Audience/Pushback

WRA 101:43
Professor Dowell
April 10, 2019
The Dangers of the increase in College vaping

U.S. teens are vaping in record numbers, and if we don’t act now we might lose all the

progress we made with anti smoking campaigns 50 years ago. The numbers have only increased,

with rates climbing drastically since 2017. NIDA , The National Institute on Drug Abuse

released its 2019 research showing high school seniors doubling their rates of their nicotine

intake from 11 percent in 2017 to 20.9 percent in 2018. Furthermore, 27.8 percent of teens

reported “any vaping” in 2017, rising to 37.3 percent in 2018. To see just how much this problem

exists in Michigan State alone, we conducted a Google survey that we sent out to students via the

Facebook page of the Freshman Class of 2022 asking various questions involved with vaping

stretching from if whether or not the student has attempted or tried vaping, to how often they

vape and why.

What is vaping? Vaping is the act of inhaling and exhaling aerosol-often referred to as

vapor-from an e-cigarette. Vaping has grown in popularity since it was introduced to the mass

market in the U.S. in 2007. All vapes are basically the same, they consist of a mouthpiece, a

battery, a cartridge for containing the e-liquid or e-juice, and a heating component for the device

that is powered by a battery. When the device is used, the battery heats up the heating

component, which turns the contents of the e-liquid (contains nicotine) into an aerosol that is

inhaled into the lungs and then exhaled.

Initially when e-cigarettes were launched they were huge boxy looking e-cigarettes with

all the above components that produced huge amount of vapor, but in the recent years there was
a new contender, the JUUL. A smaller, sleeker device that produces less smoke and resembles a

flash drive. Described as “inconspicuous”,”cool’ and even as a “fidget toy” by some of our

respondents in our survey when asked “Describe a JUUL in one word?”. This new e-cigarette

has a battery and disposable pods (containing nicotine rich e-liquid) which is popped into the

battery. We believe it's this new product that has started a wave of new e-cigarette users. Its

subtle design makes it easy to hide, and it is seen as a cool thing to do within teens. It comes in

several enticing flavors like crème brûlée, mango and fruit medley that have lured these teens

into vaping and have gotten them addicted to it.

JUUL claims that it is advertised as an “alternative to adult smoking”(JUUL Website)

yet any e-cigarettes, including JUULs, have not yet been approved by the Food and Drug

Administration as a smoking cessation device. Additionally, their initial advertising from mid

2015 to 2016 was questioned over time as it was portrayed as something picked up by “attractive

young models socializing and flirtatiously sharing the flash-drive shaped device, displaying

behavior like dancing to club-like music and clothing styles more characteristic of teens than

mature adults.” Jackler, cofounder of SRITA (Stanford Research Into the Impact of Tobacco

Advertising) said that JUUL promoted alongside ads that made pods seem like “sweet treats” and

made “juuling” (a device so popular that it’s now become a verb) seem like casual fun (Jackler).

These early advertisements have made juuling the biggest contender in the vaping market with

about “72 percent of the market share of vaping products in the United States”(Richter).

It's these early advertisements and juuling becoming a social trend that has caused a huge

spike in non-smoking people starting to vape. JUUL came under a lot of scrutiny over their

social media pages and have since deactivated their facebook and instagram pages. Yet their

social media presence still remains though individual influencers like Austin Lawrence who goes
by @vaustinl on instagram with an outreach of 3.1 million followers. Instagram accounts like

@TotalFratMove, @DoItForState, @ImShmacked and even @barstoolMSU all with a combined

have a follower base of over 3.5 million regularly have posts including JUULs in them with

hashtags ranging over #Juuling, #Vaping, #Juultricks, and #JuulNation. This presence of JUULS

in the social media is creating a social trend that should never be a trend in the first place.

