If you’re yet to get into the movement that’s vaping, then it’s likely you associate it with young people; probably most of all turned on, tuned in, digital- and Internet-savvy millennials, right? Chances are it barely ever occurs to you that someone over the age of, say, 50 is interested in, eager to and goes about ditching tobacco smoking for the decidedly 21st Century activity that’s vaping. But perhaps it ought to. Because, while vaping and the understanding of and use of its associated equipment (including e-cigarettes, e-juices, mods and batteries and so on) require decent appreciation of state-of-the-art modern technology, older generations are embracing it. And how!
Age is just a number when vaping
Every age group is concerned with its health and, by extension, individuals at every age tend to be concerned as to whether they’re living healthy lives, but there’s no question that older generations – experiencing, as they do, the time in life when we’re usually most faced by the reality of health risks – are considerate of their health practically every day.
It should be no surprise then really that older people are increasingly turning to vaping as an activity because they’re well aware that it carries with it far fewer health risks than smoking tobacco does. And, after all, reinforcing the point above, it’s older generations that – more than any other age group – experiences the health problems, often dire, that smoking results in.
The reality is that addictive chemical, nicotine (which, yes, vaping devices like e-cigarettes and mods contain just as do conventional cigarettes), isn’t what’s actually hazardous about smoking. It’s the other highly harmful, mostly carcinogenic toxins that tobacco ciggies also contain – but which e-cigs and mods don’t – that do all the harm to our bodies. In fact, of all the known 70 carcinogens in traditional tobacco cigs, none of them occur in e-cigs. To that end then, converting to vaping from smoking is what experts refer to as ‘harm reduction’; that is to feed one’s need for an addictive kick (the body’s need for nicotine) through much safer means. Indeed, it’s believed that older people are even more susceptible to the damaging effects of carcinogens than their younger counterparts, so the benefits of switching to vaping for those in their advanced years then are pretty patently obvious.
How does vaping fit in the culture of quitting tobacco?
This is more contentious. Less so in the UK (although, truthfully, there’s still a good deal of resistance to it), vaping is seen in other countries as pretty much simply an alternative to smoking, rather than a far less harmful activity; let alone what that can help people quit tobacco and live considerably heathier, arguably longer, lives. For instance, in the United States, its highly influential, Government-back Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officially doesn’t back vaping as a ‘quitting solution’; something that understandably frustrates companies that manufacture e-cigs, mods, e-juices and further vaping paraphernalia, as they’re only too aware of the study results that have proved quite the contrary.
Actually, the FDA claims that many young e-cig and mod users vape in ‘tandem’ with smoking; to some extent this is undoubtedly true, but what’s also true is that many don’t. And that’s precisely because vaping does work to help get people off tobacco-packed traditional cigarettes and so are more and more moving over completely to vaping. And a significant proportion of them are older people who are taking up vaping as an activity or even as an extended hobby.
What vaping can do for you – whatever your age
As discussed above then, if you’re thinking of trying to shift from smoking over to vaping, what the move can do for you is plenty, indeed. It can do your body an awful lot of good and may even prolong your life because of it; something that, again, as mentioned, understandably appeals to older generations particularly pertinently. And, like it or not, if you prefer to be on the side of the multi-billion-dollar industry that’s tobacco (whose ethics and credibility to tell the truth has been dramatically and famously proved lacking over many decades), you truly are denying the facts, figures, academic results and, well, truth that’s staring you in the face when it comes to the health benefits that vaping opens you up to – as an alternative to smoking tobacco and consuming all its dangerous toxins.
To try to ignore, let alone argue, that cigarettes are not dangerous to one’s health or that e-cigs or mods bought from, say, a vape shop London are somehow equally as dangerous is to simply deny science. To puff away on a vaporiser instead of puffing away on a conventional ciggie is to receive the nicotine you may well need, but not to consume carcinogenic ingredients and so lose 11 minutes from your life each time you do so. This is a stark fact that truly stares one in the face. And that it does so is quite obviously why the rates of eager and satisfied vapers is growing significantly among older people number by the day.