Cigarettes v e-cigarettes

Hello I’m Rob. Welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m joined today by Finn.

Hello Rod.

Today we are going to talk about electronic cigarettes – also called e-cigarettes – and teach you words that will help you to discuss the subject or understand news about it.

Let’s start by asking you Finn, do you smoke, Finn?

No I don’t Rob. And sometimes the smoke from other people’s cigarettes makes me cough, like that.

Yes It’s because you are a secondary smoker in other words, you’re someone who doesn’t smoke but breathes in the smoke from someone else’s cigarette.

And this smoke is very harmful to your health, so, here is today’s question, Finn.

OK, go ahead.

According to the World Health Organisation, there are more than 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke.

How many of these are known to be harmful to our health?

Is it at least:

a) Fifty

b) A hundred and fifty

c) Two hundred and fifty

Oh Rob You know I honestly have no idea, Let’s say C Two hundred and fifty.

You’ll get the answer at the end of the programme. Some estimates say more than a million people are using e-cigarettes just in the UK. But these devices might not be very safe for secondary smokers …

Oh really? I thought they were okay because they produce vapour that’s water in form of gas rather than the smoke full of harmful chemicals that’s you get in ordinary cigarettes.

Well, the World Health Organisation is not convinced e-cigarettes are any safer to secondary smokers. It has recommended a ban on the use of electronic cigarettes indoors and their sale to people under 18 years old.

A ban? In other words, they don’t want them to be permitted indoors anymore? Well, I know that e-cigarettes work by heating liquid nicotine now nicotine is the substance in tobacco which makes it addictive and It turns this into vapour which is breath in by the smoker. You see I thought it was okay because it was just vapour,and therefor okay for non-smokers too!

While you see it’s vapour with some chemicals in it. And experts fear it could have similar effects to the smoke produced by ordinary cigarettes.

Listen to what Professor John Ashton has to say. He’s from the Faculty of Public Health here in the UK.

Which words does he use to describe the use of e-cigarettes for an extended period of time?

There are scientists in America who’ve been studying second-hand effects of tobacco smoke who are raising these issues now about the e-cigarettes and we really can’t allow these things to get established before we know what the long-term effects are going to be.

He talks about long-term effects, he means that the constant use of e-cigarettes for an extended period of time might cause harm which we are not aware of yet.

You can’t light up a cigarette in a pub or bar anymore. It was the effect of people’s cigarette smoke on other staff that led to the ban on ordinary cigarettes in Britain.

Private companies and the authorities are keen not to risk bringing back any kind of smoking to closed spaces in public places.

This is likely to annoy many smokers who have been moving to electronic cigarettes in an attempt to cut down on nicotine or even to quit smoking.

Yes, many people want to quit smoking ­ stop smoking at once, and they find it easier to do this if they can use e-cigarettes.

In the last few decades smokers have been feeling persecuted.

Well, there’s a lot of pressure for them to quit the habit.

Let’s listen to this smoker who uses e-cigarettes he’s in a pub in Bristol which word does he use to talk about the harm certain things do to children?

We react at absolutely everything in this world What we’ll gonna have eventually though is ‘no drinking beer’ in pubs because it’s damaging for you know for children to watch it happening.

He uses the word ‘damaging’, meaning harmful He complains that there’s an overreaction to things like cigarettes and alcohol.

Yes An ‘overreaction’ means responding to something in a way which is more forceful than required.

He complained that one day the authorities might end up banning people from drinking alcohol in pubs, pubs, as we know, are bars to which most customers go to drink alcohol.

And I think he is using some irony here.

Making a joke here.

Well the right to smoke or not smoke generates passionate debates.

But here are some facts which might make people think again. I told you earlier in the program me that there are more than 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke. And I asked you how many of these are known to be harmful to health. The options were: at least 50, 150 or 250?

I said 250 Is it as many as that, Rob?

It is as many as that.

Yes, at least 250 Acording to the World Health Organisation website, it says that more than 50 chemicals in tobacco smoke are known to cause cancer.

Any amount of second hand tobaco smoke is thought to be unsafe, and second hand smoke causes more that 600,000 early deaths per year.

Well, as we are nearly the end of the programme, let’s just remember some of the words we used today Finn?

Okay we heard:

cough

secondary smoker

vapor

ban

nicotine

long-term

quit smoking

damaging

overreaction

Thanks Finn.

that’s it for this programme.

Please join us soon again for 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.

Bye.