The Truth about Vaping

Welcome to Talking FACS; what you need to know about family, food, finance and fitness. Hosted by the University of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program, our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families and communities to improve quality of life.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Hello and welcome to Talking FACS. This is your host, Dr. Jennifer Hunter, Assistant Director for Family Consumer Sciences Extension at the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Food and Environment.

Today, I'm joined by Alex Elswick, our subject matter specialist for substance abuse prevention and recovery. Today, Alex is going to address a topic that is very much in the news and I will say one that I'm very interested as a parent of a middle schooler, but vaping. So, Alex, let's just get started. And tell us what is vaping?

Alex Elswick: So vaporizers, vaping is short for vaporizer. They're what are called ‘ends’, like ‘ends’ of sentences. They’re electronic nicotine delivery systems, which is just a fancy way of saying it's an electronic device most often to consume nicotine.

What's really happening is it's not so much creating a vapor as it's creating an aerosol that people are inhaling that contains nicotine and some other substances. And it's considerably safer than smoking cigarettes, interestingly enough, but it's far from safe.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Okay. And so, in most cases, are people vaping to replace smoking?

Alex Elswick: Originally, that's the way that many of the vapes were marketed. And there is some scientific evidence that suggests that vaping can be a helpful quit aid, but most often, what we're seeing with young people is what we call poly-tobacco use. So, kids who are both smoking regular combustible cigarettes and vaping.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Okay. So, I think that's where most of my questions come from is that as a parent of a teenager, there has been so much in the news recently about statistics associated with middle schoolers and high schoolers using vaporizers that I just think it's really scary as a parent and something that I don't know much about that I grew up with cigarettes and nicotine; right?

So, as a parent, we understand that product, we understand what it is, we understand the potential impacts that it could have on our children, but vaporizers are our new product and I really feel like that I as a parent, I'm fairly uninformed about the product, about what it is, what my child could be doing with it, how my child could be concealing it, can I smell it on him the same as I could smell cigarette smoke on him? I have a load of questions.

Alex Elswick: Let's get started. So, in the last five or 10 years, there's been a dramatic increase in the use of vapes among both young people and adults. Most often adults are using them as quit aids. Most often young people are not.

A lot of problems associated with it, and in particular the one that scares me the most, is that using any kind of nicotine, including a vape, increases the likelihood that a person will experience addiction of another kind later on in life.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Okay. So, it could be an entrance into addiction.

Alex Elswick: Absolutely could be, we're talking about the gateway; right? It could be the gateway into a different kind of addiction.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: So, I think as a parent that's definitely a concern. How as a parent, are there signs that you could recognize that your child may be using a vaporizer?

Alex Elswick: The earliest vapes looked like cigarettes actually; interestingly enough. They looked like little plastic cigarettes and then they've kind of evolved; each subsequent generation to look in two ways. There are some that are really obvious, that have these huge tanks, that have the fluid, that gets turned into aerosol attached and so they're kind of cumbersome and kind of obvious, but also a particular company, who makes vapes called Juul, has developed one that looks a lot like a USB flash drive.

Alex Elswick: And I think that as parents that's what we tend to hear a lot about right now is jeweling and how small the device actually is, how easily it could fit in a pocket or a coat pocket or a backpack pocket.

Alex Elswick: Yeah. Jewel has taken over like two thirds of the electronic cigarette market. So, they're making a lot of money. A lot of juuls are ending up in the hands of young people. And I think a lot of the popularity among teenagers is due to the fact that it doesn't have a scent that stays on you, so Mom and Dad can't smell the aerosol.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: That was going to be my next question. Can I smell this on my child's clothes?

Alex Elswick: No. I mean, you can you can smell the aerosol when a person blows it out, especially if it's flavored, you can smell it temporarily, but it sort of evaporates pretty quickly and it's so easy to conceal. And even if Mom or Dad did see it, it looks so inconspicuous because it looks like a little flash drive, so it really doesn't seem to be harmful.

And that's part of the concern; we've done such a good job educating young people on the harms of smoking tobacco, like cigarettes and chewing tobacco, and I think something like a jewel looks so harmless that kids assume that it is harmless.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: I'm going to I googled the picture so that I knew what it looked like for our conversation today. I worked really hard on my show prep.

