HUB's LIST of medical fun facts

“Nicotine addiction begins when most tobacco users are teenagers, so let’s call this what it really is: a pediatric disease.”
-David Kessler, MD. Commissioner of FDA, 1995

When I was a young parent my kids’ souls were threatened by the dangers of  “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll”. THEIR kids are facing a new triple threat, “marijuana, video games, and vaping”. Vaping? (pronounced with a long ”a”) Really? (pronounced with a short “a”)

How can inhaling flavored water vapor with either no or just a touch of nicotine be dangerous? Let Jonathan Winickoff, MD, MPH, Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Director of the MGH Tobacco Research Treatment Center list the reasons:

First of all, there is no water in vaping solutions. Vaping is NOT inhaling water vapor. It is inhaling particulate matter of numerous chemical compounds in mostly propylene glycol and glycerin. When heated these compounds degrade to formaldehyde. The vapor also contains carcinogenic organic and inorganic chemicals, cytotoxic nano-sized metallic particles from the heater coil, silicates (like in sand), and ALWAYS nicotine. All vaping solutions contain nicotine despite the label that says “contains no nicotine”, or even more cleverly “contains no nicotine tar”, which means of course “no tar”. Currently there are no FDA regulations about labeling vaping solutions. Companies can label and market anyway they wish without any accountability.

Vaping solutions are flavored to lure teens into using because teen age vaping does lead to dependency on nicotine and a significant percentage of teenage vapers go on to smoking cigarettes (“combustible tobacco”). This assures a continued revenue stream for tobacco companies. Mint, menthol, and mango are apparently the favorite vaping flavors (gives new meaning to “3M” doesn’t it). Flavors in cigarettes were banned by federal law in 2009 except for “menthol and mint”, but the federal ban specifically did not apply to e-cigarettes. There are over 8,000 vaping flavors available.

Juul (jewel) is the most successful vaping company owning about 75% of the market. Juul is so successful that it has become a verb, as in “Do you Juul?, Lets Juul.”

A Juul pod of vaping solution contains about 200 “hits” or puffs which is the equivalent of a pack of 20 cigarettes. Pods are used in devices that previously looked like cigarettes, hence the term e-cigarette, but now vaping devices can look like pens, superhero figures, a miniature coke can, and, most  commonly, a computer thumb drive. One middle school kid laughed at his father’s confusion by saying, “We don’t use thumbdrives any more. Every thing is in the Cloud. If you see a kid with a thumb drive, he is vaping.”

Taking 300-400 hits a day is common. Unfortunately taking an occasional hit as an “experimental rite of passage” can progress to increased use and an unrecognized dependency. JuuLing periodically on the week ends can lead to withdrawal symptoms of anxiety, distraction, and increased body movements on non-use school days. Those are the same symptoms of ADHD.

A popular device, a Sourin Drop, is available in many different colors and is small enough to hold (“conceal”) in the palm of your hand/ It is a refillable device (unlike a JuuL pod which you buy pre-filled) that lets you mix flavored vaping solution and marijuana (THC) so that they can be inhaled together as a mixture.

Juuls are much easier to use than cigarettes to use; you don’t need a match, there is very little aroma, there is no butt to get rid off, they can be used in NO SMOKING zones, and there is certainly no tell-tale stain on your fingers.

A pod cost about $4 and can be bought online easily without proof of age despite the requirement to be over 18.. Needham, MA was the first town in America to ban sales to those under 21, and Hawaii was the first to establish a state-wide ban. Fourteen states have now followed Newton’s example and prohibit stores from selling vaping solutions to those under 21.

Tobacco companies are investing heavily in e-cigarettes. They know that the younger a person is when nicotine is introduced the more likely they will become a life-time tobacco user. They deliberately, purposefully, and relentlessly market vaping to young people. Nearly 40% of high schoolers and nearly 15% of middle schoolers have vaped at “least once”. Use of vaping in places where smoking is prohibited also helps produce a second income stream for tobacco companies.

A lot of this “threat-to-teen-agers-talk” does sound like old hat to some of us old guys , but vaping has the potential of some serious unattended future consequences for our youths. Most of us did survive the dangers of sex, drugs, and rock’n roll after all, and what will be the inevitable triple threat for future teen agers : “space dust, AI simulations (‘feelies’), and audio-visual implants?”

Action plan:

1. Call your Massachusetts statehouse representative to support the passage of H. 1902 which bans the sale of “all flavored tobacco products” in Massachusetts.
2. Lobby in your own town to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products to anyone under 21 years of age.
3. Let your kids and grandkids read this blog.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 1st, 2019 at 5:52 PM and is filed under current events, drugs, Pediatrics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.