Teen vaping is on the rise. Here's what people think about E-Cigarettes.

Photo by Tbel Abuseridze on Unsplash

Although electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) have been around for more than a decade, vaping rates have skyrocketed in recent years, especially among teens. Vaping is the act of inhaling and exhaling the vapor produced by the heated nicotine liquid (often called “juice”) of an e-cigarette, vape pen, or personal vaporizer. It’s also commonly called JUULing (pronounced jewel-ing).

In 2014, 73 percent of high school students and 56 percent of middle school students who used tobacco products in the past 30 days reported using a flavored tobacco product during that time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Also, 66 percent of teens started vaping because of the flavoring, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH).

Samantha Cherrie* is a high school freshman that started vaping in 8th grade after she saw some videos of students JUULing and found it interesting. “I started vaping because I found it cool on how they did all these tricks just with vapor. It was also amazing taking hits from a JUUL or other e-cig because the fruity flavors made it taste good in a way,” said Cherrie.

The feds are tired of this issue getting out of hand and are alarmed by a huge increase in vaping among minors. Therefore, they are now coming after teens’ favorite fruity desserts. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made an announcement months ago about rolling out new restrictions on the sale of e-cigarettes and vaping products, according to The Washington Post.

The feds are coming up with aggressive steps to decrease the popularity of vaping among teens, which most teens are not happy with. The FDA plans to remove many super-popular favored products from a majority of the locations teens get their vapes from that are currently sold in the U.S. to decrease the rate of teens vaping.

Jennifer Ibrahim, Temple University Associate Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration and Policy, explained that years ago, cigarettes had a flavor called menthol added to them, which made them more addictive. This flavor is now added in vapes to make it appealing for consumers, especially teen consumers, which starts their addiction to vaping.

The number of middle and high school students using e-cigarettes rose from 2.1 million in 2017 to 3.6 million in 2018, with a difference of about 1.5 million youth, according to the CDC. From 2017 to 2018, the number of high school students who reported using e-cigarettes increased 78 percent, according to the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey.

As an older sister of a high school student, and like any other worried older sibling and parent, I wonder, why is there’s an increase of vaping among teens? What attracts these teens to want to get their hands on e-cigarettes and going through twist and turns to get them? What are the health consequences, if any?

About 17.6 percent of students had started vaping in 8th grade, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Vaping in middle schools is becoming more common now, and even most high school students that are currently smoking e-cigarettes started vaping when they were in middle school.

Piper Smoak* is another high school freshman, who began vaping around 7th grade. She started vaping after a trip down to Cobbs Creek park with her friends for a little hangout. “There were beers, weed, and vapes everywhere. I thought since to fit in, why not do it with them since they are also my friends. After smoking and drinking that day I felt great and just kept doing it whenever I can,” says Smoak.

Dr. Danielle Casher, who is a Pediatrician at Temple University Hospital, said, “Around this age, teens are self-conscious about their appearance and whether they're accepted by their peers. All those things play a role in their decision to vape or not. This is way more important to a teenager than health effects.”

There are many other factors causing teens to vape and be drawn to vaping at such an early age, such as feeling stressed and pressured. “It can be pressure and expectations from their parents to do well in school. It can even be from their community causes them stress and pressure to do great things. Also, they’re under all that academic and social pressure. All that stress can lead to teens vaping,” said Casher.

Blaire Camel*, who is a high school freshman, started vaping in 6th grade. “I wasn’t peer pressured into vaping. I just love getting buzz, and it reduces my stress. I have pressure from my family to do well in school, and I don’t want to disappoint them. Also, I joined many clubs and play lacrosse. With all the things I have to do, vaping helps me from not freaking out.”

Fitting in wasn’t the only reason Smoak started using e-cigarettes either. “I deal with a lot of stress in my life. Since, I’m a working student and I mainly have to support myself throughout all of it. I have to deal with getting minimum wage and deal with the bulls*** at school. Ever since my father had abandoned me when I was nine, I have felt different ever since. I drink and smoke because they make me calm and relaxed to forget about him.”

When teens are vaping, their brains’ are releasing a brain chemical called endorphins, which are transmitters that helps them cope with pain or stress. “The endorphins probably makes you feel better, but that doesn’t mean it’s overall good for you. There are healthier ways teens can cope with stress that will not lead them to addiction and may benefit them in a cardiovascular standpoint,” said Casher.

“Vaping can actually elevate their blood pressure, which is going to have a counter effect. It's doesn’t make teens relax, even though that’s what they say,” says Ibrahim.

