In 2019, 27.5% of high school students taking the National Youth Tobacco Survey admitted to vaping within the last 30 days. On Oct. 4, Oregon Governor Brown ordered a six-month ban on all flavored vaping products.
Vaping products are affecting underage lungs and causing severe heart problems. The products that are most affecting teens are a concentrate of THC in a wax form called dabs. They come in cartridges which are sold in dispensaries, but are also sold to young teens behind legal shops.
These black market cartridges are usually tampered with and harmful chemicals are added. The use of Juul pods is also causing unknown damage to lungs.
“A lot of kids our age think its cool to vape because a juul is a tiny box which makes it easy to carry around with you, and use” Kiara Brouse ’21 said.
Since vaping is only legal when you turn 21 or older, many people are trying to figure out where young teens are getting vape products.
“I feel like it should be harder to get,” Kellyn Brown ’21 said.
Vaping is not safe for teens in general, but it is worsened by not knowing the long term effects and furthering awareness. The chemicals found in a juul pod are equal to a pack of cigarettes and also have a lot of unknown side effects. No one is fully informed about the long terms effect of juuling because few know what is inside a Juul pod.
“I think we should test them because some kids have been Juuling for years and haven’t realized or seen symptoms of anything and others have cancer and have been put into the hospital and also have died from it,” Jada Nolan ’21 said.
