As soon as I walked into the 2nd floor bathroom in C building, a strong scent of mango and strawberry hit me. Kids weren’t eating fruit, but rather vaping fruit-flavored nicotine. There was a large circle of kids passing around a vape. When I walked past a stall, I saw a spent Juul cartridge floating in the toilet. The overpowering saccharine sweet smell of fruit somewhat masked the odor of weed, but not completely. It smells like this everyday, I thought to myself, as I tried not to breathe. Finally, when I opened the door to leave, the air in the hallway seemed fresh and clean compared to the bathroom air. Unfortunately, bathrooms like that one aren’t an exception, but are turning into the norm. At Berkeley High School, there are only a couple bathrooms where it doesn’t smell like weed or flavored Juul. Some kids even vape in class, and blow the smoke into their jackets to hide it. It feels as if vaping is taking over many high schools. While vaping has many health risks and additional unknown effects, its normalization within high school culture could be its most alarming aspect. 

Vaping is extremely widespread in American high schools. According to the CDC, 3.6 million U.S. teens used e-cigarettes in 2018. This trend, that barely even existed 10 years ago, has grown exponentially. Nancy Brown, the American Heart Association CEO, stated that the growth in e-cigarette use in teens has gone from 1% to 27% in a decade. There are a variety of reasons that vaping is so popular among teenagers. Vapes are very accessible and easy to hide. It isn’t hard for teens to buy vapes, and they’re relatively long lasting and cheap compared to traditional cigarettes or drugs. Furthermore, when someone uses a vape, it isn’t very noticeable. Compared to smoking a cigarette, which will leave behind an obvious smell of tobacco, e-cigarettes are harder to smell on a person. An article titled, “AHA Dedicates 20 Million to Youth Vaping Research” published on medpagetoday.com, described how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had previously been pretty lax on vaping. They delayed the required review on e-cigarettes, which gave companies time to keep manufacturing their products. One judge said, “Arguably, the five-year compliance safe-harbor has allowed the manufacturers enough time to attract new, young users and get them addicted to nicotine before any of their products, labels, or flavors are pulled from the market, at which time the youth are likely to switch to one of the other thousands of tobacco products that are approved.” This neglect most likely contributed to the pervasiveness of vapes in high schools. The failure to regulate these products and prevent the explosion of the vaping industry could’ve convinced some teenagers that vapes are harmless. Even though the FDA now is tightening control around e-cigarettes, it isn’t having much of an effect. Teens in general are more impulsive, and many don’t consider the health effects of vaping. Some believe that just because vaping is safer than traditional cigarettes, it doesn’t have any harmful effects at all. 

One of the main reasons why vaping is so popular among teens is that it’s being explicitly marketed to them by the e-cigarette companies. The vast majority of teens use some form of social media, and companies such as JUUL spend lots of time and effort in order to market their products on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. According to one research study, JUUL spent over $1 million to advertise the launch of their products online. Many teens found these advertisements appealing, as the ads associated JUUL with popularity and fun. This targeted advertising campaign worked incredibly well, as, according to truthinitiative.org, the number of JUUL-related tweets skyrocketed from a monthly average of 765 in 2015 to a monthly average of 30,565 in 2017. While appealing to teens through social media might’ve reached the most kids, the most convincing form of marketing may have been the creation and use of kid-friendly flavors, including cotton candy, fruits, or gummy bear. These flavors appeal to teens by associating childish, harmless sweets with e-cigarette products. According to a study cited by that same truthinitiative.org article, around 43% of middle and high schoolers who used a vape tried them because of appealing flavors. This is an alarmingly high number, and clearly shows that e-cigarette companies are effectively getting teens to use their products. The wide variety of sweet and innocent flavors are meant to hook teens and to overshadow the chemicals actually going into their lungs. 

While we can be upset that products are being mass produced before we even know what’s in them, the most important questions regarding vaping are what are the actual health risks are, and whether vaping is a certifiably better alternative to smoking. In April of 2019, the FDA issued a warning that found potential seizure risks from vaping in teens and young adults. Furthermore, the U.S. Surgeon General found that e-cigarettes are “addictive and harmful to developing brains.” This especially impacts teens, whose brains aren’t fully developed until 25. That said, vaping shouldn’t necessarily be discouraged among adult smokers. Cigarettes are incredibly bad for the lungs, and vaping was initially designed to help people quit smoking. According to TheGuardian.com “Public Health England maintains vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking.” Still, while getting smokers to switch to vaping is beneficial to their lungs, it is by no means good for them. Vapes could potentially have many unseen but deadly chemicals. (While adults are more likely to investigate what is actually going into their body, teens are more impulsive and likely don’t know or care what’s in a vape.) While water vapor is obviously better for lungs than smoke, vaping is essentially getting smokers addicted to a different product. According to a Harvard Health study, “among successful quitters, 80% of those in the e-cigarette group were still vaping; only 9% of those in the nicotine-replacement group were still using those products.” If the objective is to get smokers to do something less harmful to their lungs, than it can succeed. However, if the objective of vaping is to get smokers to quit nicotine, studies show that it is ineffective.  

Vaping has become normalized throughout American society. It is more widespread among teens, and young people aren’t considering the consequences of their decisions. The vaping and e-cigarette industry is still very new with many unknowns, but these products have been proven to be harmful for the lungs and developing brains. Everyone’s situation is different; vaping for some might be a useful tool on the path to quitting cigarettes, but for others it is the start of their nicotine addiction. People should have the right to know what the consequences of vaping are. While I’m not advocating for the immediate ban of all vaping and e-cigarette products, making an informed decision on vaping and its health effects is essential to resolving this health crisis. The more normalized vaping gets, the harder it will be to stop this epidemic and persuade people to listen.