Opinion: The anti-vaping industry has been forcing itself into the minds of America’s youth for years. But is the messaging effective? Is this actually helping the masses?
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The teen vaping epidemic is one that many of us are aware of. The truth ads seem to show up on every social media platform I have, and seeing anti-vape messaging has become as normalized as vaping itself. However, while most can agree the epidemic of high school students addicted to vaping is a huge problem, the current anti-vape messaging efforts seem to do nothing to stop it.
“It was the natural procession,” said Ava, a college student looking back on what prompted her nicotine addiction in high school.
“They targeted children with the colors and the flavors,” Ava said when asked why she thought vaping was such a prevalent part of the high school experience. There have been many studies into why vaping is so entangled with the high school community. The conclusion that CU Denver reached was a scary one: the community that schools offer often lends itself to children becoming addicted. They need friends who have their own vapes to offer, and to keep offering until the dependency develops.
For a while, I think there was a calmness surrounding how many kids were vaping because it was allegedly better for you than smoking. However, as new studies emerge, we are realizing that the two share more risks than initially thought. While vaping is still not viewed as worse than cigarettes, it is also becoming further removed from the myths that it’s just water vapors.
Vaping is a harmful thing. No one is disagreeing with that statement. It is harming the general population of young people. That is another true statement. Due to vaping, Gen Z is the generation that uses nicotine the most — that one’s actually not true.
Even with vaping, Gen Z comes in second. Millennials allegedly vape the most at 33%, while Gen Z falls just short with 31%. And when including smoking cigarettes, Gen X has the title of using the most, with 42% being smokers.
So, my question is this: if Gen Z isn’t the worst generation of smokers we’ve seen, why are millions being spent on banning vapes and “warning” us about the dangers? Is this overload of potential logical fallacies doing more harm than good? Are we being pushed towards cigarettes?
My answer is yes, and here’s why.
“My mom vapes,” Ava said as she explained how her mother switched from cigarettes to vaping. Vaping is often cited as a resource cigarette smokers use to wean off nicotine. So, by banning vapes in so many places, government agencies are effectively banning one of the most popular methods of quitting smoking.
In fact, that seems to be a trend in the smoking stratosphere –– switching to vaping when trying to quit. On top of that, there is the reverse problem of people with nicotine addictions who will smoke whether vaping is available or not. So, in banning vapes, cigarettes become the natural progression.
In general, it’s a better idea to abstain from inhaling chemicals. But if that isn’t the decision you make, many studies highlight that cigarette usage is worse for the body than vaping. None of them claim that vaping is good for the body, but so far it seems to be far less harmful.
The millions of dollars being pushed on anti-vaping campaigns would be much better spent making cigarettes a thing of the past, and would probably be more effective. Ultimately, the banning of vapes in different cities and states is doing more harm than good.