We only have one rule at my family’s Thanksgiving table, and it’s got nothing to do with political conversations. No vaping!
All my middle school- and high school-aged extended family who are too old to sit at the kids’ table can hardly serve themselves cranberry sauce without puffing out a giant plume of vapor right in grandma’s face. Now I know how local teachers must feel–I used to police kids playing with their phones at the dinner table, but now they’re sneaking hits off a JUUL e-cigarette instead.
The spread of electronic cigarette use has skyrocketed among teens across the country, and Santa Barbara County is no exception (see the cover story). State and local surveys show that students are way more likely to have tried vaping or vape on the regular than they were to try cigarettes just a few years ago. Parents are finding flavored e-juice cartridges and vaporizers in their kids’ cars, teachers see widespread student use on campuses, and resource deputies with the Sheriff’s Office confiscate the devices from kids all the time.
What’s the reason for this? Didn’t we beat childhood tobacco use with a generation of “just say no” PSAs and public health campaigns about lung cancer? What changed? Oh, I forgot, they now put LEDs in the cigarettes!
I know I’m being glib (and around the holidays at that), but I would have hoped lawmakers were more on the ball to close up some of the legal loopholes that vape manufacturers have taken advantage of.
Companies like JUUL have completely disrupted the tobacco industry in a matter of a few short years, but they’ve also undone decades of work by educators and agencies who’ve spread information on the harmful properties of tobacco and nicotine addiction. A whole new generation of kids is “lighting up” now, without all the fire and smoke, but with the same addictive compounds and some new chemicals, too.
And plenty of these products are clearly geared toward kids. One brand is called “Juicy AF” and comes in a colorful boxes. What happened to the days of the Marlboro Man?
Calls from parents, teachers, administrators, and law enforcement were seemingly answered when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would ban the in-store sale of flavored vapes as part of a larger crackdown to get young people off of nicotine. They even banned menthol flavored cigarettes for good measure.
It’s easy to forget that the tobacco industry has preyed on young consumers for most of its history, finding ways to not just get youth hooked on their products, but also create a cultural allure around lighting up. And let’s not forget all the politicians who’ve allowed those companies to get away with it, keeping their mouths shut for political contributions. That’s why elections like the one we just had are important, folks, if you want to see something done about widespread issues like this.
I just hope the partisan rancor in Washington won’t keep back progress on this. That’s why it doesn’t ruffle my feathers at all to say I’m glad President Donald Trump‘s FDA is doing something about the problem, giving some form of relief to all the parents nationwide worried that their kids have easy access to an addictive substance.
There’s a bipartisan conversation you can have at Thanksgiving–just remember, no vaping!
The Canary can smell an e-cigarette a mile away. Send your thoughts to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 22-29, 2018.