By Nadia Ramlagan
Public News Service
Last week President Joe Biden signed legislation that allows the Food and Drug Administration to regulate synthetic nicotine, used in vape products popular among teens.
Kentucky advocacy groups say the state’s high level of vape product use among young people is setting the stage for a serious public health crisis.
E-cigarettes or vapes typically contain as much or more nicotine than traditional cigarettes, but until now manufacturers have skirted government regulations by using a synthetic version of the chemical.
Dr. Scott Bickel – assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Pulmonology, Allergy, and Immunology at the University of Louisville School of Medicine – explained that the nicotine and other toxic substances found in vape products can have substantial health consequences.
“Can lead to impulsivity, difficulties with brain development, and so on,” said Bickel. “And then certainly the respiratory consequences of starting those things early can’t be overstated.”
Congress moved to give the FDA the authority to regulate synthetic nicotine in the $1.5 trillion spending bill that funds the government through September. Biden signed the legislation into law last week.
More than one in four Kentucky high schoolers use e-cigarettes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, e-cigarette sales hit a record high last June, with more than 22 million units sold nationwide.
Allison Adams – vice president for policy with the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky – said the experience of the coronavirus pandemic highlighted how tobacco can make individuals more susceptible to respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19.
She added the Commonwealth has one of the highest rates of tobacco use in the nation.
“And so knowing that we weren’t coming into this pandemic as a healthy state,” said Adams, “we were on a trajectory for loss and less ability to fight it off quickly and rapidly.”
Adams said the state could allow local communities to make their own decisions about how tobacco products are marketed, sold and distributed at the local level to help protect the health of young people.
Hannah Abdon is a senior at Boone County High School. She said she believes her classmates have gravitated toward vape products because of heavy advertising in her community.
“On my drive to school,” said Abdon, “I think I pass three different places, and these places all sell vapor products, and they have advertisements in their storefronts that I can see when I’m driving past.”
Tobacco and e-cigarette industries spent more than $788,000 lobbying Kentucky lawmakers in 2020, according to state data.
Vapes are a problem but cigarettes? Nope, dipping? Nope, nicotine patches? Nope, tobacco free nicotine pouches? Nope, Nicotine gum? Nope, cigars? Nope. Vapes are the problem. We’re allowed to smoke cigarettes which have (nicotine, hydrogen CYANIDE, formaldehyde, LEAD, Arsenic, FREAKING AMMONIA, but wait there’s more, they also have RADIOACTIVE ELEMENTS, no that’s not a typo RADIOACTIVE. Such as polonium-210. Also benzene, carbon monoxide, Tabasco specific nitrosamines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. And that’s only the stuff they tell us what’s in ONE cigarette. Yes vapes are bad for you, anything you breathe in other than oxygen is bad for you, even too much oxygen is bad for you. So why are we focusing on vapes in particular when cigarettes have been around for thousands of years killing roughly 480,000 people annually(according to the CDC.) including second hand smoke deaths.
The first vape was invented in 1927 and a total of SIXTY people have died from using a vape between 1927 and January 1st 2020. If you do the math if 480,000 people die a year from cigarette causes complications, then 45,600,000 people have died between 1927 and 2022 from cigarettes, why isn’t this more of a issue compared to vapes? There is no reason to be targeting this one form of nicotine ingestion.
You can argue that it’s targets towards teens, but when it was legal to advertise cigarettes everywhere weren’t they also advertised towards children(cartoons, drawings, childish pictures in form of advertising.) but we didn’t see as much of a response to it. Since vaping has had an uprising the legal age to buy and consume nicotine and other tobacco products has been raised to 21, why not do that when cigarettes were a problem, I just don’t understand why they are targeted over everything else that has caused so much more death for for literal millennium(it is believed that tobacco cultivation began around the year 5,000BC).
We’re focusing on vapes because they are sold in flavors that teenagers prefer over tobacco. We’re focusing on vapes because 21% of middle and high school students vape compared to 8% nation wide who smoke cigarettes. We’re not focusing on tobacco because congress first took action on the tobacco industry in 1969. Since than tobacco use ratings have plummeted in the US to nearly 14% of the US population compared to its peak of 45% in 1954.
