As I read what might possibly be the stupidest report ever on Yahoo which warns parents that kids who have tried e-cigarettes have tripled since 2011 (gasp!), I am reminded that America has an epidemic of its own: fear addiction. There is nothing we love more than a good, juicy impending doom alert, especially when we can spin something relatively benign into a pre-cursor to the apocalypse.
Giving Kids a Little Too Much Credit
The study conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention apparently found that 44% of kids who tried e-cigarettes said they “intended to smoke conventional cigarettes within the next year,” and 22% of kids who had never tried e-cigarettes said they intended to try regular cigarettes. So, I guess this is supposed to show that kids are twice as likely to plan to smoke if they tried e-cigs than kids who never did? I’m sorry, but while there might be a small percentage of teens that plan anything at all, those are not the ones who are going to become smokers. I started smoking at 14 and I didn’t have the foresight to plan a keg party let alone map out what bad habits I was going to pick up in the future.
Greater Exposure, Greater Numbers
I have no idea how the CDC went about collecting their data about e-cigarette experimentation, but let’s just get logical for a second. It makes sense that three times as many kids have tried vaping since 2011—there are easily three times as many people publicly vaping since then, three times as many places selling e-cigarettes, and in cities like Los Angeles, actual shops 100% dedicated to the vape—so of course more kids (and more people in general) have tried e-cigarettes in the past three years. It’s like pointing out that more people tried frozen yogurt in 2009 when there was a Pinkberry on every corner. It’s not rocket science.
The intention of the piece seems to be to get parents riled up on the premonition that children who try a drag or two of an electronic cigarette are more likely to become conventional cigarette smokers that if they never tried it—and this is pure hogwash. First of all, let’s get something straight—kids pick up smoking for one reason and one reason only: because it makes them look cool. Maybe that desire for coolness is driven by wanting to seem like a rebellious, self-destructive bad ass or doing what it takes to fit in with the people you seek approval from or to just not look like such a loser when you are standing outside alone between classes (that was me). And by the way, it took force-feeding myself packs upon packs of cigarettes for me to enjoy it at all, let alone become addicted. Parents don’t have to worry that their curious child is going to take an innocent drag off an e-cigarette and suddenly become Denis Leary.
If Only It Was Just about the Nicotine
As a former smoker, I would also like to point out that while nicotine is indeed chemically addictive, that is not the biggest challenge in quitting smoking; if it was, everyone would be on nicotine gum or the patch and we would all live happily ever after. What is addictive about smoking is the action of hand-to-mouth and the pull of chemical laden tobacco smoke to the back of your throat when you take a drag of a cigarette—something vaping just can’t duplicate. While I am sure that e-smoking has a slew of its own complications we have yet to fully uncover, nothing on this earth has ever been as popular and as evil as the conventional cigarette.
Leave the Vapes Alone
What this article doesn’t mention is the fact that there are many non-nicotine vaping options available, and while that might not be considered cool, there really isn’t any way anyone would ever know. If your kid is well adjusted and just wants to fit in, he’ll probably be happy to opt for the non-addictive route. If he isn’t, then experimenting with electronic cigarettes should be the least of your worries. So while it’s certainly possible that a kid who tries vaping might graduate to smoking Marlboros, chances are the vaping isn’t to blame. With all the anxiety involved in being a teenager, I think parents should be grateful that something as benign as nicotine vapor has caught on enough to actually be considered cool.
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