The other day I was congratulating myself for the fact that I seem perfectly able to spring out of bed at around 6am each morning, even when I’ve been up till 2am. ‘I must be quite fit,’ I told myself. Then the reason I can get up so early dawned on me. It’s because my body has woken me. It wants to see action because it wants more nicotine to be delivered via my electronic cigarette.
I began vaping a couple of years ago when the rather cool 22-year-old son of a friend offered me a puff of his Juul, which is an elegant black rectangular stick.
‘It’s just like smoking a cigarette but without the cancer,’ James told me.
I loved inhaling the odourless air and blowing it out again. It just looked so chic and felt cooling in the palm of the hand.
‘Keep it,’ said James. ‘I’ve got loads. They’re really cheap. You can get them anywhere.’
I’ve never been interested in normal cigarettes. I didn’t get addicted as a teenager. When all my peers were forcing themselves to smoke I was able to decline pleasantly by saying, as though it was the most logical thing in the world, ‘Thanks, I would love one, but because my father’s a doctor, I can’t really.’ People would always accept this explanation, often remarking, ‘You’re lucky.’
‘I’m a GP’s daughter and teetotaler – yet I became addicted to vaping in my 60s’
Annoyingly for my friends, I now don’t drink alcohol, either.
But when the Juul that James gave me ran out of puff about two days later, I found myself buying replacement pods for the rechargeable device. I reasoned that it would be good if I were to appear to have at least one addiction. I would be ‘levelling myself down’, so to speak, in a way that could make me more socially acceptable in drinking circles. How ironic that as a teenager I was able to resist trying to be cool, but in later life the reverse should be the case.
What harm could there be if there was ‘no cancer risk’ in puffing on a vape? It contains only nicotine and none of the burning chemicals that make cigarettes so dangerous. According to an NHS website article, Vaping Myths And The Facts, UK experts in 2022 reviewed international evidence and found that ‘in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking’. Cancer Research UK takes a slightly more cautious tone, saying that so far the research shows legal e-cigarettes are less harmful than smoking but not risk-free, and their long-term effects aren’t yet known.
In fact, UK health website verywellhealth.com suggests that nicotine could even be beneficial: ‘Although conclusive research is still unavailable, it may have some health benefits when taken long term. These include protection against diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, Tourette syndrome and ulcerative colitis.’
Nicotine is also a stimulant that, through triggering the release of adrenaline, makes you feel more alert, and this certainly helps when tackling complex mental work.
On the downside, nicotine is highly addictive and I now waste about £14 a week on four Juul replacement pods, each one delivering roughly the same amount of nicotine as 20 cigarettes.
And the addiction is a problem, because if I run out of replacement pods I become self-pitying and argumentative. Clearly this is a habit I need to break – but how? There are no NHS residential rehab units for vaping and I would probably kill or be killed by my family members if I tried to go cold turkey at home. Peer pressure to stop is not an issue because everywhere I look, other people are vaping, too.
Helen, 43, a neighbour who has never smoked a cigarette in her life, says, ‘I attended a ladies’ lunch party where the hostess put a bowl of vapes on the table as part of the hospitality. They were the brightly coloured, synthetic-flavoured ones. I took a puff and have been addicted ever since. It’s the penny-sweet flavour alongside the nicotine – it really hits the spot. Now I go through a Lost Mary refill in 24 hours. I have even puffed on one during a long-haul flight, blowing out the vapour into a scarf.’
Even in her youth Mary (left) resisted smoking
Smokers of cigarettes (around £17 for 20) are becoming thin on the ground. Lucy, 30, a TV producer, tells me that although she had never smoked, she noticed that, ‘At wrap parties a lot of the execs would be standing outside on the pavement smoking and I thought, “That’s obviously the best place for me to be for my career.”’ She began vaping as an excuse to go outside and fraternise. She now wears a large IVG vape around her neck and puffs continually throughout the day. ‘The problem is that, with cigarettes, there is a limit to how many you can have because you need to keep going outside. But if you can just smoke vapes at work – and everyone does – then you get more and more addicted.’
An intriguing fact is highlighted on the ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) website: ‘In 2022 profit margins from vapes were far higher than those of tobacco products, with an average of 37.1 per cent for vape products compared to 8.5 per cent for tobacco products. In 2016, 16 per cent of UK adults smoked, compared to 12 per cent in 2023.’ In short, the shopkeeper has every incentive to stock vapes.
It’s worth noting that some big-brand vapes are owned by tobacco magnates. British American Tobacco produces Vuse, Phillip Morris has IQOS Veev and Imperial Brands makes Blu. With tobacco sales plummeting, clearly they are doing their best to replace that addiction with something else they can knock up to generate a huge profit for themselves.
The problem is, vaping is so very enjoyable, the health risks are not significant enough to scare me and I can just pop to the shops to feed my addiction. Giving up is going to be hard but suddenly, just today, I have decided I am going to try to break the habit and I will tell you why and how.
Why? Even if the experts are still waiting for specific dangers of vaping to become apparent, I have a friend named Lizi who is ahead of the curve. She urged me to read new information on the Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals website. Professor Pallav Shah, a consultant in respiratory medicine, reports that children have begun being admitted to hospital over the past few years with vaping-related disorders, which can range from worsening asthma symptoms to lung damage. That has swung it for me. I knew there must be a problem with it.
So how will I quit? With the time-honoured help of Allen Carr. Carr, the bestselling author of a number of books on the subject, and who died of smoking himself, left a thriving smoking-cessation business. And, guess what? There are now courses on quitting vaping as well. I’m signing up pronto and will let you know how I get on.
Picture editor: Stephanie Belingard.
Hair and make-up: Nadira V Persaud