Alex Elswick: Good. Were you surprised?

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: I was surprised and honestly, I would encourage parents to do an internet search so that they know what they're looking for, because I honestly did not and I wanted to be prepared for our conversation, but then I also wanted to be an informed parent.

So, you said at the beginning that using a vaporizer is considered to be much safer than smoking cigarettes. Is there research there or do we even really know what the impacts are? Because when you started talking about it and I had no idea that it was an aerosol, but that sounds concerning and dangerous to me.

Alex Elswick: It is. You bring up two good points there; one is that electronic cigarettes are relatively new, so we don't have any long term research on the long term effects of using electronic cigarettes. In the short term, based on the research we do have, they do seem to be substantially safer than combustible cigarettes because one, of all the additives in cigarettes that make them more addictive and two, because the mere act of combustion, of lighting something on fire, and inhaling it is really bad for your lungs.

So, in that way they are safer, but that does not, you know, safer is not the same thing as safe.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Right. It's a great point.

Alex Elswick: And certainly for a young person, it's very much not safe. There are plenty of other chemicals in the aerosol that are bad to inhale. And like I said, it increases the likelihood of not just other forms of addiction, but it even increases the likelihood that a person will be smoking cigarettes five or ten years later.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: And I think that that's one of the things that you mentioned too that was concerning that I was really thinking of this as a either or a replacement; certainly not an individual using both products, which would obviously compound the effects.

So, you still haven't really given me any good tips as mom or dad of what I'm looking for at home.

Alex Elswick: Well, what you're going to be looking for is probably the device itself.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Okay.

Alex Elswick: Because you're probably not going to smell anything, you're not going to see any physical evidence, you're not going to have stained teeth, you're not going to have smoky breath like you would with a cigarette. So, this is part of what makes something like juuling really scary.

There are lots of flavors and that's part of the attraction for young people. And so you may be able to smell, if a person has recently used the juul, some of, you know, like cotton candy and bubble gum and things like this.

And it's interesting to note that the FDA has recently filed a motion to ban flavored e-cigarette flavors to limit it to just tobacco or menthol flavored.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Which would make sense that you would feel like that probably the flavors, especially the ones that you just named off; cotton candy, bubblegum are very much targeting youth.

Alex Elswick: Absolutely. I think the reality probably is that they're intended to target young people. And even though people who are under 18 can't legally purchase them, the research says it's clearly finding its way into the hands of teenagers.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: So, that was going to be one of my questions too. So, it is illegal to purchase if you're under the age of 18. So, it would have the same purchase restrictions as a traditional cigarette.

Alex Elswick: That's right. But just like our long history of teenagers smoking cigarettes, young people are not finding it too difficult to get their hands on these things if they want them.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Okay. So, all things for parents to be aware of. And I guess just as our kiddos grow, that we have to continue to be vigilant and understand really what is going on in their world today, because like I said at the very beginning, this is such a new product that I really feel like that parents are uninformed and may not even be aware of what is currently going on in their middle schools and high schools.

And just having a conversation with your kiddo so that they do understand, because like you said, they've been getting messages regarding smoking cigarettes since they were probably in lower elementary school and parents have talked about that at home, but this has not been a topic on the table.

So, just having that open conversation with your kiddo, explaining to them what it is and how it could be harmful to their body and that it really is considered to be a dangerous product.

Alex Elswick: It is. And I don't want to create a whole bunch of hysteria around this, but parents should be informed. They should know that you can put marijuana in some of the electronic cigarettes. And so, sometimes kids are able to smoke marijuana through like an oil through vapes. I don't think that you can do it through the juul, but you can through other kinds of vaporizers. So, it's just something to be aware of.

And then as for having a conversation with your kids, I think one of the things that's interesting is what was so effective about reducing the rate of teenage smoking was an initiative called The Truth Initiative that was largely based in part on just arming kids with the facts. So, not trying to scare them, but just telling them the truth. And so, sitting down with your child and letting them know the harmful effects of vaping and arming them with the facts and then trusting them to make the right decision.

Dr. Jennifer Hunter: I think that's a great note to end on. Thanks so much for being with us today, Alex.

Alex Elswick: Thanks for having me.

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