Nicotine is not a new problem, but the availability of flavors has started up a whole new ball game. Nicotine has begun to hook Denver youth as young as elementary school. Who is to blame? The government.
Nicotine kills people of all ages. Over seven million people die across the world from nicotine usage alone. Adding flavors, such as mint and mango, to cover up the disgusting smell and taste of nicotine itself has only increased this number. Flavors cause the taste of nicotine, which used to be the main deterrent for young populations, to be masked. This causes the same risk of addiction to nicotine as there is in cigarettes, except without the bad breath smell or bad taste.
Without bad breath or gross taste as a deterrent, young populations are drawn to vaping as a form of ingesting nicotine. This often leads to unknown and unintentional addiction at ages as young as twelve. Doctors’ biggest fears do not come with the nicotine itself, but rather the impact that nicotine addiction has on young brains as they are developing.
Dealing with any addiction before age 25 risks malformation of the brain. Brains hit their most key development stages in the teenage and young adult years. With nicotine as a popular addictive substance in groups of teens and young adults, not only are their addiction free futures at risk, but their mental stability and educational abilities are as well.
Vaping produces a whole new problem separate from just nicotine addiction. While nicotine addiction is a risk from cigarettes as well, the questionable chemicals in vapes present a whole new set of dangers that come from vaping. While brand-name e-cigarettes, like Juul, contain only a fraction of the chemicals found in cigarettes, it does not necessarily mean they are any less harmful. E-juices often are not FDA regulated and therefore, users can never be sure whether the pod or cartridge they are vaping is contaminated.
Vaping has a “cool” mindset around it which is what is to blame for the young lives it steals and addictions it creates. Movies from the 50’s to the 80’s, such as Grease and The Graduate, show smoking cigarettes as a “cool” phenomenon. Similar to the “cool” mindset around cigarettes in the 1950’s, the government has a responsibility to end this mindset through education of the public and age restrictions on purchasing.
Presently, with the growing number of deaths and hospitalizations surrounding vape usage, state and federal governments are really narrowing in and cracking down on the sale and advertisement of vapes and e-cigarettes. While this is long overdue, it is a step in the right direction.
In September of 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first called teen vaping “an epidemic” in a statement that begged manufacturers to address the problem. They threatened that if the problem was not addressed, manufacturers would risk having their products being pulled from the market. Before this report, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb had mentioned vaping as a potential tool to help ease adult smokers off of cigarettes, but the benefit has not been proven.
Rather than vaping being used for helping already addicted adults ease off, it is hitting too close to home and creating an addiction epidemic in Denver’s youth. Kids are not mentally developed enough to be expected to resist temptation when appeal, peer pressure and “coolness” all come into play. The government must implement punishments that make teens afraid to risk being caught vaping. Denver must make harder policies and restrictions for gas stations and liquor stores to sell vaping products. As well as eradicating advertisements towards minors in the media and other outlets. It is now in the hands of the Denver government and e-cigarette manufacturers to stop this crisis. It is up to them to save the lives of Denver youth.
