When he was 12 years old, Agamroop Kaur started to see a lot of kids around him smoking vapers and he started asking himself questions: “What is this product?
why does everyone use it?
What's going on here?".
During the following months he was informed and managed to find out what it was "really".
"Basically, they were very similar to lifelong cigarettes that have done so much harm to young people," says this activist at the Madrid Fair (IFEMA), where this week the European Tobacco or Health Conference (ECToH, for its acronym in English).
Kaur is 18 years old today, she has started university in California to specialize in Cognitive Sciences and, when she is not studying, she is dedicated to giving talks at colleges and institutes in the United States to raise awareness of the harms of smoking and new forms of smoking .
Last Thursday she spoke at ECToH in front of more than two hundred kids between the ages of 16 and 24 to continue deepening this idea and achieve a smoke-free generation by 2040, as the European Union has proposed.
For this, the organizers of the congress consider it essential to involve young people.
In this context, more than a dozen organizations (including the Spanish Association Against Cancer, the Red Cross, Greenpeace and the Lo que de verdad importa Foundation) are forging an alliance to create an anti-smoking youth movement from which influencers emerge
.
of the future, visible and involved faces that can be something like the thunbergs gretas against smoke.
What these organizations and the activists gathered in Madrid now see with desolation is that many of the popular faces of YouTube, Twitch or TikTok, instead of positioning themselves against the new forms of smoking, normalize them.
Streamers
like El Rubius or AuronPlay, with millions of followers on these platforms (many of them minor), have appeared on them vaping.
There are also those who directly participate in promotions to promote it.
Blu, a subsidiary of Imperial Tobacco that is called a leader in the e-cigarette sector, has organized giveaways involving
influencers
who have a predominantly youthful and adolescent audience, and resorts to music festivals with a similar audience.
The anti-smoking activist Agamroop Kaur, at the Madrid fairgrounds. DAVID EXPÓSITO
In Kaur's opinion, what happened with tobacco companies in the 1960s and 1970s is being repeated: “The industry is very intelligent and has calculated what it does perfectly.
Basically, he's working to kill us.
It is no coincidence that they apply pleasant scents to vaping liquids.
Luckily, we didn't get to the point where doctors tell you that smoking is good, as was the case then.
But we do see how the industry promotes it trying to give it a patina of sophistication, trying to sell the idea that it is just water vapor and that it is not harmful to health.
In general, the scientific consensus is that these products are less harmful than traditional tobacco, although as time goes by, new harms are found, such as tachycardia, respiratory problems and increased risk of cancer.
Experts warn that it is impossible to know the long-term effects, since they have not yet been using them long enough.
"Industry wants to fool us again," says Louise Johansson, a 29-year-old Swedish activist who has also participated in the congress.
“Now they are trying to connect what was a predominantly male product [tobacco] with women's liberation, using slogans that tell you: 'Smash the rules and use this product.'
And I think that a lot of young women who see themselves as feminists, which there are a lot of in Sweden today, are starting to believe that these products are part of their identity,” she relates.
Tobacco companies use these aspirational ideas to reach their public at the same time that they argue that the electronic cigarette can be an ally to stop smoking traditional tobacco, as a harm reduction strategy.
"If that were the case, they wouldn't make products that smell and taste like sweets, I don't think that's what a 50-year-old man is looking for to overcome his addiction," reflects Shannelle Sahlin, a 28-year-old Swedish activist.
The flavors have been banned in states like California, since together with attractive colors and presence in stores of all kinds, they are considered a claim for the youngest, something that the industry takes advantage of.
In Spain, flavors are allowed and these new ways of smoking are not subject to the same regulation (neither for their sale nor their promotion) as traditional cigarettes.
And its consumption has multiplied.
Although the latest Survey on drug use in secondary schools in Spain (Estudes), published in 2022, shows a small drop in consumption compared to 2019 (with the strict social restrictions of the pandemic in between), it also reveals that 44 % of teens ages 14-18 had tried e-cigarettes, more than double the number in 2016.
The effect of the laws against tobacco that were approved in the first decade of the century achieved a significant reduction in the habit, but they are stagnating.
According to the latest European Health Survey, the percentage of Spaniards over the age of 15 who smoke daily fell from 26.2% in 2009 to 19.8% in 2020. However, another survey on consumption that measures only between Those who are under 65 show that today 33.1% of this population smoke, more than before the regulations that restricted indoor smoking came into effect, when the percentage was 32%.
The clear conclusion when joining these two statistics is that young people continue to join tobacco and new forms of smoking: the range of the most smokers are those between 25 and 34 years of age.
New strategies
The strategy to advance against tobacco that the NGOs that participated in the congress have proposed is to start working on a three-year plan now.
In the first they want to raise awareness among young people about tobacco and its harm.
In the second, identify leaders who lead the fight, as the activists who came to Madrid do.
And, the third, that they become speakers.
The movement began in the main ECToH auditorium, where two hundred young people gathered, who contributed ideas to make their generation aware of what tobacco really is.
A group of them called their idea
Cafés y cigarro, muñecos de barro
.
“It is about going to schools to offer kids around 12 years old, which is the age at which they begin to experiment, a cup of coffee.
And in it, put all the products that a cigarette contains, which is not only the tobacco leaf, but also tar, nicotine and many other harmful substances”, explains Mireia Crespo, 20 years old.
Students from various institutes in Madrid, together with volunteers from the NGOs involved, also listened to Álvaro Trigo, who burned 60% of his body in an accident five years ago, when he was 23. “When you are in a burn unit wanting to get back to normality, living the moments that seemed boring before, but without suffering pain, you think: enough screwed things can happen to you to look for them yourself”, he says in reference to tobacco.
"Maybe it's not going to hurt you after two years, but it is going to hurt you in the long term, and it's something that young people don't usually see."
Trigo believes that sport, which he enjoys, is one of the best ways for kids to quit smoking or not to start with it.
"It helps you de-stress, and those who smoke and practice it realize more how much it can weigh them down."
summarizes.
But there is no single formula to educate youth.
Sahlin believes that it is necessary to take advantage of the environmental awareness of the new generations because tobacco "is one of the greatest threats to the planet."
“Tobacco is an obstacle to achieving each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Instead of focusing primarily on health issues, we seek an approach that shows other faces of tobacco, such as child labor on plantations.
When a young person realizes that this exists, he tells you that it is already enough reason to leave it ”, he assures.
The final declaration of the ECToH, which was read this Friday, called on all citizens "especially the young" to achieve a tobacco-free generation.
“All variants of tobacco and related products are harmful, and there is no exposure threshold that can be considered safe from their adverse effects.
And yet, neither the authorities nor society in general (for which each person is responsible) have faced this scourge with sufficient courage," the document reads.
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