I have just watched a great review on Vaping by the FYI (for your information) Sky News team. Braydon, the teenager presenter of the program, has gone out to investigate if vaping is just a new fad, trend, habit or addition, and if it can harm our health and how addictive such a habit can be from a teenager’s perspective. He has done a great investigation and the information he has found is the reality of what our kids ages 8 – 18 are and have been doing for some time. The statistics are mind numbing and something that cannot and should not be ignored. Most of us know this and we all just sit and hope this too shall pass, but at what cost?
Watch the FYI Sky News investigation report before reading on:
When I was an active addict, I had been in the underworld of drug dealing and drug importers from my late teens and early adulthood. Today, I see a frightening similarity between the hardened criminal importers and dealers in the drug world and the manufacturers of vape products. Let me explain. I spent a lot of my active addiction in the dark side of the drug world. The main aim of most criminal network peddling drugs, was to increase demand.
One of the most common tactics was to give free samples of cocaine and heroin to teenagers who would be susceptible to accepting such an offer. The most successful outcome was with younger kids in the lower income group, living in the housing estates. These drugs would be given out for free on a regular basis in a particular targeted area for 7 to 10 days, time enough for the teenagers to have formed a habit and become actively addicted to these drugs. Once addicted to the product the dealers would tell them they must pay for these drugs from then on, so, a new customers base had been formed and the demand for the product increased.
It then goes to another level. Once the dealers have control over such individuals they would offer them free drugs again to move product to a location or buyer, mules (delivery service) for the dealer, putting themselves at high risk of being caught and imprisoned with little or no consequence to the dealer, who, should this happen, would just find another mule under his control and carry on unscathed. Today this is commonly known as human trafficking, starting off as a mule and in some cases, if you are female, sexual favours for drugs that then can and does lead to human sex trafficking. Stories like this are not new and becoming more common with dangerous and life-changing outcomes for the victims caught in this particular trap.
Click on the button below to listen to this podcast of a radio interview relating to vape use leading to human trafficking in Durban last year:
Why am I telling you this and what does it have to do with vaping? Well, in my personal experience in the criminal underworld of drug dealing and distribution, there was no empathy or conscience for the damage that was left by these activities. They did not care about what the drugs did to the kids or young adults, they just wanted to increase demand and secure a greater profit. They did not care what the drugs were cut with (mixed with) to make more volume at less cost to themselves. The drugs in my day were cut with flour, brown sugar and rat poison. Today they are cut with anything from rat poison to a synthetic opiate. Everything I did for myself, to feed my own addiction appetite which was ever-increasing. I did not care how I got the drugs or money to pay for them as long as I got them. That was my priority, drugs first, everything else second regardless of the consequences to myself, let alone anyone I came in contact with, similar to the drug dealers whose only aim was to increase demand for their product to make more money regardless of the consequences to those who came in contact with them.
If you watched this Sky News investigation report and how it highlights what is behind the increasing demand for vape products, particularly the age of the market for vape products. I see the people behind the manufacturing of vape products and see no accountability or responsibility for the damage their products are doing to our children, all I see is justification. One question asked by Braydon to a Mr Dunn from the UK Vaping Industry Association in the investigation report was “Why are the products flavoured; does this not encourage children to use the flavoured vape?” “No” says John Dunn and goes on to justify the flavouring: “It helps smokers of cigarettes to move to vapes to help them stop smoking as he himself enjoys the flavours and likes the look of cola bottles used on some vaping products packaging.”
A few questions for us to think about:
Do the manufactures honestly care about long-term consequences to consumers of their product?
Do they care about the age of the children who are using their product?
Do they even care about the addiction door they open for each child that can lead them to use more of their product and then to move on to something stronger and stronger and stronger?
Do they care about what the World Health Organisation has warned about vaping being dangerous and harmful to the health of children and can and does cause long-term brain development issues in children?
If they did, why do they make the packaging of most, if not all, the vape product look like sweets packaging with enticing flavours.
Why do they not try to help stop the dangers of vaping by agreeing to stricter regulations?
Why do they not pass the blame from the children using such product on to the shop outlets?
Why do they add more than the standard regulation of nicotine in the vape oil or pod?
Do they care? - “No!” – It’s greed, pure and simple: no accountability, no responsibility, or empathy for the suffering that is caused by these products seems to be the accepted behaviour. The defence here is, “it is legal.” The regulations are so minimal that the manufacturers can continue to build up their customer base with no fear of repercussion or care for the individuals they are targeting however young and continue to justify the vaping as a healthier habit than smoking. This is greed at a whole new level: no guilt or care for the outcome of our children The world of business does not care about consequence of such products because it's good business.
We bury our heads in the sand and hope this too will pass. We all need to stand up against this legal form of drug-dealing. Nicotine and any other substance that is added to the vape oil products are highly addictive and activate addiction which has no boundaries.
I hope I have highlighted what is happening and, with the help of Braydon from FYI Sky News, why I have likened the vape industry today to my own experience of the drug underworld.
It is terrifying to see how the world of profitable, business-related addictive products or activities, vape, gaming, alcopops for example, has a marketing mandate to entice young kids to use their addictive product and thus increase their market and profit. I personally believe it has reached a level of depravity similar to the drug dealers and drug smugglers I was caught up with. It is the very same depraved mindset. Like everything in the business world today this has become the norm, because everyone is doing it.
GREED, pure and simple - and it overrides the lives and wellbeing of our children!
ADDICTED - Why teens can’t stop Vaping - Reporter Stephanie Leydon talks with the Gabriel family about their teenage son's struggle with a vaping addiction.
Braydon Bent - SKY News - FYI - Facebook Link: www.facebook.com/BraydonBlueBent/
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