While any concerned parent has every right to be worried about their teens becoming addicted, vaping is currently one of the top concerns in our country. While it’s not as dangerous of a threat as opioids, there are still plenty of reasons for families to be concerned if their teens are vaping in the house.
Trying to Keep Vaping Away From Teens
In the latest news on vaping, it’s been reported that lawmakers in Virginia have been meeting on new ways to tax vaping companies. Vaping has become so popular that traditional smoking has gone down in popularity. Juul is probably the most popular vaping product on the market, and as NBC reports, “E-cigarettes, like the popular Juul, are subject to the state’s sales tax, but no other special tax.”
At the same time, CNBC reports that while teen cigarette smoking has been on the decline, some feel that e-cigarettes and vaping may lead teens to smoking in conventional ways again.
This report also states that the FDA has been conducting investigations into vaping and looking into what’s fueling the popularity of Juul, which has now grown into its own company. Juul sales are up 800%, and the company has a value of a whopping 15 billion dollars.
Just because Juul may seem safer than regular smoking doesn’t mean it doesn’t come without its health risks. As one researcher told CNBC, teens, and kids who Juul have more asthma attacks, miss more school from getting sick, and are more susceptible to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. “Addiction is not a phase,” this researcher continues. “It’s not like something kids grow out of.”
Educating Teens About Vaping
At high schools and colleges across America, there have been many people speaking to teens about the dangers of vaping. As Fox 10 news explains, in Arizona, the Department of Health Services has been on a mission to curtail vaping among teens, and so are local schools. And it hasn’t just been an education for teens, and the parents are also learning how their teens are sneaking vaping into the home, which is much easier to do because it doesn’t smell like traditional tobacco.
Right now many are trying to warn teens against vaping before it could wind up too late. In another recent vaping report, one man spoke to Men’s Health about how he made a “huge mistake” trading vaping for smoking.
As writer Nick English explains, “E-cigarettes have been around since 2003, and we still don’t know much about their health effects or safety. But, as we’ve pulled the flavored smoke from our Juuls, we’ve blindly assumed one thing: they have to be a better idea than smoking cigarettes.”
Just one of the chemicals you’re ingesting with vaping is propylene glycol, which can cause severe lung disorders “When heated to vaping temperature it can produce the carcinogen formaldehyde.”
As English continues, “Eventually I was vaping pretty much all day, every day. My lung capacity was destroyed. I couldn’t do cardio to save my life; walking up stairs sucked the wind out of me. My stamina and day-to-day-life were vastly more affected by this vaping habit than when I used to smoke a few cigarettes on Saturday nights.”
While vaping hasn’t been established as long as regular cigarettes. Hopefully, the health risks involved in vaping, much like the severe health risks with smoking cigarettes, will soon be common knowledge everywhere, for teens as well as adults.