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When vaping became popular at the school Gracey Mungulu attended, she publicly stated that she found vaping to be as offensive as smoking.
"I would actually say to people, 'Well, why are you doing this?'" she said.
But Gracie said the habit became increasingly common among classmates, so much so that by the age of 16, she started vaping herself, although the first time she tried it, she was more coughing than inhaling smoke.
“The more you see it, the more you start to try it a little bit,” Gracie said. “And then eventually I get used to it and I smoke it all the time.”
Now 21, she buys refillable e-cigarettes every day and uses them whenever her hands are not busy doing hairdressing or working at school.
According to recent survey data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Gracie is one of more than 1 million people in the UK who say they have never smoked but now use e-cigarettes, and this number is rising year by year.
When e-cigarettes first entered the market, they were seen as a way to help smokers quit cigarettes.
The British National Health Service (NHS) points out that although nicotine-containing e-cigarettes are less harmful than smoking, because nicotine is a highly addictive substance, the long-term effects of e-cigarettes are still not fully understood.
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So why would someone like Gracie, who had never smoked a cigarette, start using e-cigarettes?
The London woman believes e-cigarettes help relieve her mood when she feels socially anxious.
"It's hand movements," she said. "There's something in the hand and something in the mouth."
Like cigarettes, Gracie's e-cigarettes contain nicotine. This is a highly addictive substance that can cause withdrawal symptoms such as irritability and anxiety once it fades from the body.
She said vaping has become an "unconscious behavior." In an interview with the BBC, Gracie said she didn't even realize she was lying in bed with an e-cigarette in one hand and scrolling through Instagram with the other.
Family doctor Dr Helen Wall said she often hears this type of situation from patients, that is, habitual dependence formed by regular use of e-cigarettes.
"It's a condition of becoming psychologically dependent on something external, almost using it as a tool to regulate your emotions," she said.
Like Gracie, Malin Andersson, who until recently used e-cigarettes, said her vaping habit was inseparable from an endless stream of negative information.
She also tried smoking cigarettes but never considered herself a smoker.
The 33-year-old is among the age group most likely to use e-cigarettes. A report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that nearly one in six people aged 25 to 34 in the UK may use e-cigarettes daily or occasionally.
The domestic violence campaigner and former Love Island contestant said she started vaping while seeking comfort after a stressful breakup. She believes that what really makes her addictive is the act of vaping itself.
"It's a dopamine kick," Marlene said. "It's basically the adult version of a pacifier."
She said e-cigarettes dulled her senses and made her lose motivation.
Ma Lin could no longer stand her dependence on banana ice-flavored e-cigarettes, so she quit e-cigarettes in May this year.
"It would always be in my hand and it would make me so irritated that I would end up throwing it across the room," she said.
Selena Gomez: Smoking e-cigarettes changes the tone of her voice
BBC music reporter Mark Savage
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American singer Selena Gomez (Selena Gomez; Selena Gomez) said that smoking nicotine-containing e-cigarettes has changed the timbre of her voice.
"Nicotine is really hard to quit and I just want to say if you're going through this or even if you just want to try vaping, it's not worth it," the 34-year-old said in an Instagram post.
"It's really silly and it changes my voice," she reiterated, before laughing: "So if you don't like hearing my voice, that's totally understandable. I don't mind. Just don't listen."
The singer and actress, who suffers from the chronic autoimmune disease lupus, has previously said the disease is affecting her vocal cords.
Alex, from Manchester, has also gradually developed the habit of vaping.
She initially only smoked e-cigarettes occasionally when going out to parties, and then started taking e-cigarettes home.
The 26-year-old woman did not want her last name published. She said that e-cigarettes have become such a fixed part of her life that she often "lies in bed with the laptop in front of her and the e-cigarette on her chest" when working.
Professor Sarah Jackson, from the Alcohol and Tobacco Research Group at University College London, said that while the latest ONS figures may be alarming, some of these people may switch to cigarettes if they had not started vaping in the first place.
"If so, e-cigarettes are preventing them from engaging in a more harmful behavior, which is good news," she said. "But on the other hand, there are some people who are taking additional risks that they wouldn't otherwise face."
She mentioned that a study published in 2024 by researchers at University College London found that although cigarette smoking rates fell in England, the use of nicotine products among young adults increased.
"From this we can infer that some of the people who use e-cigarettes do not smoke," Jackson said.
A report from the Office for National Statistics shows that there are approximately 5.4 million e-cigarette users aged 16 and over in the UK, while the number of smokers of all ages continues to decline steadily. There are currently around 4.9 million adults smoking in the UK.
The UK is working to reduce smoking rates and make e-cigarettes less attractive to children and young people.
The way e-cigarettes are marketed, including bright colors and sweet flavors, is under scrutiny. The British government has recently launched a public consultation on the new measures and is expected to publish a response in due course.
Hazel Cheeseman of the anti-smoking charity Action on Smoking and Health said that among the 1.1 million people who have never smoked but use e-cigarettes, "there may be some who would not have started using e-cigarettes at all if it were not for the massive marketing of e-cigarettes."
The National Health Service warns that non-smokers and people aged 17 and under should not use e-cigarettes; at the same time, it is illegal to sell e-cigarettes to people under the age of 18. Disposable e-cigarettes are seen as one of the important driving factors for the rise in e-cigarette use among teenagers and were banned last year.
Wall said heavy marketing of e-cigarettes in recent years has fueled a "misconception" that e-cigarettes are "safe and non-addictive."
Gracie believes that e-cigarettes should be packaged in uniform plain packaging like cigarettes because cigarette packaging "looks scary."
"E-cigarettes come in various flavors and beautiful colors, which only makes it easier for us to be attracted to them."
Although she says vaping is seen as more socially acceptable among her generation than smoking, she still sees her habit as a problem and has considered quitting to save her £35 (US$47; 313 yuan; NT$1,530) a week.
However, just like quitting smoking, quitting vaping can be difficult. For Alex, vaping even took her in the opposite direction.
She said she successfully quit e-cigarettes while traveling for several months, but due to lack of access to e-cigarettes, she started smoking cigarettes for the first time.
Experts agree that smoking cigarettes is not a healthy or effective way to quit vaping. The NHS strongly advises people to quit smoking, which remains the leading cause of preventable disease and premature death in the UK.
The NHS recommends that if you want to quit e-cigarettes, you can gradually reduce the nicotine concentration in e-cigarettes, extend the time between vaping, or switch to a suitable nicotine replacement therapy product.
However, professional support services for quitting e-cigarettes are not widely available. A recent survey found that less than half (45%) of health facilities in England offer e-cigarette cessation support services. The support situation in other parts of the UK is also different.
Wall said that while fewer people are smoking is a good thing, for people like Gracie who are jumping right into vaping, some of the public health messages appear to be under-delivered. "(The NHS) originally only wanted to use e-cigarettes as an alternative to cigarettes."
This article was originally written in English. We used artificial intelligence to assist in translation and was reviewed by BBC journalists before publication. Learn more about how we use artificial intelligence.
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