Cat piss is in cigarettes lol people addicted to that bullshit if they banned cigarettes watch this world go thru poverty over tobacco cigarettes smh.. cigarettes..I mean cat piss
Why don’t you focus more on flavored alcohol considering it’s 100x more of a risk than vaping.
Alcohol use among teens is an epidemic too. So, why do they not ban flavored-alcoholic beverages for the same reason?
I want to also point out that you can hardly say vaping has been around since 1927. A man filed a patent for a device that never saw the light of day in 1927. Nearly 4 decades later another man attempted to bring vaping to the market without success. It wasn’t until 2001 that the concept of vaping really started to take off. The argument that we’re ignoring the dangers of tobacco to get rid of a safe alternative is just not accurate. Really what we’re doing is trying to prevent a new generation from becoming nicotine addicts. Studies show that teens that vape or have vaped are much more likely to try and continue to use tobacco products.
Interesting, true, love the history class… but you’re wrong on one thing. Cigarettes come in flavors and a variety of. Cigars too. Menthol, cherry, vanilla, rum, grape, clove, and more!!! Not the publics fault the tobacco industry didn’t think of pushing more. Tobacco is one of the leading causes of cancer, nah its okay to keep it on the shelf, just put a warning on it. Here, what about alcohol? Last I went into a store, strawberry tequila, coffee rum, lemonade, coke, omfg more flavors in something that our young find and ingest… moral of the store, parents need to parent and watch their kids closer. No excuses, I keep a close tab on my kids and without bothering them doing it. It’s not hard. It’s laziness.
They just want to regulate and tax people for it like they do with everything else. Marijuana is legal is many states and there is a push to legalize it federally. Drinking and marijuana use are huge amongst. Lets stop fooling ourselves into believing the government cares about the welfare of society.
Ok so I see liquor stores on every corner but it doesn’t make me go in and buy it. Card the kids and let’s the adults continue to smoke ecigs if that’s what they choose. But the kids will just go back to smoking cigs like they did before these ecigs came along.
Kids will get them from older people. Carding doesn’t stop anything.
They will just have adults get them cigarettes then, like I used to do.
Because smoking is the better choice.
I think it’s the Americans right if they want to smoke cigarettes, if they want to chew tobacco, or dip, or use non tobacco products, or heck even if they want to vape. It’s our choice no one else’s. I used to be a smoker since I was 12 yrs old. I’m 42 now and for the last 5 yrs I went to vaping. Honestly the vaping has helped me stop smoking, made me smell things alot better, taste things that didn’t taste like they didn’t when I smoked cigarettes. I feel alot better since I been vaping. I can breath better now. And with cigarettes they also give u copd. My mother died of that. So I am for vaping 100%. The hell with the government. They r supposed to work for us. That’s why they was elected and r in the office. If it was not for us they would not be in there. I say stand for what u want and believe in. It’s your right America. It’s your stand.
This is honestly stupid if you really want to ban vapes you might as well ban everything else like cigarettes or dip like if a kid is vaping it’s the parents responsibility to stop that and places should be carding people like honestly come on now. This is ridiculous. And on top of it all y’all at like vapes are cheap its not so the kids got to get the money somehow it’s on the parents and I don’t care what your opinion is on this it’s just stupid because y’all raised the age from 18 to 21 to be able to buy cigs or vapes and clearly that didn’t work so what makes you think this will kids will just go to other drugs.
What if we want to be nicotine addicts ? Our body our choice. It’s that’s simple. You don’t like it then don’t do it, but don’t try to take it away from me and act like your doing me a favor. If you want to educate people about vaping and let them make their own decision then more power to you but banning flavored vapes is just going to create a black market for it and then it will be dangerously unregulated.
If the Government wants to help minors or kids they should clean the street from all the drugs .. I used to be a smoker and it used to bothering in night cough and always my clothes smell like cigarettes till I switch to Vape its a lot better then cigarettes I breath better I smell better and when I used to smoke cigarettes I used to stay out outside till I finish the cigarette when it comes to Vape I take two or three puffs and I’m done
If anybody in the government don’t like Vape that’s on them but they can’t take our rights on vapes and other choices
Honestly I don’t think this is fair to the adults it’s not our fault the kids aren’t being carded vapes helped me quit smoking cigarettes I’ve been cigarette free for 5 years I’ve been smoking sense I was 13 I’m 24 now
So all the adults this has helped to quit smoking just don’t count? Kids will smoke cigarettes then. Regulate, you mean spend trillions of dollars we don’t have so the government can make money off it.
