My vaping addiction came out of nowhere – and I'm finding it impossible to quit | Imogen West-Knights

The jury's still out on whether vapes are better for us than smoking. So why is the UK government handing them out?

I am vaping right now. It's a watermelon one, which I bought from Sainsbury's rather than from the vape shop that, unfortunately, is the nearest shop of any kind to where I live. The ones I normally buy are Triple Mango. Oh, is one mango not enough?" people reliably joke when I tell them what flavour it is. No amount of mango could apparently be enough. If they brought out Quadruple Mango I'd be there banging my debit card on the counter. Earlier this week, the man who runs the vape shop took me through the new flavours he'd just got in, like I am a connoisseur of fine whisky. I'm not that. I am a silly little girl who likes her dummy.

I have had my brain well and truly fried over the past nine months or so by vapes. Not the old-style vapes: unflavoured, nerdy-looking objects that were for a long time the preserve of morose ex-smokers. The dumb fruity ones you've seen everywhere, littering the pavements, clutched in the mitts of pub-goers and people waiting for the bus, called things like Blappleberry Blast or Dr Maniac's Pinacoloco.