I hope that you were all able to enjoy a good break over half term.  We managed to send out three trips, to New York, Rome and The Hague, although very sadly a fourth trip was not able to travel after their flight was cancelled at the last moment.  The next few weeks will be increasingly busy with the Remembrance Service (and In Weekend), the production of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (please get your tickets!), Year 11 mock exams, Upper 6th university applications, and all the various events that lead up to Christmas.
 

Business trip to New York
 

This week, I thought that I would cover the topic of Vapes or e-cigarettes.  For the majority of my career in teaching, smoking has been a real concern, and as a Housemaster at Stowe, I used to know many of the hiding places that people favoured if they wanted to pop out for a cigarette, although it always felt like we were one step behind the determined smokers!  In the last few years, smokers have become much less common in schools, and this is certainly an encouraging development for the health of young people.

However, in place of the traditional cigarette, we increasingly see the media filled with stories of young people being exposed to e-cigarettes.  While I would agree that using e-cigarettes in order to break a serious smoking addiction will certainly have health benefits, I do not believe that vaping is better for your health than not vaping.  The nicotine levels in e-cigarettes can be very high, and even if not as chemically addictive as traditional cigarettes, e-cigarettes can certainly be behaviourally addictive.  Perhaps even more concerning is that there is (inevitably) an illegal trade in vapes that could then be significantly worse for health.  It is very hard to be sure as to what liquid is contained in a vape, and if people are purchasing cut price 'fake' vapes, the chances of the liquid being damaging to health are significantly increased.  

It is tempting to look at e-cigarettes and vapes and assume that they are healthy because they are not cigarettes.  I think that it is really important that we do not allow ourselves to think in this way, though, and ask the question as to whether it is safe to vape, compared to not vaping, rather than whether it is safer to vape than to smoke.  For those who used to sneak out for a cigarette, it was always very hard to hide the tell tale smell, but with e-cigarettes, it is much harder to tell whether someone has been vaping but it still provides the excitement of breaking the rules.  This is one reason why it is so tempting for teenagers to try this out.  We can see that the marketing people are targeting children with the flavours and colours of these vapes, whatever they might claim, because they see this as a long term market for them.  So, peer pressure, societal pressure, and marketing pressure are all contributing towards the increasing of this habit.  

Perhaps none of the longer term health arguments will persuade young people, and online stores make accessing vapes very easy (although it is illegal to buy until 18 years old, in theory).  Despite this, I do believe that we want to stop young people from developing addictive habits that could be detrimental to their health, and need to be actively on the look out for this.  Perhaps the most persuasive argument at the moment will be the environmental one.

Have a healthy vape free weekend.

Chris Townsend
Head, Felsted School