This will just start people making home mades ones that are more dangerous.
This is ridiculous. Beyond dumb.
Cigarettes are flavored.
Alcohol is flavored. But yall make a lot off that. So it’s okay.
Don’t worry about the heroin epidemic that needed attention 10 years ago. Cause that makes the government more money with people being addicts not healing. What is happening to The USA.
This is absolutely just ridiculous. Doing it for the kids? Come on. Their are methadone clinics on every 2 mile block radius in most places giving addicts methadone, (an opioid!) to “treat” heroin addiction but let’s be real. It gets you high and no withdrawal because it is an !opiate! The clinics aren’t your friends and care about you getting clean. They put you on extreme dosages with an increase on mg until they reach a cap usually around where they are legally allowed to give. Their goal is to keep u coming back and keep you addicted exactly like your local drug dealer does. Except they are legal. It’s a maintenance program to wean you down to nothing and be drug free. A slow steady taper down to zero over a course of maybe 6 months depending on the person. But that’s not what’s happening at these clinics. Their are patients that have been kept on the medication at high dosages given to them and recommended by the clinics themselves. It’s about the money, not the well being of addicts trying to get clean. They are setting them up for failure and a whole other addiction. A painful one. For 10 dollars a person every day for the rest of your life you can be a part of this scam. They drug test you as well to make sure you are not using other drugs which is part of a sober lifestyle but the clinics usually only make you pay a fine or sometimes less. No aftercare provided at the clinic to get to the root of your addiction and why and resolve what is driving you to use. Only a cup of methadone syrup/methadone pill a day and a kick back out on the street once they have their money. Got off subject but my point is it’s ok to sell illegal opiates and sell all types of nicotine in every variety imaginable but selling fruity vapes should be outlawed and every vape burned in one large vape fire. You did the world of every vape, you are only opening the door for illegal organizations to profit from it. Also, before vaping kids weren’t in any harms way of tobacco use. Vaping will be regulated and banned but thank god oh and the government the marijuana dispensary, liquor store, and smoke shops are legal. Can get all my legal needs to get really high and addicted to whatever I please. Except for vapes Thank you Joe Biden for saving my life. The opiates and alcohol are saving lives. Vapes are out here destroying lives and families. Especially the mango berry vape, that’s the flavor that is really ruining the younger childrens lives. Such a joke.
Ban Vapes and everybody, including KIDS, will turn to cigarettes. It makes no sense. Exactly why the government wants to do it. IT MAKES NO SENSE!! Just like everything else they either do, or don’t do.
Thank goodness!! My daughter and all her friends that I know are abusing vapes. I can take it from her 100 times and she gets another. She hates the smell of cigarettes and said they are disgusting. She loves the blue raspberry flavor and that is what got her vaping and her friends. It’s not fair to blame the parents. This gets started under the parents radar. I had never heard of vaping when my daughter actually started. She hid it and you can’t smell it. Please please take them off the market before more kids get addicted to cigarettes for life. I’m so sad about my daughter and don’t know how to get her out of this now that she has gotten addicted.
Vaping is a 10x safer option to smoking cigarettes, and even if they ban them they will just be illegal and even more opportunity for kids to get them from dealers. Weed is illegal in most places but if you want it, you can get it regardless. Banning vapes will do nothing but take away adults and kids ability to have an alternative to smoking, which will cause even more health problems in the future.
but now if the government bands vapes kids that did vape will probably turn to cigarettes or find way to make it themselves or by it from a dealer which is a lot less safe then the just getting it from an adult
Idiots. In the UK, their equivalent to the USA’s surgeon general deemed vaping 95% safer than smoking cigarettes and are actually building vape shops in hospitals to help people quite cigarettes. The
USA is backwards and all the propaganda pushers believe their own BS and are more wrong about this than likely anything they have moved to ban is the past.
idiots, thats all i can say, total idiots. Kids will always, ALWAYS do something and try something. So why not move them back to cigarettes. Again, IDIOTS.