A college performed a similar study that focused more on the control of tobacco but still

came out with some relevant information and results,

“We identified 9945 vape shops in the USA as of December 2015, a nearly

threefold increase from 2013. Among the 2755 colleges included in this study,

66.5% had at least 1 vape shop within a 3-mile radius. The median proximity of

the nearest vape shop to each college/university was 1.8 miles. Proximity

increased by student population, private as compared to public institutions, and

location (city vs rural). Within a 1-mile radius, colleges with smoke-free campus

policies had a lower density of vape shops than those without smoke-free campus

policies. Colleges located in cities had a much higher density of vape shops than

those located in rural areas. Smoke-free and e-cigarette-free campus policies had

significant interactions with college type (private vs public) and campus housing

in reducing vape shop density.”

This study shows that the same results of an increase in vape shops and vape usage has been seen

around the country on college campuses and is continuing to expand and grow.

As previously stated, we created a mass Google Survey in which we asked various

questions about vaping in order to obtain information on how many incoming students have tried

vaping as well as why some continue to vape. Through our survey, which had 326 respondents,
we found 23% of students vape regularly compared to a national average of 20.9% and 74%

have tried vaping at least once since they have come to college compared to a nation average of

37.3% of high school seniors in 2018. That’s an increase of 36.7% of students who reported “any

vaping” in Michigan State University alone.

Looking at these trends we are worried that incoming freshman who haven't vaped yet,

will be influenced into vaping by campus students in their attempts to keep up with these social

trends. This problem exists not only for incoming freshman but also for international students as

well. What these incoming students do not realize is that e-liquid used within vapes still contain

not only many other harmful chemicals, but also nicotine, the very addictive drug that had made

the previous generation so addicted to cigarettes. Richter, Director of Policy Research and

Analysis at the center on addiction said that “Many of these particles contain varying amounts of

toxic chemicals” ranging from lead, nickel, Formaldehyde, Toluene, which have been linked to

“cancer, as well as respiratory and heart disease”. Students don’t realize “nicotine is at least as

difficult if not more so to give up than heroin”(Weatherspoon). It is chemically altering their

brains to be emotionally dependent on vaping nicotine.

There are many unknowns about vaping, including what exact chemicals make up the

vapor and how they affect physical health over the long term. These pods are also specified to

flavors favored by the populace which makes them especially dangerous in that students and

minors are attracted to the flavor and are further caught off guard in the toxins they are actually

ingesting. People need to understand that even though they are a better alternative than smoking

cigarettes, “e-cigarettes are potentially dangerous to your health as well,” says Blaha. “You’re

exposing yourself to all kinds of chemicals that we don’t yet understand and that are probably

not safe” (Blaha).

 What’s worse is that many e-cigarette users nicotine intake is higher than they would

from a tobacco product — you can buy extra-strength pods, which have a higher concentration of

nicotine, or you can increase the e-cigarettes voltage to get a greater hit of the substance. “A

single Juul Pod contains enough nicotine in it to equal the equivalent of 20 cigarettes”

(thetruth.com) which means a pack of juul pods containing 4 pods is actually 80 cigarettes worth

of nicotine. This very fact would discourage many students to either slow down or absolutely

halt their vaping habits, but such facts never make it to incoming or current college students.

Being that we would need to let the people who already addicted to e-cigarettes know the

harm they are doing to their body so they realize why it’s bad and hopefully the number of

people who are introduced to vaping and those that get addicted to it will reduce. Kathleen Burns

a health4U consultant at MSU explained giving up e-cigarettes looks a lot like giving up

traditional cigarettes, which is difficult and carries a risk of relapse. "There are two aspects of

cigarette addiction," Dr. Burns explained, "the physical addiction to nicotine and the ritualistic

aspects of cigarette use, which can be trickier to overcome... We are creatures of habit.” For

most people, habits are the harder part to break, and the same goes for e-cigarettes. Rewiring

your brain to take away something that has become a part of your daily life is extremely difficult

but most definitely possible. It just depends on whether or not you make the decision to say, “No,

I don’t need it”. Dr Burns further stated that this is why MSU offers Breathe Easy, a MSU's

Tobacco & Nicotine Cessation Program. Another solution is that we need to create the

awareness that vaping is bad so that there will be a decrease in the number of new vapers.

