Ashley Arend
Writing for College
October 27, 2018
The age of technology is fully upon the United States, especially for younger generations. More and more screens and improved tech are becoming an essential park of everyday life. Cars are being converted from gas to electric, some even having the capability to drive themselves. Most schools have fully integrated technology into the average school day with iPads and smart boards, changing the way that students learn and thrive. Phones and smart watches now have the ability to connect people in ways never thought possible before. So with technology evolving, what changes come with cigarettes? The creation of electronic cigarettes. The rate at which teens are using electronic cigarettes are unfortunately increasing more and more each year, but what are electronic cigarettes, what health impacts do they have, and how can we limit teen usage?
Normal cigarettes work by lighting them and burning tobacco leaves. The inhalation of the resulting smoke delivers nicotine to the user, but also delivers over 4,000 other toxic chemicals, including things like tar at dangerously high levels. In comparison, electronic cigarettes don’t have tobacco and don’t involve the ‘burning’ of any substance. Instead of burning or lighting, you now charge. E-cigarette products contain a liquid juice that most often, but not always, contains nicotine. E-cigarettes replicate the feeling of smoking. Inside the e-cigarette, a liquid is heated to create aerosol, commonly called a “vapor”, that the person inhales (hence where the saying “vaping” comes from).
They were originally created in 2003, in effort to create an easy transition for smokers to start to attempt to quit, as well as them being a scapegoat to eliminate smoke and the scent as well. An issue of the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior written in June 2018 outlines how people who have transitioned away from normal cigarettes to electronic didn’t lose all the health concerns, but it definitely knocked many off the list. E-cigarettes are still very highly addictive, and the FDA released a new statement certifying that e-cigarettes can cause cancer. But compared to the traditional cigarettes, which have other toxins in addition to nicotine, e-cigarettes are the less risky option. Switching to electronic cigarettes wont solve all the health problems, but it is definitely the lesser of two evils. The issue occurs when people become addicted to vaping, but have never smoked a hard cigarette.
At Eagan High School, I know that most people who have an e-cigarette or ‘vape’, have never smoked a normal cigarette before, yet are still addicted. The most common, is a Juul. This is a flash drive looking vape and it is very popular amongst teens and young adults. One ‘pod’ or carton of juice that you insert into the Juul contains the same amount of nicotine as one whole box of normal cigarettes. The problem is that students are becoming very addicted without even having smoked a cigarette before. There is a high concern that the bridge between electronic cigarettes and normal cigarettes is one that is too easy to cross. The Brooklyn Law Review states in their winter 2018 issue that young adults who didn’t smoke normal cigarettes, but the ones who had used electronic cigarettes, were more than 4 times likely than non vaping peers to start smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes within 18 months. So what does this mean for high schools, as electronic cigarettes have already taken over the hallways?
Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb declared in a statement by the FDA that e-cigarette use is now an epidemic among teens. He told the popular vape manufacturers to come up with a plan within the next two months for discouraging teen use of vaping products, and threatened to ban all flavored vaping products, as that is what draws teens to their products. Though many manufacturers have said they were trying to make it clear to younger generations that their products are for adults only, Gottlieb claimed that it was more like an act and not a real effort to stop selling to children and adolescents. He states that “Companies like Juul claim to be investing in information to stop the teenagers from doing it, but it’s a big market for them”. Many people frown upon companies like Juul as they seem to be prioritizing their profits over the health of younger generations. A pediatric counselor Jennifer Hawkins notes that many of her patients are already addicted to nicotine. “On one particular day in August, I had 12 patients aged 12 to 20 who said they were using Juul,” she said. “One 12-year-old said he was bullied into trying it by his sibling and his friends.” Studies have proved that teens who try-e-cigarettes are far more likely to then go on to smoking old-fashioned combustible cigarettes. Hawkins saw it first-hand in a patient who lost her Juul device and became frantic in her need for a nicotine fix. “She was smoking two packs (of cigarettes) a day,” Hawkins said. This is where the bridge between vapes and hard cigarettes becomes an issue.
The creation of E-Cigarettes has made it easy for students to become addicted to nicotine. The stigmas behind it in some schools have the status of being “cool”. Recently, individual cities have been taking action and changing the legal age of buying tobacco from 18 to 21. Juul, which commands over 60 percent of the e-cigarette market, said it is working to prevent underage use of its products, but also added that flavors can ‘help adult smokers quit cigarettes’. As part of its plan of action to address the epidemic, the FDA also sent more than 1,300 warning letters to stores for the illegal sale of e-cigarettes to minors and issued another 131 civil money penalties to stores that continued to violate the restrictions on sales to minors. Some individual cities have also been raising the legal age of buying nicotine and tobacco products from 18 to 21. By doing this it allows it to be that much more difficult for minors to gain access to certain products.
The next steps for ending this epidemic may seem unclear, but steps need to be taken. We can approach it from all different sides – at home, at school, and from the source. At home parents can become more aware of their child and their habits, as most often identifying the electronic cigarette itself is difficult because of the ranges of size and shape. At school, teachers and faculty should become more educated about what it is and what they are, and the counseling office can offer rehabilitation options for those who have been caught inside the school (other than just detention or suspension). Lastly, the electronic cigarette companies can really try to make themselves not appeal to teenagers, removing the attractive candy and fruit flavors. Taking these steps and acknowledging the epidemic issues today can help end the amount of teens with nicotine addiction problems, while shifting the meaning of electronic cigarettes back to their original purpose – to end smoking.