Which is better in Smoking using Vape or Usual Cigarettes

Submitted to:

Rodolf John T. Rodriquez

Grade 10 English teacher

Submiited by:

Angel Faith C. Cabaylo

 Chapter I

Introduction

Smoking among teens has been a huge concern over many years. According to

federal statistics, approximately 90% of smokers try their first cigarette by 18. During the

past few years, vaping among teens has also surfaced as a major concern.

According to National Youth Tobacco Survey in the United States, published by

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) every year, vaping is becoming

quickly popular among high school students, which definitely is a bad news. So, what’s

the good news? We’ll talk about it shortly, but first lets’ take a quick look at some stats

from the surveys published in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Teenagers vaping electronic cigarette the survey from 2014 shows that 15% male

and 11.9% female students reported having used an electronic cigarette in the preceding

30 days of the date the survey was conducted. In 2015, the ratio went up to 19% and

12.8% for boys and girls respectively. If we go back into 2013, only 1.1% of students

(1.4% males and 0.9% females) had tried an electronic cigarette, and it was the least

used method but within just one year its popularity went through the roof and 11.9%

students reported to have used it in 2014 and it became the most used method.

Several doctors think that these trends can have drastic impacts on the youth. The

CDC Director Thomas Frieden termed these trends as “alarming” and shocking”.
 According to the same survey, while the overall tobacco use among adults hasn’t

changed much over the years, there has been a historic drop in the percentage of high

school student smokers. In 2013, 12.7% high schoolers reported to have smoked a

tobacco cigarette within the past 30 days of the survey date but in 2014 we saw an all-

time low ratio of 9.2%. However, the survey doesn’t show any significant change in 2015

from the last year.

This is because of two reasons: either the kids who were previously smoking

switched to vaping for harm-reduction or new smokers are preferring vaping over

smoking. As a matter of fact, the health professionals recognize the harm-reduction

potential of e-cigarettes and a study sponsored by the UK Government has shown that

e-cigarettes are exponentially safer than tobacco cigarettes. So, the claim that e-

cigarettes can prove to be a “gateway” for teenagers into the obnoxious world of tobacco

is dispelled by the surveys conducted by CDC.

Unlike tobacco cigarettes, e-cigs or vaporizers don’t have the loathsome smell, the

ash or the butts. What’s more, the vapor evaporates in the air more quickly than smoke.

To make the matters worse, e-cigarettes come in all shapes and sizes, which can be

concealable or hard to distinguish from a normal pen, a USB memory stick or any other

handheld gadget. So, in case your child is vaping secretly, it can be extremely hard to

catch them. This really is a predicament for parents, however, with some inside info and

a little effort you can find out whether or not your kid is flirting with vaping, and can also

try to keep them away from it.

 When smoking normally, the heat from fire causes substances to change from a

solid state to a vapor. In cigarettes, this releases nicotine which is absorbed into your

bloodstream through the lungs, causing increased heart rate, constricted blood vessels,

a release of dopamine in the brain, and feelings of alertness. But because nicotine is a

stimulant, once it’s no longer present, you crash and crave more, which ultimately leads

to addiction in many people. In the case of marijuana, the active component

Tetrahydrocannabinol (aka THC) is aerosolized and follows the same pathway into your

body, but with different effects.

Smoking only takes six seconds for the active compounds to reach your nervous

system. This smoke consist of partially burned particles, which creates tar in your body,

has cancer causing effects, blackens teeth and destroys taste buds. This is where vaping

comes in. If you can heat the active components enough to become aerosolized without

starting a combustion reaction with the other compounds, then you theoretically get fast

effects without the damage of smoke inhalation.

Vaping typically involves a glass or metal chamber which has an electrical current

passing through it. This way, it can be heated to a controlled temperature, creating a

vapor with minimal combustion, meaning you inhale much less smoke. For marijuana

users, vaporizers have become popular as the plant material can be heated to a specific

temperature — usually between 185 and 210 degrees Celsius — allowing just the THC

containing vapor to be extracted. For e-cigarettes, using a liquid solution instead of dried

tobacco, has become popular; this e-liquid contains water, nicotine, a base and

occasionally flavourings, and vaporizes at a much lower temperature. But this is where

things get tricky.

Statement of the Problem:

This study is aimed to find out which is better in Smoking vaping or usual a

cigarettes by conducting a survey specifically to address to the selected junior high

school students during the school year 2017-2018.

