Joshua Ceballos & Nicole Stone/Assistant News Directors
Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death, killing about half of those who use it, according to the World Health Organization; and some students have turned to electronic cigarettes, or more commonly, e-cigs, to help stop.
Michael Berlfein, a senior majoring in biology, said he used to smoke a pack of cigarettes every day after picking up the habit at UCF, his former university.
“I ended up getting all the way up to a pack a day for over a year and a half. Through my time there, I just did not feel good, but I knew I was addicted to cigarettes,” Berlfein said.
That is, until he was introduced to e-cigs by a friend. Like others who go from smoking cigarettes to smoking e-cigs, Berlfein stressed that the switch was beneficial to his health and while e-cigs aren’t necessarily healthy, they are a better alternative.
“Here’s the thing,” he said, “if you want me to be completely honest, e-cigs are not good for you, but, if you’re comparing them from someone who’s coming from smoking cigarettes to this, it’s like being able to get drunk and not having to worry about getting a hangover.”
Juan Alfonso, a graduate student and teaching assistant, also said he was a pack-a-day smoker, but e-cigarettes have been a helpful tool in quitting.
“When I smoked cigarettes, I always had bad breath, I smelled funny and I guess it was hurting my physical fitness, though I never really noticed until I stopped using them,” Alfonso said.
He has been an e-cig user for five years now, stating that the switch from cigarettes to e-cigs was incited by his concern for his health.
“I was getting older and I realized that I needed to make healthier choices but I was addicted to nicotine so I figured that a couple chemicals that are bad for me is better than a thousand chemicals that are bad for me,” Alfonso said.
Nicotine, according to an article by Kate Kelland in the Scientific American, is a stimulant, which increases alertness and can be addictive. Though, how bad it is for one’s health is still under debate in both political and scientific arenas.
Berlfein acknowledged this.
“Is it completely healthy for you? No. But is it a much better alternative for someone who smokes? Absolutely,” he said.
Such were the findings of a 2014 study, which reports that e-cigs may have up to 450 times less carcinogenic and toxic compounds than cigarettes using analysis methods such as chromatography and spectroscopy to identify the presence of toxicants in e-cig vapor.
However, it seems that many people are still unsure about e-cigarettes, which may be preventing cigarette smokers from benefiting from a switch.
A 2015 study published in a journal called Nicotine and Tobacco Research conducted a national survey to determine how adolescents felt electronic cigarettes influences one’s health. With a sample size of 24,658 participants, the researchers – Stephen Amrock, Joseph Zakhar, Sherry Zhou and Michael Weitzman – determined that 50 percent of all American youth were aware of the existence of e-cigs,with just 34.2 percent of who indicated that they believed e-cigs were less harmful than cigarettes.
Austin Ulrey, who has never smoked a cigarette, started using an e-cig in high school and has continued to smoke it four years later.
To Ulrey, the appeal of e-cigs is in their convenience.
“You use it, you’re done with it, you fill it up with the juice that you have. It lasts longer than a pack of cigarettes and its less nicotine than a pack of cigarettes,” the sophomore biology major said.
And while nicotine is still present in many vapor liquids, there are some zero nicotine liquids on the market, according to Berlfein; however, he’s not supportive of those who pick up the habit of e-cig use for appearances sake.
“Personally, I don’t agree with the kids who just get out of high school and think its cool because they don’t want to smoke cigarettes,” Berlfein said.
For Berlfein, who aims to stop smoking entirely by the age of 30, the important thing is that people use e-cigs as a tool to recover from cigarette addiction.
“As long as you’re preventing yourself from smoking cigarettes, in my eyes, it’s okay, just have an end goal with it,” he said.
Feature Image courtesy of www.vapedirect.com/Flickr
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