We want students to know mainly two things. First, vaping is safer than traditional

smoking but it's not totally safe. Although there is no tobacco in aerosol, there is still plenty of

nicotine as well as other chemicals in vapes that will harm your body as well. Second, electronic
cigarettes aren’t the best smoking cessation tool to quit smoking. It's a proven fact that an

individual is 4 times more likely to smoke cigarettes after vaping (thetruth.com).

In order to help create awareness as well as stop the use of vapes, there are two primary

solutions. The first being stopping new students from ever picking up an e-cigarette. Through

research we have found the best way to do so would be to create awareness about the problem.

Here on campus we believe an introductory course going over the harmful effects of vaping as

well as the use of anything like it, would be a good start. This course available to be taken by all

students in their freshman year, or years further if they so choose, would help generate awareness

and would help stop any incoming freshmen, with their new found freedom, from adhering to

social trends and succumbing to such habits. We proposed the implementation of this pan to the

Olin Health center and are seeking guidance on how to make this a reality. Additionally, we

propose that the Olin center create and maintain awareness about this problem through an Anti-

Vaping campaign that reaches out to the students through notice boards all around campus,

Official MSU emails and finally through pamphlets and leaflets available around campus.

Work Cited

“5 Truths You Need to Know About Vaping.” Johns Hopkins Medicine Health Library,

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/5-truths-you-need-to-know-

about-vaping.

Aurensanz Clemente, Esther, et al. Familial Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Associated with a

New Mutation in Gene MYBPC3. Clinical Case Reports , 27 Jan. 2017.

Cardoso, Bárbara, et al. Clinical and Genetic Diagnosis of Familial Hypertrophic

Cardiomyopathy: Results in Pediatric Cardiology. Portuguese Journal of Cardiology,

Mar. 2017.

Chaykowski, Kathleen. “The Disturbing Focus Of Juul's Early Marketing Campaigns.” Forbes,

Forbes Magazine, 16 Nov. 2018,

www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2018/11/16/the-disturbing-focus-of-juuls-

early-marketing-campaigns/#4a42c4ba14f9.

Chung, Man-Wei, et al. Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: from Gene Defect to Clinical Disease.

Cell Research, Feb. 2003.

Clemente, Esther, et al. Familial Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Associated with a New Mutation

in Gene MYBPC3. Clinical Case Reports, 27 Jan. 2017.

Dai, Hongying, and Jianqiang Hao. “Geographic Density and Proximity of Vape Shops to

Colleges in the USA.” Tobacco Control, BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, 1 July 2017,

tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/26/4/379.short.

Felman, Adam. “Nicotine: Facts, Effects, and Addiction.” Medical News Today, MediLexicon

International, 11 Jan. 2018

Fp-Admin. “What Is Vaping?” Center on Addiction, 1 Oct. 2018, www.centeronaddiction.org/e-

cigarettes/recreational-vaping/what-vaping.

National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Monitoring the Future Survey Results Show Alarming Rise

in Teen Vaping.” NIDA, 17 Dec. 2018, www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-

blog/2018/12/monitoring-future-survey-results-show-alarming-rise-in-teen-vaping.

Nierenberg, Cari. “E-Cigarettes: What Vaping Does to Your Body.” LiveScience, Purch, 16 May

2016, www.livescience.com/54754-what-e-cigarettes-do-in-your-body.html.

Raven, Kathleen. “Your Teen Is Underestimating the Health Risks of Vaping.” Yale Medicine,

www.yalemedicine.org/stories/teen-vaping/.

Richter, Linda. “What is Vaping?” Director of Policy research and Analysis,