E-cigarettes are sweeping through Chinese society, igniting a new wave of young people’s addiction.
The trendy men and women dressed up in fashion, holding fashion accessories e-cigarettes, with psychedelic electro dance music, swallowing clouds of fog, from B station, Zhihu to oil tube filled with a vapor night, e-cigarette party and fancy smoke ring video, igniting the new trend of young people’s addiction.
Electronic cigarettes are getting hotter and hotter in Chinese society, and information from China’s business search platform “Tian-eye” shows that 18,000 new e-cigarette-related businesses were added in 2020, and sales bases are growing wildly, not only in specialty stores, shopping malls and supermarkets, but even in KTVs and bars. Despite Taiwan’s ban on nicotine-containing and cigarette-like e-cigarettes, the number of physical stores has exceeded 500, and the speed at which the city is being attacked, the new tobacco products are a hot business opportunity.
After the Chinese invented e-cigarettes
Hanley obtained the world’s first electronic cigarette patent.
E-cigarettes were started by the Chinese, and Han Li, who has the status of a pharmacist, developed the electronic cigarette in 2003 and registered patents in China, the United States and the European Union, “We were the first in the world to engage in the development and sale of electronic cigarettes.” He has talked about earning several hundred million at the beginning of his career, “when it was popular with many people who wanted to quit smoking and alternative tobacco products.” However, the fire did not let the old smokers quit smoking, these years with the rise of popular subculture, but instead burned out young smokers.
According to the 2019 China Secondary School Students Tobacco Survey released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of middle school students who had heard of e-cigarettes was 69.9%, and the rate of e-cigarette use was 2.7%. Another survey also showed that 10 million people over the age of 15 in China smoke e-cigarettes, with young people aged 15 to 24 making up the majority of the population.
“The use of e-cigarettes by youth in China and Taiwan has shown significant growth in recent years, reflecting global trends.” Qingli Lin, director of the Tung Foundation, which has been promoting smoking prevention and control for years and has participated in four conferences on smoking prevention and control across the Taiwan Strait, observed the market pulsation, “Through the far-flung inter-networking, cigarette companies are creating a personalized, fashionable, joyful, fragrant and cool image through the recommendation of netizens, music video placement and the enticement of various videos in regions of countries that have not yet opened up to e-cigarettes or do not yet have clear decrees. “
Lin Qingli said that in the past two years, many countries have seen an increase in the rate of youth smoking instead of a decrease, in Taiwan, the rate of e-cigarette use among young people in 2019 was 4.2%, an increase of more than 50% compared to the previous year, and there are currently about 57,000 young people using e-cigarettes and 16,000 people using heated cigarettes in Taiwan, and these are definitely conservative figures.
Young students caught in the fog
It is difficult to reduce the harm of e-cigarettes, but instead, young people are becoming users of multiple nicotine products.
E-cigarettes have also become a “door-knocker” for young people to smoke cigarettes. A survey conducted by the Shenzhen Tobacco Control Office in 2019 found that among students who had smoked both cigarettes and e-cigarettes, the proportion of those who smoked e-cigarettes first and then cigarettes accounted for 24.2%. Qingli Lin found supporting evidence from international studies that “youth using e-cigarettes are six times more likely to smoke traditional paper cigarettes in the next two years than the general population, and most of them will become dual or multiple users of nicotine products.”
China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of e-cigarette products, Shenzhen is also known as the “global fog valley”, 90% of the world’s e-cigarettes are produced in Shenzhen. However, the quality of e-cigarettes varies, black market products have repeatedly been named with safety concerns, poor-quality chemicals conceal the risk of toxicity, but also for the health of young people buried unexploded bombs.
“In the case of poor quality control, e-cigarettes are easily mixed with harmful substances such as aldehydes, alcohols and flavors, and some young people love to smoke strange flavors, and vaping oil often adds many compounds, and many studies in the United States have found that flavors and fragrances are one of the major causes of lung injury or lung disease from e-cigarettes.” Taipei City United Hospital chest critical care physician Su Yifeng pointed out that “many sources of e-cigarettes in Taiwan are smuggled from China, the composition of unknown more dangerous, the current Chinese e-cigarettes are quite ubiquitous, 2019 also ordered a ban on online sales of e-cigarettes to avoid minors to buy online.”
However, the online ban did not let the e-cigarette moribund, offline sales but more active, it is difficult to stop the e-cigarette penetration of young communities, this year, China further tightened the decree to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors from June. Lin Qingli believes that the most important key lies in the government to manage, the law is not complete, and whether the implementation of the implementation of the experience of Singapore and Thailand, when the government expressly prohibit, and at the same time do enforce the law, the use of e-cigarettes is relatively low, the youth is also the greatest protection.
E-cigarette poisoning is expanding
E-cigarettes come in a wide variety of flavors, mixed with various chemical flavors.
“Harm reduction” is one of the selling points of e-cigarettes, and international research studies have repeatedly punctured the illusion. Lin Qingli pointed out that in 2018, the EU report found that commercially available e-cigarettes contained at least 41 toxic chemicals, and in just two years, the latest Australian study showed that a total of 1,064 chemicals were detected in commercially available e-cigarettes, of which up to 164 were toxic chemicals, including formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, methacrolein, benzene, propylbenzene, 2,3-butanedione, methylcyclohexane, etc., and it is generally believed that e-cigarettes that do not contain nicotine are more harmful. Nicotine-free e-cigarettes are generally considered less harmful, but this study found that e-cigarettes that boast nicotine-free flavors such as menthol, apple and butterscotch have even more toxic chemicals than e-cigarettes with nicotine in the same flavor, as a result of a large number of chemical flavors and fragrances blended.
