"“There’s so much we don’t yet know about e-cigarettes,” said Douglas Tipperman, M.S.W., a public health adviser at SAMHSA. “They are not harmless. We don’t know the health impact at the individual or the population level.”
This is the worst that SAMHSA can say about e-cigarettes in their 2014 report, after all the research and data and surveys, they have nothing more than ridiculous statements and bad reasoning. They cannot show that they are not a smoking cessation product, they really cannot back up any negative statements about vaping because the scientific data is not there.
The other bandwagon is whether vaping is a gateway to smoking for youth. Many political sects are calling for regulations to keep the younger generation from vaping, using the argument that it will lead to smoking. But the research and statistics show the opposite. Youth who start with vaping are not crossing over to smoking. Why?
The flavours are why e-cigarettes are not leading youth to smoking traditional cigarettes. First time smokers usually cannot handle the harsh taste of tobacco, the reason most youth choose menthol because of the numbing effect that lessens the harshness. So the youth that are vaping first are going for the flavours, which there is a myriad to choose from. They enjoy the various flavours vaping offers and they are not switching to traditional cigarettes because there are not the choices of flavours. They get used to the sweet and variety of flavours and do not want to smoke traditional cigarettes, they are too harsh.
So the cry for banning E-Liquid flavours could have a reverse effect of what they are looking for in regulating flavours and e-liquids. By taking away the flavours this would cause youth to switch to traditional cigarettes, which actually do have scientific proof of being damaging to your health.
If opponents want to make accusations and the cry for regulations then they need to show some proof of those accusations that can back them up. If the most damaging that they can say is, "We know they are not harmless", then they should do more research that has valid data and statistics to prove their theories.
It seems that there is going to be a long time controversy about e-cigarettes and vaping, whether or not it encourages young people to start vaping and possibly switch to traditional smoking. But for now the research does not back up the claims that it is harmful or that young kids are using vaping as a gateway to smoking traditional cigarettes.
Picture soure:http://vaping.com/blog/tobacco-industry-and-ecig-flavors-the-truth