Blowing Away the Smoke: Students Reflect on Ongoing Vaping Trend

Most of you have probably heard of JUUL, the multi-billion dollar e-cigarette company. As of April, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been on (as stated by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb) a “Blitz” to crack down on illegal/underage selling of vapes. The FDA is not only cracking down on JUULs, but anywhere from KandyPens, myBlue, and any retail/online sold e-cigarettes. The FDA’s The Real Cost campaign has released commercials called An Epidemic Is Spreading. These commercials explain the effect of toxic vape chemicals on your body.

According to the FDA and Center for Disease Control (CDC), a single JUUL pod contains as much nicotine as a pack of 20 regular cigarettes, as well as ultra-fine particles that can damage lungs along with heavy metals such as tin, nickel, and lead. Vaping can also stunt brain development.

“I think originally [vaping] was for adults but it turned into a popular thing for teenagers. When they found out teenagers were into it that’s when they put money into making their product more appealing [to teenagers]. With the FDA getting involved, the company [JUUL] knew it would happen it was just a matter of when,” sophomore Marissa Powers said.

Along with a campaign to spread awareness, the FDA News Release uploaded a statement by FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb M.D this September. This statement gave warnings to big name vaping companies.

“Given the magnitude of the problem, we’re requesting that the manufacturers of these brands and products come back to the FDA in 60 days with robust plans on how they’ll convincingly address the widespread use of their products by minors, or we’ll revisit the FDA’s exercise of enforcement discretion for products currently on the market,” Gottlieb M.D said.

Sophomore Maya Diew has experienced first hand effects of vaping companies targeting minors.

“Honestly I don’t know why they [vape], I’ve seen a lot of people do it on the bus,” Diew said. “I can’t even go to the bathroom because of all these girls vaping. I once saw 20 girls vaping all at once.” 

While it seems that vaping is attracting a majority of high schoolers, Diew said she has eyewitness accounts of younger students taking part in this costly trend.

“I’ve seen 5th-6th graders vape on the bus. I’ve told high schoolers to not vape in front of the kids and they respect that. I feel upset because they’re breathing that in. There are 3-4 cameras in the bus and I don’t even know if they’re working and I wish somebody would do something to change it,” Diew said.

While it seems students’ concern for vaping is going unheard, principal Jay Opperman discussed what faculty is trying to do to stop the harmful vaping.

“That’s one of the things there isn’t a ton of research. I agree [vaping] has taken away harmful chemicals that come in a cigarette like tar. But, I don’t know if we fully know what chemicals are in the nicotine. I think as more research is out there then we’ll continue to share what’s in [vapes],” Opperman said.

Opperman said he’s working to provide information to the district about the dangers of these activities and ways to prevent their consequences.

“We’re more than willing to provide education, last year in a newsletter, I sent to parents a guide of what a JUUL looks like and what it contains. I had a couple of parents email me and were appreciative because they figured out what some things were in their household that shouldn’t be there. Posters alone aren’t gonna cure [vaping], I think a big part of it is student-parent education. It would be helpful if the government would continue to act in ways to make access more difficult [to vapes],” Opperman said.