Dinner Time Talks: A Discussion on Vapes

Description

It’s a Friday afternoon and our friend group decided to go out and get dinner together. While we were deciding what to order for the table, Anjuthan pulls out a vape and starts vaping in front of everyone. While Riya and Amanda had no problem with Anjuthan’s actions, Eric and Nur were extremely upset and tensions arose, leading to a broader discussion related to the outright banning of vapes in Canada. Eric and Nur argued that vaping will cause adverse health and safety concerns, especially amongst Canadian youth, and this will lead to potential future economic implications, such as skyrocketing healthcare costs. However, Riya and Amanda quickly jump to Anjuthan’s defense and state that vapes are used as harm reduction tools, are a safer alternative to cigarettes, the ban can lead to black market activity and disproportionately impact minorities. Anjuthan explains that the banning of vapes will lead to widespread business closures and mass layoffs and would prevent businesses from researching and making new innovations that may lead to safer vaping products. The team utilized the Competing style of handling conflict, which escalates tensions. The group de-escalated the conflict by working collaboratively, suspending and actively listening to one another. We considered everyone's perspectives, withholding judgment, and separated our interests from our positions to better understand each other’s views. We came up with a solution that included everyone's arguments, such as keeping vape shops open but adding stricter measures to prevent underage sales and implementing more education in schools regarding the dangers of vaping. This solution takes into account that closing vape shops could lead to black markets, which would harm the society more than it’ll benefit it. This is a win-win situation in terms of our interests, as it addresses children getting a hold of vapes, keeping business open, and economic concerns.