What you should know about vaping and e-cigarettes

"It gets easier, right?"

These are the words I often hear
from young parents

who are new the game
of worrying about their children.

I tell them that it doesn't.

It gets different,

but there's always something
to worry about as parents.

I remember how I would lie
half-awake at night,

listening to my son breathe
when he was young and has asthma.

And then when he was a teen,

until I heard the front door chime open
and I knew that he was home safe.

Worrying about our kids
comes with the territory.

Now, many of these worries
are about basic issues

like what they eat,

where they arem

who they're with,

but we also need to keep an eye
on new behaviors and fads.

The latest craze is something
that may not be yet on everyone's radar

as a serious health concern,

and that is the newfound
popularity of vaping.

Or inhaling sweet aerosols

produced by vaporizing e-liquids
in e-cigarettes.

E-cigarrettes,

or vapes, as they are commonly called,

are flying off the shelves like candy.

This year the e-cigarette market

is expected to drive 26 billion dollars
in sales worldwide.

Over the next six years,

that volume is expected to double.

We have a lot of serious concerns
about the health impact of vaping,

and unfortunately not nearly
enough answers.

This becomes even more concerning
when you think of who uses e-cigarettes.

E-cigarette use, at least in the US,

has grown rapidly among youth
and young adults.

Our kids --

our most vulnerable population.

There was a 900 percent growth
in the use of e-cigarettes by youth

between 2012 and 2015.

The most recent estimates suggest

that approximately 3.6 million
high school and middle school students

have used e-cigarettes in the US.

Now, e-cigarettes were originally created

to offer smokers a cleaner
form of nicotine

to help with their cigarette addiction.

In the US, these devices come under
the FDA's jurisdiction as tobacco product,

but the science on these devices
has not been able to keep up

with the rapid market growth,

so regulations on the components of these
devices and e-liquids are lagging.

Current regulations do restrict
sales of these devices

to anyone under the age of 18,

but these do not seem to have had
much of an impact

on the explosion in the use
of these devices by teens.

You know the first time
I heard and saw an e-cigarette,

I knew right away
that teens would love it.

These devices are technology on a stick.

A perfect fit of the smartphone
generation --

small, rechargable, easy to use,
easy to modify, nice-smelling --

some even sync with you smartphone
to let you know how much you have vaped.

Even I was very drawn
to these very clever devices.

And since I had spent a long time
researching teen and adult addictions,

I immediately realized that these devices
fit perfectly into the teen psyche.

Teens are impulsive
and they love to try new things.

They're also craving independence
and they love to make things their own.

E-cigarettes meet these needs perfectly

by allowing them the chance

to both innovate and personalize
their vape experience.

They can choose from over 15,000
e-liquid flavors

and multiple nicotine concentrations.

They can even create their own
nicotine flavor combination.

They can change how much vapor
is produced from these devices

by modifying the puff volume
and the constiuents

and the power and temperature
of the devices.

They can even use these devices
for cloud chasing.

Cloud chasing,

all called vape tricks or smoke tricks,

involves producing large vape clouds
with quirky shapes and names,

like rings, dragons, coasts --

cloud chasers can even participate
in cloud competitions

and win prizes for creating
the most innovative shaped clouds.

Teens can also change the strength
and throat hit from the vapor

by either vaporizing the e-liquid
at higher temperatures

or dripping the e-liquid
directly onto a heated coil.

They can even use these devices
for marijuana vaping.

And since the devices use
lower temperatures

and do not combust or burn the marijuana,

they can do this very discreetly

without the distinctive smell
of burnt marijuana.

So they can really make these vape
experiences their own,

which may explain the astounding rise
in the use of these devices by youth.

Now e-cigarettes are technically
a very simple device.

There is a receptable for the e-liquid
which can be a tank, a pod or a plug,

there is a battery which charges the coil
which then vaporizes the e-liquid,

and then there is mouthpiece

where the user can actually draw
from the e-cigarette.

In 2017, there were 466 e-cigarette
devices in the marketplace.

These range from cigarette light devices
which are also called cigalights

to tank systems
which are also called pens

and then there are modified
devices which are also called mods.

Now mods look nothing like a cigarette
and they come in various shapes and sizes

with different kinds of attachments
and user adjustments.

They're very popular for cloud chasing.

The most recent entrance
into the marketplace

are the pod devices,

which contain the e-liquid in a pod --

these are very popular
by the way among teens --

and an example of this is the Juul

which not only looks like a USB device

but can also be plugged
into a USB outlet to charge.

Many teens do not even think
that these are e-cigarettes

which has led to the use of terms
like "Juuling" instead of vaping.

Many of these devices are so discreet
and produce so little vapor

that teens are using them in classrooms

and hiding them in objects
like Sharpie pens, their clothes,

their books.

Now many teens think that these devices
produce water vapor

and therefore are safe to use,

but this could not
be further from the truth.

What is produced is not even a vapor,

it's an aerosol,

and let me tell you, the difference
is quite pronounced.

Aerosols contain many
tiny suspended particles

of liquids and gasses that are created
from whatever is in the e-liquid.

So an aerosol could contain