Source: Groupon
In my recent blog posts I have researched cigarettes, and how the U.S has banned most types of advertising from getting out there to expand their markets. But now, there is a new fix on the street, called e-cigarettes, and how the government has little to no laws against them to stop them from targeting people, especially teens.
Well to start off, e-cigarettes are handheld electronic devices that create the feeling of smoking tobacco. It works by heating a liquid to generate a"vapor", that the user inhales.
Very new and popular, many do not know the effects of these, which is up for a very big debate on whether or not they are worse than regular cigarettes. And unlike cigarettes, they are able to advertise as they please, in fact, its getting bigger and bigger. A statistic by the CDC shows that “E-cigarette companies have rapidly increased advertising spending, from $6.4 million in 2011 to $115 million in 2014.” And they aren’t just advertising for adults, in fact their main aim is teenagers. With all these advertising, it shows that “About 69% of middle and high school students were exposed to e-cigarette advertisements in retail stores, on the Internet, in magazines/newspapers, or on TV/movies”. This shows that not only are they trying to get the attention of teenagers, but they are, with worse statistics then the start of regular cigarettes.
Young people aren’t just seeing these advertisements, but they are also buying into them. The CDC goes on to say that e cigarette smoking “In the past 30 days increased from less than 1% to almost 4% among middle school students and from less than 2% to 13% among high school students.” Not only is it growing exponentially, but it will keep going even further, as there are no regulations against advertising for these, especially for the advertising that targets teens. If nothing is done to prevent the impact and growth of this new technology, it will become as big as a problem as cigarettes are today.
