Vapers, pay attention, especially if you are under 17.
I get it, because I was there. Of course, back when I was a teenager we only had cigarettes and not highly complex and cool-looking vape devices. We were one hundred percent hardcore into inhaling burning leaves straight from a tightly packed tube of rolled up plant castoffs, which have been lovingly dried by a manufacturer and set up for us at a crazy price we were willing to pay. The truly thrill-seeking types even avoided those specially designed filters, for maximum nicotine effect.
We were hard set on getting a smoking lounge for seniors in the high school, because we would be close enough to adulthood to warrant the right to such a luxury. We wanted to be able to openly rebel in a place designated for that rebellion, rather than have the stupid faculty deny us smoking in the restrooms or out in the common areas. I hear this is happening today again, because you and your peers are vaping in school now, and they’re taking down lavatory doors so you can’t sneak a draw while supposedly taking a pee. Those darned adults.
Gotta tell you, though: they and we know something. But don’t listen to us. Don’t read on. Just go on and suck in some more cherry mentholated mysterious looking swirls into your nice lungs and enjoy. It’s totally cool. Everybody is doing it, except the creepy normal people like me.
Of course I don’t know if you look at certain celebrities who smoke and vape or not and think it looks okay when they do it, but I knew from moment one that I would not look exotic like Bette Davis or Joan Crawford if I smoked. In fact, I looked stupid. I actually held a cig in my fingers and looked at myself in the mirror and thought, oh no, this isn’t happening. So I never took up smoking.
I guess I’m weird, because since I never smoked, I smell like fresh clothes and powder and perfume, and my breath is spotless when it should be carrying the wonderful odor of a trash pile on fire. Nothing makes one stand out like a distinct odor, but then again, everybody who smells the same tend to stick together, so that’s probably okay.
I also have the misfortune of not having yellow teeth, or wrinkles around my lips from sucking fire-induced chemicals into my system. My fingers are a normal skin tone and not yellowed from handling cigarettes. My clothes smell like the fabrics from which they are made, and maybe a perfume or two. And I can breathe and enjoy fresh air, and when I eat or drink, stuff tastes good.
Gee, how can I stand to be around humanity?
Well, I can, because I look around at the people who took up smoking when we were teenagers, and I know what they have to show for it now. Some of my fellow students have breathing problems, bad bones, cancer, or one of a variety of illnesses which can be attributed to smoking. Some of them I can’t speak for, because they have died.
You can see them, though, in your everyday life, if you look up from your social media screen for a few minutes. Those haggard men and women who seem ancient even though they may be only ten or twenty years older than you: that will be you in ten or twenty years, and teenagers will be seeing you looking like that.
You will find yourself hacking up a lung, if you can breathe at all. Reading my blog may also be one of the last warnings you will ever receive, because vaping is killing people, and it may kill you. If you’re smoking cigarettes, you may get some life of it, but for heaven’s sake, why make life more inconvenient than it already is?
Tobacco and vaping companies make a product, but it doesn’t mean you should blindly use it. The idea of consumable products is to gain a following of constant users. What happens to you once you pick up the habit doesn’t matter, because if vaping kills you, another new vaper will come take your place.
Controlled substances are called that for a reason; they have limits, they pose a danger, and they should be handled with caution.
According to an online article by a breast health group called the Maurer Foundation, tobacco kills a person every six seconds. That’s estimated to mean one billion people will die from tobacco use in the 21st century. 63% of global deaths are attributed to smoking related diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases. That means you are trying hard to spend the rest of your life–what little you may have left after lowering your life expectancy smoking or vaping–having trouble breathing!
And what has this to do with breast health? Well, cancer doesn’t just stay put. It may dock itself in your lungs, or move around and relocate to your other organs. It may not come just from smoking, though, as dangerous behavior may trigger cancer anywhere in the body, whether you have a family history or not. But we women want to get lung cancer and lose our breasts? Why not? We’re rebellious.
And vaping hasn’t even been studied long enough to know what effects it may have on people. We do know that as of this moment, eight people have died from vaping, and the number is expected to go up.
But you’re thinking about how to rebel against the unfairness of life at your age, and there’s nothing like helping your future along by sucking up smoke in a stick or vapor from some marvelously designed contraption. Teens have rebelled for ages. Take your place among the gifted vapers and smokers, and cough proudly. And die resignedly.
Excuse me, but I’m going to take a breather, because I can breathe.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 