Laurence Steinberg, Temple University professor specializing in child and adolescent development, said, “Vaping is one of the most addictive drugs there is, and in the long run, that’s bad for mental health. Using nicotine increases the risk of using other drugs, like alcohol or marijuana.”

Most people aren’t aware that minors finding and getting their hands on vapes, e-cigarettes, and hookah pens are as easy as Beyoncé dancing with heels on when she was seven months pregnant.

“It’s easy to buy vape products because there are a lot of shops that serve underage smokers or just find someone in the school that sells them,” said Cherrie. Also, Cherrie said that his grandmother started smoking at 13 years-old and support his actions, so his grandmother buys him e-liquid and pods for his vape.

Some teens even buy vapes from mainstream websites that facilitate consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales, such as eBay, Amazon, Craigslist, Wish, etc. “I bought my second vape from eBay, which I bought with my gift card. It was so easy, and eBay doesn’t ask for your age, which makes it a perfect place to buy vapes,” says Camel.

For many years, schools have been teaching students about the health consequences of smoking, but that still doesn’t stop teens from vaping their hearts out. Most teens don't care what their schools are teaching them, they don’t actually know what’s in their vape, or they don’t think it’s harmful either way.

“Teens mistakenly believe it’s harmless, which it isn’t. Also, that other psychologists don’t know anything about the long term effects of nicotine on the teen’s brain, but they do know that it’s addictive, even if it comes through vaping rather than smoking,” says Steinberg.

“In school, yes, they taught us that it’s not good for us, but they really don’t know what goes on in our personal lives to explain why we do it, so why should we listen to them,” said Smoak.

“Yeah, we learned about this in school, but I don’t feel harmed doing it, and I feel fine. Besides, I do it for my personal reasons, so who cares,” said high school freshman Mark Boro*.

Only, 13.2 percent of teens know there’s nicotine in their e-cigarettes, according to the NIH. “No matter what, there’s always going to be a little hint of nicotine and whenever you vape a pen. I don’t think there’s little. There’s a significant amount in it. But otherwise, they wouldn’t be having the psychoactive effects now that could also have a negative health side effect,” said Casher.

Additionally, nicotine isn’t the only chemical teens are adding in their bodies that is causing harm to them while vaping, but there’s not enough data on it. “Cigarettes are carcinogenic or harmful. There are a lot of different substances involved, but there isn’t enough research on how harmful it is. It may be harmful to the brain, and even other parts of the human body,” says Casher.

Casher believes Marijuana is becoming the latest trend in the vaping world. She said there have been studies where it recently has shown that it affects teens’ brain and help them perform successfully in their education.

“There's definitely some good evidence that marijuana exposure when your brain is developing has a negative impact on learning and memory, but the long-term effects of marijuana exposure isn’t really known,” said Casher.

The government needs to start addressing mental health issues for teens too because it’s one of the main components on why they are smoking in the first place. Teens know based on their education that vaping is bad for them, but they don’t know or care what’s in them either.

Ibrahim believes that the next step should be getting rid of the flavors in electronic nicotine delivery devices, which the FDA is trying to do. The second thing that will help decrease the rate of teen vaping is requiring a disclosure of the content because most teens don’t know the chemicals they are consuming when they vape. Teens not knowing what is in their juice is one of the reasons why vaping among teens is increasing.

There are other reasons why teens vape that has nothing to do with flavor, even though the flavor does contribute to the rise of vaping. Most of these teens are smoking vapes because of family, social, and academic stress and pressure.

Vapes are easily accessible to teens, and they have delicious flavors, but it’s not the reason why they are vaping. It can help contribute to their cause, but that’s not the main problem. The government needs to address the mental health issue of vaping because it seems like stress and pressure is the primary cause of vaping.

If teens can’t talk about how they are feeling, they are going to use unhealthy things to help them cope, such as vaping, because to them, that’s the only solution to make them feel better, despite the terrible health effects.

However, some teens want to stop vaping because of these harmful effects. “One day I plan to quit smoking because I don’t want it to affect the rest of my life. I know I can try my best to quit, not just for me, but for the sake of my future,” says Boro.

But, there are still teens that don’t know these negative impacts or don’t care, which needs to be addressed by the government. Otherwise, the vaping rate will continue to rise and continue to affect young minds, making them more addicted to the fruity monster.

Note: Symbol * means that high school students that chose to interview with me, but keep their identity anonymous