Vaping and a culture that substitutes one risk for another
As Collin Avrard stands behind the counter at Crescent City Vape, a shop that bills itself as NOLA’s best with its “100+ flavors of premium e-liquid, all hand-crafted in the USA,” he’s quick to recommend his favorite flavor: corn bread pudding.
“It has the most outlandish name,” laughs Mr. Avrard, an employee with wire-rimmed glasses whose glinting gold grill matches the gold watch on his wrist. “But it also lands spot-on with what it tastes like.”
It’s one of many e-cigarette flavors that two states have banned this week in response to a number of illnesses linked to the use of vaping devices.
Mr. Avrard says he first started vaping a few years ago in an effort to be healthy, not cool.
He was determined to quit smoking cigarettes, an addictive habit he started at age 15, he says. At 18, desperate to break an addiction he knew was harming his health and well-being, he started vaping e-liquid pods that contained the same amount of nicotine as a cigarette. He’s now following the “tapering” method
Marketing an imageA victory against youth smokingView from a vape shop“We’re repeating history”
