We Need to Remember... 
Imagine you are at a high school football game and all the “cool” kids are under the bleachers vaping, and they ask you to join. Now wait, you remember learning about the 800 plus people who have probable cases of a lung injury linked to vaping. You remember the 13- and rising – people who have died from vaping. You remember that one Juul pod has the same amount of nicotine as one full pack of cigarettes, and you remember the culprit of all the death and illness...vaping. But- who is responsible for this epidemic? It is impossible to place the blame on just one person, while the one to blame is not all, the teens the tobacco companies, and the lawmakers are all responsible.  
The first person responsible are the teens who choose to vape. They believe they “need” to because they feel they look “cool” when they smoke. According to www.fda.gov, “4.9% of middle schoolers- or 570,000 kids -are current e-cigarettes users.” That was in 2018 but now, in 2019, the percent has gone up to 35.8% in only one year. That is an increase of 30.9% in a single year because of teens choosing to join this trend. These teens are partially responsible for themselves getting addicted to vaping because they choose to start vaping and they choose to continue to do it. But those teens are not completely responsible for the epidemic because the tobacco companies are manipulating teens. 
Tobacco companies are also partly responsible for the teen-vaping-epidemic because they spend millions of dollars- $9.4 billion approximately- just to advertise towards kids/teens. That is almost 25 million dollars per day. Since 1998 the amount of money spent towards advertising has increased 36%. The companies including Juul, use specific tactics such as, according to the Word Generation article, “For instance, one brand developed flavored cigarettes and promoted them with fun, tropical images. Another brand advertised with hip-hop themes.” The companies use contradicting statements by advertising towards a younger audience, then saying they did not and would not use “fun” and “intriguing” themes that interest children. However, the tobacco companies and the teens are also not the only people who have a hand in this epidemic. The lawmakers of the United States who have the authority to regulate these vapes. 
The people who have the power to regulate vapes refuse to until 2023-2024. Although just one Juul pod is equal to an entire pack of cigarettes of nicotine and people who start smoking e-cigarettes to try to help them stop smoking normal cigarettes got more addicted to electronic cigarettes than they ever did to regular ones. Also, the one in five deaths in the U.S are caused from smoking but, the government still decides it is not as big of a deal for them to regulate it. Along with that, more than eight hundred people are currently being taken care of or hospitalized for vaping. But it is too late for the 13 people who cannot be treated for this lung disease. It is a sickness caused by an add-in to vapes called Vitamin E Acetate, which fills the lungs with a liquid/ gel like substance that practically drowns you. Even though federal prosecutors have conducted a “federal probe” against Juul, -according to the Wall Street Journal- the lawmakers still have continued to say they will not regulate the vapes. 
This topic is important because people are dying one by one. We need to know the dangers of vaping. We need to stop allowing companies to advertise towards teens. We need to convince the lawmakers to regulate vapes. We need to let it be known worldwide vapes are killing our youth, and we need to take a hint from the rest of the world and save the humanity of the future.