse card and instead using cigarettes as a way to stop vaping. Although this sounds completely stupid as we all grew up with huge ‘no smoking’ campaigns, vaping could be considered more addictive than cigarettes.

Pubmed states that the average disposable vape has around 40-50mg of nicotine whereas a cigarette has 10mg. However, you only inhale roughly 1-2mg due to not all of the smoke reaching the lungs. This means that on an average day, vapers may consume as much nicotine as a chain smoker.

Perhaps the shame behind lighting up a cigarette is the motivating factor in this bizarre new fad. Having to go outside, alienate yourself from anyone close by and think about what you are doing is the best way to make you realise how dangerous smoking truly is. And in case that doesn’t work, the smell on your fingers, clothes and breath will linger and make anyone you speak to in the next 30 minutes aware of your habit. Isolating your friends and smelling worse may be the most motivating factors for someone who is seriously committed to quitting

Nina Cameron, a 20-year-old student, has been unsuccessful in her mission to quit vaping since the end of summer. When told about this recent phenomenon, she says she “never thought about switching to cigarettes” due to the bad odour. She also says, “Vaping is a lot more socially acceptable; you can't just whip out a cigarette and have a quick puff, you have to commit to the whole thing and all the associations it comes with.”

Addiction isn’t a straight line and trying to quit a daily habit is an extremely difficult task. Instead of going to buy a pack of cigarettes, go visit the student's health and discuss other options with a professional that will be better for your health.