Helping Teenagers Quit Vaping

Since this article ran, the CDC finally confirmed that the lung injuries & deaths were all attributed to black market, illicit THC cartridges containing Vit E acetate. To date there have been zero adverse events reported related to vaping nicotine, or zero nicotine. The only side effect of vaping has been the ability for millions of smokers to quit combustible cigarettes. Thereby improving their health and extending their lives. Vaping is not smoking. Instead of trying to ban a life saving product, the US should be taking notes from our neighbors across the pond. Unlike the US, the UK has embraced vaping & can see the public health benefit of maintaining access to vape products. The UK has even started opening up vape shops & kiosks in their hospitals. That decision wasn’t made without a host of research & scrutiny. The US should be embracing this technology. Instead they demonize vaping. Save our youth. Kill their parents. Adults like flavors + no one is up in arms about all the flavored alcohol that our youth consume regularly. Finally, our alleged public health officials want to ban flavors & vape products, yet see no problem with leaving cigarettes (the known killer) on the shelves, ready for youth & adults to purchase anytime. How is that any form of logical public health policy? Dig deep & educate yourself about the topic. Vaping saves lives.

Recent scientific research is uncovering some more serious side effects of vaping. For example, research conducted at the UNC Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma, and Lung Biology, shows vaping has the same effect as smoking when it comes to suppressing immune genes. It is a fact that when you introduce any substance into the human body to which it is not accustomed, there can be side effects. So, no matter if you inhale, ingest or even just touch certain chemical substances, your body will show certain adverse effects.

How is it reasonable to sell Juul when their ads spell out that the nicotine will addict you??...and sell it to children??? How is it possible that a known addictive substance is not regulated by the FDA? There are no excuses for this, just greed and lack of responsibility & accountability to society. The best excuse is Nicotine won't kill you like cigarettes just economically enslave you is a crazy answer.

Let the tweens Vape and protest climate change all day long.

One thing that bothers me about all the anti-vape hysteria is that it seems people only care about "saving" youth, and not adults, from this supposed scourge. What about adults who are addicted to nicotine? Who's worrying about helping those people quit smoking or vaping? Are their lives worth less than the lives of young people simply because the young people have longer life expectancies? Banning all vaping devices would eliminate a quitting strategy that has been documented in scientific studies (outside the U.S.) to help former smokers quit, and yet there is so much momentum for a ban in the U.S. currently. There seems to be an assumption built in to that effort that adults addicted to nicotine are beyond helping or just don't deserve it, or that worsening their health is acceptable collateral damage in the "battle" to keep youth nicotine-free.

If your child is vaping or smoking, a pediatrician is not the right doctor to see. They are not qualified to deal with psychologically driven behavior. They will focus on danger and addiction. You can quit nicotine in 3 days - like during a bout of flu'. It's the coupling of nicotine and emotional needs that gives it power over of depression, anxiety, lack of self esteem, ADD, group acceptance and even schizophrenia. Even talking about danger is dangerous - that’s why teens seek it out. Danger makes them feel more alive. The real question is why - and why smoking? As for eCigarettes, there are no proven cases of mortality since 2003. The issue is marijuana and illicit supplies . Blaming all eCigarettes undermines credibility and while it might work with the teens who are simply tagging along to look cool, it is completely different with emotionally-driven users. The apparent safety of vaping made it seem less desirable, so emphasizing its dangers will have the reverse effect - making it look more appealing. In my book, Cigarette Seduction, I show how the brands have specific meanings that are clues to what drives teens to smoke. With vaping, the flavors and the device choices are also clues to their behavior. It is false assurance, and probably quite dangerous to think that a doctor trained in the physical arts can simply prescribe away complex human behavior with a few lozenges. If you want to know how the opioid crisis got started, you just might have found out.

Chantix worked for me 12 years ago when I was struggling to control 2 packs a day for decades. The drug addict craving stopped, and buying all sorts of Apple equipment kept me entertained until I forgot about smoking completely. Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking also helped. It’s a lot like dieting. Getting to your ideal weight can be done by simply eating only what you need to weigh what you should, and takes about a year. You have to be the Captain of your own Ship

Meds are likely to be important, but there is a social element to vaping as well that I expect can't be ignored in helping teens get freed from nicotine addictions. One point goes to with who/how/when they use the products -- trying to help them understand those dynamics in their personal scenery. The other may be to take a page from the Truth campaign and other programs focused on younger persons to counter industry advertising with information that will help the teens realize that these companies are not their friends. The tobacco industry's long record makes clear a malevolent agenda to sucker youth to get chemically hooked and become the present and next decades of income streaming.

Funny how vaporizing, which was developed 40-50 years ago for marijuana consumption (real marijuana, not some amber liquid) got repurposed for nicotine. Sad is now how you can integrate THC (or some fake “equivalent” ) into an amber liquid and kids think it’s the same as marijuana.

It was always such stupid idea to pretend vaping was safe. One doesn't need studies to figure out what common sense should tell us: that inhaling anything other than oxygen is bad for the lungs. Duh.

We found out our 12-year-old, middle school daughter had been vaping for over a year! It was heartbreaking. We took all of her vape paraphernalia and have been periodically testing her for nicotine, but it was hard and it will continue to be hard when everyone at her school, and I do mean EVERYONE, are vaping too.We found out our 12-year-old, middle school daughter had been vaping for over a year! It was heartbreaking. We took all of her vape paraphernalia and have been periodically testing her for nicotine. Still, it was hard, and it will continue to be hard for her when everyone at her school, and I do mean EVERYONE, are vaping too.

