Better Education in Vaping

Vaping is an epidemic that is consuming adults, teenagers and even pre-teens. With the effect of nicotine without the physical cigarette, it’s hard to resist. With kid-friendly flavors attracting all of the wrong customers. Vaping can lead to all types of health problems.  

First, nicotine is a drug that is age restricted, being that it is extremely addictive. If exposed to nicotine at a young age, it can contribute to problems involving learning, impulse control and concentration. This has become what seems to be a normality among young adults. A popular trend that is unhealthy and seems to be increasing by the day. When students were asked why they chose to start vaping, the majority said, “because it was popular”. In 2017 studies showed that 35.8 percent of high school seniors vaped. Now in 2019, the statistics have grown by 6.7 percent. That is 42.5 percent of high school seniors reporting that they have vaped.  

As much as vaping has increased these past years, has the awareness followed? The problem today is the education. A study done by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) showed that only 13.2 percent of teens are aware of their vaping device containing nicotine. Sixty six percent were under the impression that their vaping device only contained flavoring. Thirteen-point-seven percent reported that they don’t even know what is in it, 5.8 percent thought that their device contained marijuana. So, what are these statistics telling us? Has society failed to make these kids aware of the risks or are they vaping because they enjoy it despite the risks? A teenager at Central believes that most teens are attracted to it because of the flavoring, how these different flavors are attracting certain demographic, whether its intentional or not.  

In 2018, the company Juul made nearly $650 million in total. Those numbers are extremely high, most of them probably being teenagers. Juul is only one of the companies that sells nicotine devices, so just imagine how large the other companies’ numbers are.  According to a research letter by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Juul sold 2.2 million devices in 2016 and increased by over 600 percent with an end total of 16.2 million devices by then end of 2017. 

In conclusion, most people are not aware of what they are putting into their bodies. To help these numbers decrease it is vital that we make them aware of the risks. The best way to do this is to make the vaping ads more informational. The ads by ‘The Real Cost’ do a good job of releasing information about the risks of vaping, but not enough companies or articles do a good enough job of making kids aware. But the main problem here is the schools. If schools made students more aware of the risks and made them do the research or teach it to them the numbers of students who vape would decrease extremely. The best solution is to prevent vaping before it starts with the next generation by educating them.