E-cigarettes sparked a couple years ago and have reached a fervent smolder recently. These electronic devices don’t burn tobacco, so smoke is absent. You’re “vaping” (inhaling vapor), and there’s no smell. Perhaps that’s better for the folks around you, but e-cigarettes are still exceptionally unhealthy for you. From sciencenews.org:

Electronic cigarettes, marketed as safer than regular cigarettes, deliver a cocktail of toxic chemicals including carcinogens into the lungs, new studies show. Using e-cigarettes may even make bacterial infections resistant to antibiotics, according to one study.

The liquid in these e-cigarettes is typically a mixture of nicotine, propylene glycol (yay) and flavorings. Nicotine, whether inhaled through a traditional cigarette or an electronic one, is addictive and toxic. From the CDC:

The number of calls to poison centers involving e-cigarette liquids containing nicotine rose from one per month in September 2010 to 215 per month in February 2014… Poisoning from conventional cigarettes is generally due to young children eating them. Poisoning related to e-cigarettes involves the liquid containing nicotine used in the devices and can occur in three ways: by ingestion, inhalation or absorption through the skin or eyes.

Subbing out a lit tip for a shiny LED doesn’t change the fact that you’re still sucking a toxic drug into your body.

The nicotine is not my only objection, however. Those flavorings are insidious. I’m fully aware that my kids will experiment. It’s an understandable part of the coming of age process. I certainly did.

I was thirteen years old, the room was spinning, and I smelled like smoke. My best friend Jeremy and I had recently returned from Cy’s Chicken Fry, where we had devoured wings, fries and cokes and played endless games of 720, the best skateboarding video game ever. Cy’s also had a cigarette machine. We weren’t allowed to buy them, but my boy and I were slick. The second the dude who worked the register went into the kitchen, we pounced on the Camel Wides. Not knowing when our next opportunity to smoke would come, we figured we’d better chain smoke our packs in the alley on our walk back home.

I puked a lot that day.

My older son turns 15 today, and my younger chap will be 13 in a month. They won’t be sneaking a pack of cigarettes from a vending machine. From marketwatch.com:

The number of middle and high-school students who have tried so-called “e-cigarettes” has tripled in the past three years, and is doubling the number of youth who say they will begin smoking regular cigarettes too, according to a new survey.

It’s sickening that somebody is marketing directly to my boys and doing so cleverly:

Earlier this year, a group of 11 Democratic members of Congress released a report that said e-cigarette flavors such as “Cherry Crush,” “Chocolate Treat” and “Peachy Keen” appeal to minors and should also be restricted. “E-cigarette makers are starting to prey on kids, just like the big tobacco companies,” said Henry J. Waxman, a Democrat from California.

Chocolate treat? This is simply unfair. The best I could hope for was menthol. Technology is so cool. Selling e-cigarette liquid flavored like banana splits or Skittles or marketing it with cartoon characters is similar to what the big tobacco companies were sued for in 1999. E-cigarettes are simply the latest wolf in wolf’s clothing.

I’ve talked to my men about this in the past, and I’ll continue to do so going forward. Ultimately, they’ll make their own decisions. Some will be good decisions; inevitably, they’ll also make poor ones. I just hope at the end of the day, my marketing is better than the snakes pushing the “Cherry Crush.” I believe it will be.

Happy branding,

Kap