Hello? got a quick question for ya... do you vape? what? Thank you to Health Canada for sponsoring this video. But as always 100 percent of thoughts and opinions are my own. Laws of nature. They are the unavoidable forces that govern our universe. And sure in physics class, you may have heard of something like electromagnetism or... Gravity! But today I am going to talk to you about my favorite inevitability: the law of unintended consequences Now the law of unintended consequences is exactly what it sounds like. A person does a thing for a reason and then something Unintended happens Now, there are a whole bunch of types of unintended consequences, but my favorite is probably The perverse result mainly because it's also known as the cobra effect. Hiss. I mean... [Hiss] Anyway, the cobra effect is when the action has the exact opposite effect than the one desired. It got its name from this anecdote that takes place during the crown rule of India. Basically the British were like: "There are too many snakes..." And so, they set a bounty on dead Cobras. Basically people can kill a cobra, bring it in, and get money. Which was great! Until people started farming Cobras instead of hunting wild ones which totally defeated the purpose and when the British were like: "This is not ideal!" and scrapped the bounty. All of the Cobra farmers were like, "oh well," and freed their remaining Cobras! The purpose of action was to put a bounty on snakes The intended outcome was less snakes. The actual outcome was MORE SNAKES! But that's just the story told in economics classes and I couldn't find any evidence of this Cobra story besides a podcast. So, do perverse results actually exists? You bet they do! Let's talk about vaping. Whether you were scrolling through Instagram or just walking down the street, you have definitely encountered somebody vaping before. Maybe you've been hit with that sweet fruity scent of a vape cloud, followed by the immediate realization that you just inhaled someone's vape cloud But today's modern trend of vape had some pretty humble beginnings. Now, there are a couple of origin stories for the first vape but the most popular belongs to Hon Lik. He was a pretty heavy smoker and one day he thought, "You know what? Maybe... I shouldn't." And he gets dead set on this idea that in order to get smokers to stop smoking traditional cigarettes They needed a bridge that was less jarring than a nicotine patch. They needed something that's still pretty similar to smoking but safer! So Hon takes action and invents his own electronic cigarette. The first vape! What could go wrong? [cellphone ringing] Hey, hey Carl. Got a quick question for ya... Do you vape? Hey there! It's future editing Sabrina over here coming in to say that that guy on the phone is my little cousin Carl I've known him since he was literally a baby. Anyway, we're gonna call him my Official Youth Correspondent. And I just want it to be known that everything he says is his own opinion! It's not Health Canada's. I didn't fact check it. So keep that in mind. Now back to the video: So assume your mom isn't gonna watch this video Do you know what a vape is? Do you know anyone who vapes then? Who? Like classmates, or, like, older people? Classmates included then, huh? Oh, gosh! I feel like a narc. I feel like a narc right now! How - how old are you again? I'm a bad cousin I don't know this. How old are you? So, In all of this, do you or any of your classmates ever consider the fact that vaping might be dangerous? So with all those signs around, wh-why are people still doing it? And his answers match up pretty well with Health Canada's Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs survey which, other than having a very long name, is this anonymous questionnaire that students from across the country in grades 7 to 12 fill out. I remember doing one a gym class and realizing that I do... Literally nothing. No drugs. No smoking. No physical activity. Anyway, the survey showed that in just the past few years, the number of students who have tried e-cigarettes has grown by 23% nationwide. That's about four hundred and seventy thousand kids, and this stands in stark contrast to the recent historic lows of traditional cigarette use by students. So you gotta ask: What makes them want to try? Have you ever been tempted to try vaping? So do you only want to try it because it's there? And does anyone ever talk about nicotine? Like in the way that it's an addictive chemical? Wait, so it's like a competition? And all of that isn't the coincidence. Maybe you have a friend and you want to try their vape just to give it a shot. Joke about doing a vape trick or make a meme reference. And then a little while later, you try again And again and again and again. And you realize you haven't always checked if your friends are vaping with nicotine or not But you kind of just want to try again. And that's the thing, in a lot of cases vaping is just a mechanism to nicotine Which is an addictive chemical. And there's two big problems with that: One: nicotine can alter teen brain development which is a pretty freaky thing to think about. And Two: even if some vapes don't contain nicotine, the ones that do vary widely in amount and that means that some vapes may even contain more nicotine than a typical cigarette. And if we're already comparing the two, nowadays It's a well-known fact that smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and premature death But nobody really knows what happens with vaping. Because some of the chemicals found in vaping liquid Vape juice?? I don't know It's stuff like vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol. Which ARE safe for use in cosmetics and sweeteners and all of that, but nobody knows the long-term safety of inhaling them. So, Hon Lik's purposive action was to invent the electronic cigarette. His intended outcome was to help cull an unhealthy addiction! The actual outcome? Well, while smokers are saying that vaping has helped them quit, we are also seeing more and more young people picking up a vape and risking a future of nicotine addiction and lung damage. That's about as perverse of a result as you could ask for. But before this video gets too preachy, if it hasn't already. Let me tell you about one last unintended consequence It's called Goodhart's Law, named after the British economist Charles Goodhart The law basically states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. And I think that's the problem with most coverage about youth and vaping It's that it talks about young people instead of to them. Every news story I've watched and article I've read have just been have just been adults talking to other adults about how all of their kids are vaping and AHHHHHH! It's so stupid! Because the whole focus is on lowering this number in a report and it ignores the people it's about. And that's the reason I teamed up with Health Canada for this video It's to support their approach on speaking directly to young people about vaping, but here's the thing, I'm not here to tell you what to do or how to live your life. I'm not your mom. This video is just asking you to think about your actions And remember that sometimes there might be some unintended consequences Ii hope you liked that video! Thank you to Health Canada for sponsoring it, and thank you to my little cousin Carl for being young and relevant... Now, what about you guys? What do you think about teen vaping? Let me know down below, and a couple of people have been asking what's the best way to support my channel and my honest answer is sharing my videos. Maybe this one?? But either way have a lovely day