I grew up with a dad who was a cancer researcher. He had done some of the original studies on smoking and it's association with tumor formation and carcinogenesis. The hazards and real science on this was imprinted into my brain at a very early age. I did the same for my daughter. There is no way she will touch cigarettes, and doesn't even want to be around people that vape. For those that have started and have trouble quitting it will be a tough road but parents who have young children should understand they can prevent the dangers that have not yet arisen by educating them early.

Just look at the red cloud being exhaled. How can that be anything but unhealthy? It looks like China's smog (see the article about smog and miscarriages) added with a good dose of chemicals. E-cigs are in desparate need of regulation!

I have two college-educated adult sons who vape. Both were cigarette (and weed) smokers who switched because of the vape’s convenience, swift delivery, and the ability to use in restricted places (movie theaters). Do I want them to vape? Do I or their father smoke? Can I control their behavior? No. I didn’t model this behavior nor do I want them to do this harmful thing. But I also cannot control them. I can give them information. I can offer them incentives or inducements to quit. But if you’ve ever tried to talk an addict out of their destructive behavior, you know that’s not likely to work. I don’t know that there’s a single solution. For me, I send them articles like this. I talk to them about quitting and offer resources to help. I encourage them when they make small positive steps. Addiction ruins lives all around us. Vaping is just a new way to injest a very powerful drug.

We got lucky with our timing. Our 19 year old daughter, who had been smoking for a year or so, added a juul to her still forming habit. Fortunately this was just as all the horror stories started falling on Instagram and elsewhere. The teen who posted video of herself coughing up copious amounts of blood was enough to scare her off. We offered $25 cash on the spot to buy back her juul and she handed it over immediately. She still smokes cigarettes but it’s almost as if this is the “safer” choice. Ha. Probably what big tobacco was after all along. We still trust she’ll figure it out when she’s budgeting cigarettes out of her paycheck and not her “allowance.”

Setting aside vaping for a minute... which clearly is something that better regulation and enforcement is needed to keep it out of the hands of teens...... The real issue is black market products.. both nicotine and THC black market products. More needs to be done by law enforcement to go after these black market criminals. Reference a co-article in the times today, detailing the life threatening experience of one young man. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/health/vaping-thc-illness.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage When you read that article.. clearly nicotine cartridges were not the cause in his case. Nor were legal THC cartridges sold under regulation and by reputable suppliers. Nope.. this guy was buying off the street, and later buying by mail because he could find "cheaper deals". Here's the problem with that... he was buying black market THC and cartridges. HOW do we know? for one thing when buying them off the street in NY, he was paying $40 per one gram cartridge... whereas the actual market price for a gram of THC in a commercially reputable supplier is ~ twice that price (before regulatory taxes). And if he was getting an even better price via mail order.... one thing is clear... he was getting product of unknown quality with unkown adulterants used to cut it. It is clear to me where the illnesses are coming from ---> black market suppliers who do not give two squats about their customers well being.

If you MUST vape then pay heed to some basic rules. Don't buy vape juice off the street especially one mixed with THC. Don't mix it with THC at home or otherwise. Avoid using prefilled pods with juice as there are a lot of knock offs out there capitalizing on branded products. Only vape if you are quitting smoking and seeking a nicotine alternative. Avoid flavoured eliquids and stick to unflavoured nicotine only liquids. If you are vaping liquids without nicotine, dont. Then it is easy to quit since it should not be addictive. Purchase your supplies from vaping stores only which you trust.

Wish that teens would read this article, but they don't read the NYTimes. Perhaps a teen on-line version would help.

My 17-year-old recently went for his annual well visit with his pediatrician. The form they ask teens to fill out did not have a single question about vaping. It asked about tobacco use, drugs, and alcohol. I know this because my son pointed it out to me. Days earlier I had discovered dozens of empty JULL pods, several vape pens, and other empty vape liquid bottles stashed away in our house. I told my son we'd discuss it with his doctor, but when I asked her what could be done to help a kid who is clearly hooked on nicotine from vaping she suggested he call the NY state smokers' quit line. Really? Adults have failed our young people on this. Parents I know deemed it harmless water vapor. Schools doled out suspensions. Doctors failed to ask the right questions. And our government allowed concentrated doses of nicotine to be flavored like candy and sold to high school seniors earning minimum wage. Now we have a new generation of kids addicted to nicotine. The evidence was right there under our noses, except the smell was so sweet, nobody noticed.

Call me old-fashioned, but aren't the parents the ones who are in many if not most cases providing the funds for the kids to buy this stuff? Doesn't it make sense to cut off the funding and go from there? There were plenty of things I'd have liked to do when I was a kid. But I didn't have any money to do them. My parents would never, ever in a million years, have paid hundreds of dollars a month for me to carry a phone around all day. I'm often stunned to see kids who don't seem to come from wealthy homes pulling new iphones out of their pockets. And some of these kids aren't even teenagers yet. I just wonder, how and why is a parent paying for that? The money's coming from somewhere for the vape stuff. Just saying.

Nicotine is an addicting drug. Let’s slowly ban it. Raise the age to 25 for use of all products with nicotine. Then raise the age one year every year,so in 20 years it will be 45 to use the product.

This is a serious problem for the teens - and younger children - who get hooked, and a monumental one for parents. How in the world did the FDA - the government - allow a highly addictive substance to be provided in child attracting packages and flavors, and without extensive controls? The vaping damage to lungs is something totally unexpected; even tho the suggestion is that it is due to substances which adulterate the nicotine ( or pot, I guess), the fact that it wasn't anticipated as a hazard at all make it look as if there wasn't enough testing required. I was however, reminded of the use and/or misuse of cost/benefit analysis recently: since thenumber of individual harmed is still looking very small in comparison to the total numbers using -- and the profits made and to be made - the controls are going to be slow in coming. Banning flavors designed to appeal to the young ( as in NYS) is a small start. But it won't affect those already craving nicotine.