Especially, the study sought to answer the following questions:

1. When do you start smoking?

2. Does E-cigarettes is Safe to Smoke?

3. Can E-cigarettes Help Smokers Quit?

Importance of the study:

The study deals with the difference between vaping and smoking among

selected respondents from Diplahan National High school.

 Chapter II

Related Literature

According to a recent report from Public Health England, e-cigarettes are thought

to be around 95% less harmful than smoking combusted tobacco (PHE, 2015b Public

Health England (PHE). (2015b). E-cigarettes: an evidence update (PHE publications

gateway number: 2015260).

As well as being less harmful, there is also evidence that e-cigarettes are playing

an important role in helping smokers’ to quit (Bullen et al., 2013 Bullen, C., Howe, C.,

Laugesen, M., McRobbie, H., Parag, V., Williman, J., Walker, N. (2013). Electronic

cigarettes for smoking cessation: A randomized controlled trial. Lancet, 382, 1629–1163.

Researchers working on the UK based “Smoking Toolkit” study have reported that

individuals trying to quit smoking using e-cigarettes are more likely to remain abstinent

than those seeking to quit using either “over the counter” nicotine replacement or a cold

turkey approach (Brown, Beard, Kotz, Michie, & West, 2014 Brown, J., Beard, E., Kotz,

D., Michie, S., & West, R. (2014). Real-world effectiveness of e-cigarettes when used to

aid smoking cessation: A cross-sectional population study. Addiction Abingdon, England,

109, 1531–1540.

In its recent report “Nicotine Without Smoke: Tobacco Harm Reduction” the Royal

College of Physicians has noted that “….e-cigarette use is likely to lead to quit attempts

that would not otherwise have happened, and in a proportion of these to successful

cessation (RCP, 2016 Royal College of Physicians (RCP). (2016). Nicotine without

smoke. Similarly, Public Health England has commented” there is also evidence that
(electronic cigarettes) can encourage quitting or cigarette consumption reduction even

amongst those not intending to quit or rejecting other support (Public Health England,

2015a: 10).

However, as the popularity of e-cigarettes has increased so too have concerns

about some aspects of their use. Attention has been drawn to the lack of high-quality data

on the impact of e-cigarettes used over the long term (Callahan-Lyon, 2014 Callahan-

Lyon, P. (2014). Electronic cigarettes: Human health effects. To the possibility that e-

cigarettes might result in increased levels of nicotine dependence (Fillon, 2015 Fillon, M.

(2015). Electronic cigarettes may lead to nicotine addiction.To the fact that some smokers

are dual using both combustible and vapour based nicotine products thereby potentially

increasing their toxicant exposure (Adkison et al., 2013 Adkison, S., O’Connor, R.,

Bansal-Travers, M., Hyland, A., Borland, R., Yong, H., … Fong, G. (2013). Electronic

nicotine delivery systems: International tobacco control four country survey.To the

possibility that former smokers are being reintroduced to nicotine as a result of taking up

e-cigarette use having previously quit smoking (Durkin, Bayly, & Wakefield, 2016 Durkin,

S., Bayly, M., & Wakefield, M. (2016). Can E-cigarette ads undermine former smokers?

To the variable manufacturing quality of some e-cigarettes resulting in reports of devices

exploding (Yang, Rudy, Cheng, & Durmowicz, 2014 Yang, L., Rudy, S., Cheng, J., &

Durmowicz, E. (2014).

And to the accuracy of the labelling of some e-liquids particularly with regard to misleading

information on nicotine content (Goniewicz, Hajek, & McRobbie, 2013 Goniewicz, M.,

Hajek, P., & McRobbie, H. (2013). Nicotine content of electronic cigarettes: Its release in
vapour and its consistency across batches: Regulatory implications. Addiction, 109, 500–

507. doi: 10.1111/add.12410

The fear that e-cigarettes might act as a smoking gateway have been driven in part

by research in the U.S. which has shown that young people reporting past e-cigarette use

are more likely (on follow-up) to report having smoked combustible cigarettes. Wills and

colleagues, for example, have reported the results of their longitudinal survey of 2338

high school pupils in Hawaii, which found that the probability of pupils’ smoking was

significantly greater in the case of those pupils who had previously used an e-cigarette

than amongst those who had not previously used e-cigarettes (Wills et al., 2016 Wills, T.,

Knight, R., Sargent, J., Gibbons, F., Pagano, I., & Williams, R. (2016). Longitudinal study

of e-cigarette use and onset of cigarette smoking among high school students in Hawaii

Tobacco Control [Google Scholar]

However, as Bell and Keane have pointed out the very notion of a gateway effect

is highly complex constituting “a hybrid of popular, academic, and media accounts” rather

than a coherent theory (Bell & Keane, 2014 Bell, K., & Keane, H. (2014).

