Vaping: Selling a false dream to teenage smokers

This op-ed was written by a local tobacco prevention program for youth in Oakland,CA. It is meant to offer the public the perspectives of teenagers on their opinion about vaping products. The students are aware of the toxicity/addictive qualities of electronic cigarettes and would like invite the reader to think about the issue at hand.

The FDA announced its federal investigation to restrict the sale of e-cigarettes, specifically flavored tobacco, after concerns that vaping is quickly on the rise among teenagers. A valid concern indeed because a recent survey by the National Institute on Drug Abuse uncovered that more than 30% of 12th graders reported vaping at least once in the past 12 months (1). At this point teenagers, school officials, parents and politicians need to pay attention to the growing trend of vaping among young people. E-cigarettes are being labeled as a safer alternative but can contain more nicotine than a regular cigarette. With a strong presence of advertisements, packaging, flavoring, and vaping in schools, teenagers are being tempted from all angles to use vaping products. Throughout tobacco industry using forceful strategies people to promote use regular combustible tobacco products. Flavor tobacco vaping is just another way to mask the bitter truth that teens get hooked on these products

An afterschool program in the bay area opened its doors to Oakland high school students to talk about the tobacco industry’s “media hooks” and packaging. Students were shocked when they learned that 8.25 billion dollars were spent to market and promote tobacco products (2). Their lesson objective for the day was to find the message and target audience present in the tobacco advertisements. At the end participants agreed that even though it is illegal to sell tobacco products to minors many of the advertisements they studied targeted underage youth. Thanks to the website flavorhookkids.org students they were also able to test whether an item was just a candy or a tobacco product. As you could imagine many of the students often confused the packaging of vaping e-juice with a regular slushie or cookie packages. The Peer Health Educator concluded that youth are being targeted to consume these tobacco products using colorful packaging and sweet flavors like Pina Colada, Bubble Gum, Sweet and Sour Candy and others.

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Peer Health Educators were also encouraged to talk about their experiences with vaping. Many of them mentioned that social media had hundreds of post of young influencers advertising these products. Big youtubers and Instagram influencers use their platform to market vaping products. WHile their post say “over the age of 18 only” this has not stopped the flooding of views and comments coming from minors. Some students have also witnessed their peers vaping in classrooms.They felt peer pressured by others to start vaping because it would give make them more popular. Studies uncovered that teens are less likely to smoke if they know their peers are against it. The participants are aware of the risks of e-cigarettes and know that nicotine at a young age is not good. One student mentioned “It is like they want to hook us at a young age”.

Altogether vaping among teenagers is increasing. The peer health educators of this program disapprove vaping products and take a stand to not be the next generation of smokers. All teenagers should have an equal opportunity to live a healthy adolescence without the pressure of big tobacco companies targeting them. It is illegal to sell and market to people underage so it is expected that our health departments, government, and school district advocate to have a tobacco free environment for our future generation.

• Drug Abuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/infographics/monitor
• Federal Trade Commission. Federal Trade Commission Cigarette Report for 2016. Washington: Federal Trade Commission, 2018. [accessed 2018 Dec 18]