Exposing a trend of poisoning young people

Schools “struggle” to ban, but e-cigarettes are still “free”

At dawn, an electronic cigarette shop in Minh Nong ward, Viet Tri city was bustling with customers. All were wearing school uniforms, taking advantage of the little time before class. From how to exhale smoke to eye-catching electronic cigarette models, how to choose essential oil scents... the students had memorized everything and invited their friends to try it.

“We saw images of students gathering at the school gate still wearing white uniforms but holding electronic cigarettes in their hands, puffing and smoking in public, looking very stylish. We even saw students sitting on the back of their parents’ motorbikes on the way to school, still carelessly puffing away without their parents knowing. Young people are “poisoning” their own future with something considered “stylish” - reporter Huyen Trang shared.

A student in a school uniform "carefreely" smokes a pipe, releasing white smoke from a vape or pod in public.

Currently, electronic cigarette products are not allowed to be imported, traded and circulated in the domestic market. However, this item is being sold openly, spreading from social networks to stores, making buying and selling easy. According to a survey by a group of reporters, buying the device body once costs a few hundred thousand, and every few days you have to buy essential oils for only a few tens of thousands. Therefore, many students have become "regular customers" of electronic cigarette stores.

What should we do and how should we speak up about this situation to give timely warnings to the community? - That was the question posed to the group of reporters from the News Department, Phu Tho Radio and Television Station. The Station's Board of Directors was very interested, encouraging and creating favorable conditions for the team to create works.

The most difficult part of the series was filming and interviewing the characters and witnesses who were students using e-cigarettes. The reporters kept their identities completely confidential so as not to affect the students. Students are very wary when asked questions by strangers, and they often smoke "secretly" in private, familiar spaces such as game shops, billiards, etc. Filming was a big challenge.

Reporter Huyen Trang

With the radio genre, reporter Huyen Trang and her team tried to record the most vivid on-site sounds that clearly reflect the real context, habits, and psychology of students when using electronic cigarettes.

“Therefore, it took us a long time to get acquainted and talk. Sometimes, to get solid evidence, the group of authors had to spend a whole week “lurking” around the areas where electronic cigarettes were sold “underground”. There were also times when we were discovered and noticed. The subjects immediately packed up their goods and closed the door, avoiding the camera. In some cases, the subjects even came to ask questions with the intention of threatening and chasing them away” - Ms. Huyen Trang said.

Reflecting on the increasing use of e-cigarettes among young people, reporter Huyen Trang sought out medical experts to analyze the harmful effects of e-cigarettes; at the same time, she pointed out the loopholes in the management of e-cigarettes in Vietnam today, thereby calling for the involvement and responsibility of families, society, and functional sectors, and the urgency for the National Assembly to issue a clear legal framework for the management of e-cigarettes.

Each slice of the issue is arranged by the team in one episode of the series, with the aim of enhancing the persuasiveness of the work, clearly depicting the dangers that e-cigarettes bring to the country's future generations and encouraging the community to take actions to prevent this danger.

Meeting two very young defendants at the detention camp

For reporter Huyen Trang, the most emotional story was the meeting with two very young defendants at the Detention Center. These two defendants were accused of drug trafficking through an electronic cigarette product commonly known as “pod chill”.

At such a young age, the sentence he faces is long, from just a few puffs of an e-cigarette that he found delicious and enjoyable to a life of addiction and drug trafficking. The youth of a life has been ruined.

“This makes us feel scared, the risk of drugs being mixed into e-cigarettes is too great. For students who are still in school, even in primary and secondary school… if they are lured into contact with drugs disguised in fruit-scented cigarette smoke, what dangers lie ahead? That is what makes us really worried and scared” - reporter Huyen Trang was moved.

Reporter met Dr. Nguyen - Bach Mai Hospital.

With a structure consisting of a separate oil tank and a combustion system, electronic cigarettes can be easily modified according to needs. Users can mix flavors and drugs into the oil tube and add a spring wire to the combustion system to increase the temperature, increasing the high when inhaling drugs. Because this drug is colorless, odorless, and mixed with the smell of essential oils, it is difficult to detect by the normal senses.

At the age of 17, instead of going to school like his peers, a male student from Thanh Son district, Phu Tho province is being treated at the Poison Control Center, Bach Mai Hospital. The patient has been using e-cigarettes for 2 years and bought them online. At the time of hospitalization, he was constantly suffering from insomnia for many nights, always having hallucinations of strangers next to him, paranoia, anxiety, restlessness, slowness and many unusual actions such as turning the lights on and off continuously.

These are heartbreaking, alarming, and condemnable stories of the current situation of e-cigarette use by young people in today's society.

The most satisfying thing for Ms. Huyen Trang and her colleagues in this work is the spread of the message about raising family and social responsibility and the effect of the series after broadcasting.

Reporter Huyen Trang shared: “By painstakingly analyzing the problem corridor, the production team hopes to send a message first of all to parents to closely manage their children against temptations that are harmful to the future. In addition, as a policy issue, Vietnam needs to soon issue a legal framework to strictly manage e-cigarettes before it is too late.”

The series of articles “Don’t let e-cigarettes “poison” the youth” by Phu Tho Radio and Television Station received positive feedback after being broadcast. In Phu Tho, the education sector has coordinated with the police and health sectors to increase communication campaigns about the harmful effects of e-cigarettes in schools. The market management sector immediately conducted inspections and seized many e-cigarette products of unknown origin.

“Nothing is more valuable than a journalistic work that touches life and creates positive changes for the community,” said reporter Huyen Trang.

Hoa Giang

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/boc-tran-mot-trao-luu-dau-doc-gioi-tre-post299598.html