The claim that e-cigarettes might act as a gateway to smoking would require much

more than the finding that those young people using e-cigarettes are more likely to go on

to smoke than those that do not. For example an alternative explanation of that finding

may be that both vaping and smoking have similar antecedents such that it is not vaping

that is leading to smoking but another variable (for example, a willingness to experiment

with different forms of drug use, or an attitude of rebelliousness) that is driving both vaping

and smoking.
 However, whilst it is certainly the case that early generations of e-cigarettes were

visually quite similar to combustible cigarettes, the subsequent and more recent

development of the technology has resulted in vaping becoming visually quite distinct to

smoking. Recent research has shown that those witnessing others’ e-cigarette use

experience no difficulty in distinguishing between vaping and smoking such that it is hard

to see why one activity (vaping) should result to another activity (smoking) becoming

renormalised (McKeganey, Barnard, & Russell, 2016 McKeganey, N., Barnard, M., &

Russell, C. (2016). Visible vaping E-cigarettes and the further de-normalization of

smoking. International Archives of Addiction Research and Medicine. Indeed, in the study

undertaken by McKeganey and colleagues there was some evidence that amongst the

non-smokers interviewed, attitudes towards smoking had become even more negative as

a result of what was seen to be the availability now of a less harmful means of consuming

nicotine (McKeganey et al., 2016 McKeganey, N., Barnard, M., & Russell, C. (2016).

Visible vaping E-cigarettes and the further de-normalization of smoking. International

Archives of Addiction Research and Medicine, 2.

Although these various studies are undoubtedly important in assessing the public

health impact of e-cigarettes, there is also need for a more sociologically informed

research on e-cigarette users experience. In this paper we report the results of qualitative

research in which we have sought the views of e-cigarette users about how they came to

start vaping, what they like most and like least about vaping, their judgements about the

relative harm of smoking and vaping, their views as to how similar or dissimilar the

activities of vaping and smoking are, whether in their view their likelihood of smoking had
increased or decreased as a result of their vaping, and what they think about proposals

to ban e-cigarette use within enclosed public spaces.

The key difference between traditional cigarettes and e-cigarettes and related

products is that the latter don’t contain tobacco. But, it isn’t just the tobacco in cigarettes

that causes cancer. Traditional cigarettes contain a laundry list of chemicals that are

proven harmful, and e-cigarettes have some of these same chemicals.

Since 2009, FDA has pointed out that e-cigarettes contain “detectable levels of

known carcinogens and toxic chemicals to which users could be exposed.” For example,

in e-cigarette cartridges marketed as “tobacco-free,” the FDA detected a toxic compound

found in antifreeze, tobacco-specific compounds that have been shown to cause cancer

in humans, and other toxic tobacco-specific impurities. Another study looked at 42 of

these liquid cartridges and determined that they contained formaldehyde, a chemical

known to cause cancer in humans.Formaldehyde was found in several of the cartridges

at levels much higher than the maximum EPA recommends for humans. In 2017, a study

published in the Public Library of Science Journal showed that significant levels of

benzene, a well-known carcinogen, were found in the vapor produced by several popular

brands of e-cigarettes.

The body’s reaction to many of the chemicals in traditional cigarette smoke causes

long-lasting inflammation, which in turn leads to chronic diseases like bronchitis,

emphysema, and heart disease.[5] Since e-cigarettes also contain many of the same toxic

chemicals, there is no reason to believe that they will significantly reduce the risks for

these diseases.
 In fact, a preliminary study presented at the 2018 annual meeting of the American

Chemical Society found that vaping could damage DNA [16]. The study examined the

saliva of 5 adults before and after a 15-minute vaping session. The saliva had an increase

in potentially dangerous chemicals, such as formaldehyde and acrolein. Acrolein has

been proven to be associated with DNA damage, for example, and DNA damage can

eventually cause cancer.