Su Yifeng said that the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes is not subject to great control, often the nicotine content far exceeds that of cigarettes, e-cigarette users inhale even 2 or 3 times the nicotine of cigarettes, the brain of adolescents is still in the developmental stage, nicotine is a neurotoxic substance, international studies have found that e-cigarettes can lead to a decline in concentration and intelligence, animal experiments have also proved that e-cigarettes are no less carcinogenic than cigarettes.
“The American Thoracic Society of Medicine famously said that the only thing that can be inhaled into the lungs is clean air, nothing else will do.” Su Yifeng illustrates the strict requirements of lung health, “e-cigarettes will mainly use food-grade vegetable glycerin, or propylene glycol that can be used as cosmetics and applied to the skin, and these inhalations are still toxic. More and more studies have found that e-cigarette users do not lose the good incidence of lung disease cigarette users, or even higher, so in 2020 the World Health Organization’s Tobacco Control Panel issued a declaration that e-cigarettes can not help quit smoking, and the current evidence does not support e-cigarettes than cigarette health.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the second half of 2019, more than 2,500 people in the United States alone were hospitalized for acute lung injury caused by e-cigarette use. This year, Su Yifeng informed Taiwan’s first adult e-cigarette lung injury case, the patient sought medical attention for diarrhea and bloating, but the gastroenterologist could not examine the cause, “The U.S. study found that more than 70% of patients with e-cigarette lung injury had symptoms of gastrointestinal discomfort.” Su Yifeng detailed consultation to find out the patient has a history of e-cigarette use, “he probably smoked cigarettes for 20 years, trying to smoke e-cigarettes 2, 3 months later, began to appear stomach discomfort, and later became a little wheezy, repeatedly hospitalized 4, 5 times, because the discharge period as usual smoking e-cigarettes, just over 3 months, his lung function decreased by almost 40%, which is enough to use 2, 30 The amount of lung function is enough for 2 or 30 years.”
E-cigarette frenzy met the new crown pneumonia epidemic, accidentally igniting a new wave of crisis. “E-cigarettes can increase the chance of developing new pneumonia by 7 to 8 times.” Su Yifeng cited the latest research from Stanford University, “Because young people will exchange tastes, you take a puff and I take a puff, so e-cigarettes not only increase lung inflammation, but even expand epidemic transmission, causing socioeconomic and health hazards.”
Tobacco control policies on fire
Taiwan’s first adult e-cigarette lung injury case with severely reduced lung function. (Courtesy of Yifeng Su)
Recently China intends to include e-cigarettes in the tobacco monopoly law, and Taiwan has also entered the discussion stage of amending the law, however, this does not mean that the new tobacco products are pronounced a death sentence, but instead opens a life path.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration issued an announcement on March 22 to add “new tobacco products such as e-cigarettes shall be implemented with reference to the relevant provisions of cigarettes” to the “Tobacco Monopoly Law Implementation Regulations. Lin Qingli pointed out that this announcement was only at the stage of consulting the public, and the next day the Chinese A-share market opened, the concept of electronic cigarette stocks plummeted, and a brand of electronic cigarette dealers even opened directly down to lock up, the electronic cigarette industry seems to be in dire straits, but this is only a short-lived phenomenon.
Lin Qingli has been promoting the prevention and control of tobacco smoke for more than 30 years, and she believes that unless the future is a total ban, like the legal norms of Singapore, Thailand and Australia, if you fall into the trap of the strategy of “taxation, strict control, ban on youth use”, which is exactly the same as the officials, to achieve the purpose of the government wants to increase tax revenue, while also allowing In fact, the tobacco companies have fought for open space, and the new tobacco products will only show almost 20% positive growth every year as in the past, and the future price is paid by the entire young generation.
Taiwan is proceeding with the amendment of the “Tobacco Control Act”, Lin Qingli pointed out that the law has not been amended for 14 years, the health department originally agreed with civil society organizations to ban all new tobacco products, but the draft amendment at the end of last year turned to “ban e-cigarettes, open heating cigarettes”, the future of the physical store of e-cigarettes as long as the signboard will be changed to heating cigarettes, while The tobacco company’s approach is even more powerful, launching a composite heated cigarette with the function of an electronic cigarette inside, if the adoption of “an open ban”, it is impossible to control.
The uncertainty of the tobacco control policy, but let the e-cigarettes take advantage of the momentum to heat up, experts pinched a cold sweat, because the lung cancer population is bound to increase rather than decrease. The World Health Organization recently released the latest global cancer data for 2020, China has become a veritable “cancer power”, of the 19.29 million new cancer cases worldwide, China accounted for 4.57 million, of which lung cancer is the most.
The population of smokers in China is estimated to be more than 300 million, accounting for about one-third of the world’s population. Su Yifeng pointed out that the main causes of lung cancer are smoking, air pollution and unknown causes, etc. The proportion of smoking in China is very high, most of them are adults, and after the popularity of e-cigarettes in this decade, many young people have joined the ranks of new smokers, laying more cancer population for the future, coupled with China’s air pollution is quite serious, so the number of lung cancer remains high.
The air pollution problem associated with e-cigarettes is also often overlooked, the smoke produced by the atomizer, Su Yifeng reminded that the smoke produced by e-cigarettes is the so-called aerosol, these suspended particles are mainly PM2.5, not only easy to inhale the lungs, and can float far in the air, causing air pollution, if in indoor occasions, someone smoking e-cigarettes, others are equal to indirectly suck second-hand smoke, and e-cigarettes The amount of smoke emitted is even greater than that of cigarettes, and the impact of secondhand smoke may be even greater.
E-cigarette this fire can be extinguished? At present, it seems that the problem is the fire burned ass.
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