Legalizing Vaping
Having emerged quite recently, vaping was considered a fad initially, yet it seems to have cemented its place in the global industry as an important trend that represents a constant demand. However, with the parallels between traditional smoking and electronic vaping having been drawn momentarily, vaping was prohibited in the U.S. (Borodovsky et al., 2016). However, due to significantly less harmful effects that vaping produces on health and physical development, I can be considered a legitimate solution to reducing the levels of smoking, which is why it needs to be legalized as a possible component of a therapy aimed at helping people to quit.
When compared to smoking, the side effects of vaping appear to be minuscule, which is why vaping needs to be recognized as a significantly less harmful alternative. Consequently, its therapeutic effect as the transitioning phase between smoking and a healthy lifestyle must be acknowledged. Consequently, the development of a policy allowing vaping as the treatment tool for quitting smoking has to be enacted. The policy in question would center the needs of people that are exposed to smoking, emphasizing the latter as a major public health issue that must be managed appropriately. Thus, the FDA and the U.S. Government must legalize vaping as a possible constituent of effective therapy aimed at managing one of the biggest public health concerns to date.
Prohibiting Vaping
Simultaneously, it is important to realize that vaping is not entirely harmless, and that it should only be seen as the opportunity for transitioning from smoking to a healthy lifestyle. According to the existing research, abuse of vaping entails prolonged exposure to volatile organic compounds, which may also have a detrimental effect on one’s health (Kalkhoran & Glantz, 2016). Although vaping has an admittedly fewer range of side effects discovered so far, most of its outcomes on people’s well-being have not been researched fully (Hua & Talbot, 2016). Thus, the fact that the outcomes of vaping are heavily under-researched does not allow making it a full-fledged part of a therapy process.
Therefore, vaping is not to be allowed; quite the contrary, it is important to guard people against the fad, the outcomes of which are currently, for the most part, unknown. Additionally, vaping in itself may contribute to the development of a smoking habit. Since it launches the same brain reward system that nicotine products do, it does very little to break the habit of smoking, which is why allowing vaping on a legal level is likely to contribute to a rise in smoking rates. Once having developed the habit of vaping, people are likely to try tobacco products as well.
Methamphetamine: The World’s Most Dangerous Drug
Substance addiction is one of the most difficult health issues to manage due to the incessant urge that it causes in patients. Although opioids are generally considered the class of drugs that have grave implications for an individual’s physical and mental health, methamphetamine is usually singled out as the one that produces the most devastating effect. The reasons for all authorities, including healthcare, legal, and religious ones, to pay particular attention to methamphetamine include its high availability and the risks of developing severe health issues as an immediate response to the drug (Gouzoulis-Mayfrank et al., 2017). According to a 2019 report, methamphetamine affects men particularly strongly since 3.7% of men needed an emergency hospitalization immediately after consuming meth (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2019). Therefore, a combination of poor awareness rates among target audiences about the health risks, namely, changes in brain functions, and its high availability make methamphetamine the drug about which not only healthcare authorities but also clergy and legal organizations actively warn citizens.
References
Borodovsky, J. T., Crosier, B. S., Lee, D. C., Sargent, J. D., & Budney, A. J. (2016). Smoking, vaping, eating: Is legalization impacting the way people use cannabis? International Journal of Drug Policy, 36, 141-147.
Gouzoulis-Mayfrank, E., Härtel-Petri, R., Hamdorf, W., Havemann-Reinecke, U., Mühlig, S., & Wodarz, N. (2017). Methamphetamine-related disorders. Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, 114(26), 455-461.
Hua, M., & Talbot, P. (2016). Potential health effects of electronic cigarettes: A systematic review of case reports. Preventive Medicine Reports, 4, 169-178.
Kalkhoran, S., & Glantz, S. A. (2016). E-cigarettes and smoking cessation in real-world and clinical settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 4(2), 116-128.
National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2019). Methamphetamine drug facts. Web.