"Climbing" (inhaling and exhaling smoke from an electronic cigarette) is like eating candy for young people. Teenagers in puberty naturally search pleasant taste and aroma. They find them – unfortunately – in "e- smoke". This leads to addiction. In Poland the situation is already a real plague!
From the data presented by the Polish Society for the Advances of Medicine: medicine XXI already all second Polish teenager aged 16 to 19 years tried nicotine products despite the current ban on selling to minors.
Mostly e-cigarettes (63%) and average cigarettes (30.7%) are active in addiction. Tobacco heaters and nicotine sachets (less than 3%) are the least attractive, according to
According to the report, 35 percent 16-year-olds, 47 percent seventeen-year-olds, 67 percent eighteen-year-olds and 70 percent nineteen-year-olds are awarded a example of nicotine products.
"The vast majority (80%) are inactive in contact with nicotine", the authors of the study "Use of nicotine products" PTPM medicine XXI carried out in cooperation with IQS Think Forward.
According to the study, the first nicotine product to dominate people aged 16-19 is e-cigarettes, with 63 percent of teenagers declaring contact with nicotine or tobacco products. On the another hand, the conventional cigaret was the choice of all 3rd individual asked (30.7%). "Sachets and tobacco heaters reached little than 3% of older youth (sachets 2.7 percent, 2.8% heaters)", the authors noted.
According to them, the results are not optimistic. Youth – including under 18 – acquires and uses products that are formally only available to adults without major problems.
"We have asked Polish youth from the cognition of nicotine and tobacco products. We checked what they usage on a regular basis," said prof. dr hab. med. Krzysztof J. Filipiak, president of the Polish Society of Medical Progress: medicine XXI.
He pointed out that e-cigarettes were the number 1 drug for older teenagers, which powerfully displaces conventional cigarettes. "Other forms of tobacco consumption and nicotine have a marginal share among minors," he pointed out.
Prof. Filipiak emphasized that it is e-cigarettes that not only initiate habit, but later is the product that young people usage most.
The study notes that regular usage of e-cigarettes, beginning at a very early age, carries many risks, especially for the cardiovascular and respiratory system.
E-cigarettes. Allowed though unknown
‘For aromatised sweet e-cigarettes, the hazard of adverse wellness effects is further increased. It is the only product so liberally treated by Polish government from China with an unverified by external entities of composition. The Polish state, allowing these devices to be sold, is based only on the declarations of importers and manufacturers" – noted Prof. PIM MSWiA, PhD Piotr Korczyński, Head of the Clinic of Pulmonology, Oncological Pulmonology and Transplantological Transplantology of the Ministry of abroad Affairs in Warsaw.
According to doctor Stanislaw Surma of the Silesian Medical University, the reason why e-cigarettes declassify another nicotine products among young people is the taste.
"E-cigarettes are popular among young people mainly thanks to a wide scope of sweet tastes. For them, calcium becomes a circumstantial substitute for eating sweets," he said. He explained that this is due to the natural request to search for pleasant taste and aromatic sensations at the age of adolescence (mature), erstwhile the reward strategy in the brain is developing intensely. In his opinion, another nicotine products do not offer specified intense sensations. ‘In the case of sachets, aromas only mask the bitter taste of nicotine. Therefore, their usage is little pleasant and not so popular," commented the doctor.
PTPM studies show that e-cigarettes are not effectively regulated as a dominant ingredient among young people, which carries a advanced wellness risk. "From this perspective, we look with hope at the fresh announcements by the Minister of wellness regarding the extremist ban on selling disposable e-cigarettes to the Council of Ministers. We treat this as a consequence from the Ministry to repeated calls from the medical community, including our Society, to limit the access of minors to sweet, aromatised e-cigarettes," said Prof. Filipiak.
In turn, the Ministry of Health, asked by PAP about the advancement of work on the ban on disposable cigarettes, replied that on 17 March the Government Work Programming squad adopted a draft amendment to the Anti-Tobacco Act. It has stated that the task assumes: a ban on the sale of all disposable e-cigarettes that will include e-cigarettes with and without nicotine; a ban on flavoured nicotine bags; a ban on the sale of another nicotine products (e.g. rubber, sprays, drinks) – to avoid circumvention; greater control of e-cigarettes – by examining the composition of liquids for e-cigarettes.
Report "Using nicotine products. A youth survey in Poland expanded with nicotine sachets" is available on the website of the Polish Society for the Advancement of medicine – MEDICINA XXI: study "Use of nicotine products – survey of youth in Poland expanded with nicotine sachets" – www.ptpm.org.pl
The survey was conducted utilizing the CAWI method on a example of n=2500 people aged 16-19 from all over Poland. CAWI – computer assisted web interview – is simply a computer-assisted interview in which polls are filled out by online respondents, through a dedicated website. The survey was performed by the IQS Institute Think Forward. Participants in the conducted investigation are verified by the given email and telephone number. These studies may affect persons aged 16 years or older.
Source: PAP 
Work. MA