A study of mice funded by the National Institutes of Health found that e-cigarette

smoke could cause mutations in DNA that could increase the risk of cancer. These

specific mutations have been shown to potentially contribute to the development of lung

and bladder cancer in mice exposed to electronic cigarette smoke. The researchers claim

that these chemicals could also induce mutations leading to cancer in humans. Although

mice studies aren’t always relevant to human health, this study seems to confirm the

studies of human health and e-cigarettes

Because they are smokeless, many incorrectly assume that e-cigarettes are safer

for non-smokers and the environment than traditional cigarettes. However, a study

published in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health found that the

use of e-cigarettes results in increased concentrations of volatile organic compounds

(VOCs) and airborne particles, both of which are potentially harmful when inhaled.[6]

Although e-cigarette vapor may not result in the obvious smell and visible smoke of

traditional cigarettes, it still has a negative impact on air quality, especially when vaping

indoors.
 There are no long-term studies to back up claims that the vapor from e-cigarettes

is less harmful than conventional smoke. Cancer takes years to develop, and e-cigarettes

were only very recently introduced to the United States. It is almost impossible to

determine if a product increases a person’s risk of cancer or not until the product has

been around for at least 15-20 years. Despite positive reviews from e-cigarette users who

enjoy being able to smoke them where regular cigarettes are prohibited, very little is

known about their safety and long-term health effects.

 CHAPTER 3

Methodology

The purpose of the study is to determine if what is better vaping or usual smoking.

The objectives of this chapter is to (1) describe the research methodology of this study.

(2) describe the procedure used in designing the instrument and collecting data.

I. Research Design

A. Research Method

In order to gather the necessary data, the researchers used descriptive method. It

includes techniques that are used to summarize and describe numerical data for the

purpose of easier interpretation .

A survey was administered to 15 randomly selected students from the Diplahan

national High School. A survey is a descriptive research method collecting and analyzing

information from selected individuals.Thus, it can be useful when a researcher wants to

collect data on a phenomenon that cannot be directly observed.

B. Research Instrument

The researchers designed a questionnaire survey instrument to assess the vaping

and smoking practices of selected junior high school students. It is usually faster and

cheaper than interviews and direct observations. The researcher, provided a series of

question corresponding to the research and to determine each individual’s opinion.

II. Sampling Design and Respondents

A. Sampling Design

The researchers designed a survey-questionnaire aimed to know if what is better

vaping or usual smoking. These questions will then illustrate the attributes of vaping and

smoking to the students and point out the differences of using them.

Guide question:

Which is better in smoking vaping or usual smoking?

Name :_________ Gender: ____ F _____ M

Grade : ________ Age:________

1. How do you differ vape to cigarettes?

2. What do you think is the advantage of using vape compare in usual cigarettes?

3. What makes you satisfy, using vape or just a usual cigarettes?

4. Are you aware the risks of vaping or the usual smoking?

5. What do you think the reason why you are inclined to used vape or cigarettes?

Summary and findings

 As cigarette use continues its historical drop among teens and e-cigarette use has

begun climbing, one question looms large for public health officials: will the popularity of

e-cigarettes undo all the progress made in reducing teen smoking rates?

The answer isn’t very easy to pin down, but a recent study offers some evidence

to say such a fear is possible – while still falling well short of saying it’s actually happening.

Nearly a quarter of high school juniors and seniors had used an e-cigarette at least once,

and nearly one in five had smoked a traditional cigarette, according to the study published

in Pediatrics today. But two in every five teens currently using e-cigarettes had never

smoked a traditional cigarette, the researchers found.

“While it is possible that some adolescents are using e-cigarettes instead of

cigarettes, our data suggest that e-cigarettes may be recruiting new tobacco product

users who might not have used cigarettes,” said lead author Jessica Barrington-Trimis,

PhD, a professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern

California. “California has historically had some of the lowest rates of adolescent smoking

in the country, so these results are particularly troubling and raise a lot of questions about

the potential consequences of high rates of e-cigarette use for the health of adolescents.”

The researchers surveyed more than 2,000 high school juniors and seniors in

Southern California in spring, 2014, on how often they had used e-cigarettes or smoked

traditional cigarettes in the past month. Students who had used a product one day within

the past 30 were considered “current users” in the study, and those who had ever used a

product, though not in the past month, were considered “past users.”
 Overall, 9.6% were current users of e-cigarettes, and 5.7% were current

(traditional) cigarette smokers. The 24% who had ever tried e-cigarettes were also more

likely to one of the 18.7% who had smoked a traditional cigarette. Yet among those

considered current e-cigarette users, 40.5% had never smoked a traditional cigarette.

Conclusion

When comparing vaping and smoking, there are many different aspects to take into

consideration. In the bigger picture, the only thing throwing a little bit of shade on vaping

is the long-term effects, something that only time can unveil.

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