From the early age of 13, vaping and doing drugs have become more and more normalized. This trend needs to come to an end.
Has the government done anything effective to stop this? The short answer is no. Yes, there have been government-issued drug prevention programs like Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E.. These programs should be influential, but they only target youth and stop the second they reach young adulthood. D.A.R.E. only lasted about two weeks for me, and I did it when I was in fifth grade — an age where I did not necessarily comprehend these target issues as well as I do now. These programs need to continue well into middle and high school to be effective.
Another issue relating to youth addictions is target audiences, specifically with vape and e-cigarette companies. A key example of this is seen in how e-cigarette companies have offered scholarship money to people who write essays on topics such as the benefits of e-cigarettes. Some of these scholarships are limited to 18 years of age and older, but many others have no age limit at all.
In these scholarship essays, students are sometimes asked to give recommendations of their favorite flavors. Vape companies are also known for creating flavors targeted specifically to kids, like Sour Patch or cotton candy. It is beyond disturbing that these companies are feeding off addicted teens in order to gain profit. But, all that matters to them is money; not the health of our youth, only the profit they give them.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, in 2022 over 2.5 million high school and middle school students used e-cigarettes. This number has most likely dramatically increased over the past year and it is disappointing how lightly people are taking this situation. In the entire world, the U.S. has the highest number of people who use e-cigarettes, with a large portion of this statistic being teens.
Though e-cigarettes seem like a healthier alternative to smoking regular cigarettes, they can damage health almost the same way tobacco does. Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that nicotine can harm brain development, which does not begin to slow until your mid-20s; exposing these chemicals to children so early can gravely harm them in the future. The CDC has also said that teens who smoke e-cigarettes now are more likely to smoke tobacco in the future.
The only ways schools have shown punishment for e-smoking and vaping is through suspension or giving detentions to the students who do so. However, in the end, they come back. These students are filled with the idea that the only punishment they will get is suspension, so they continue to vape because they know they will not get into that much trouble for it. In some rare cases, schools expel the student if the situation becomes extremely out of hand. For something that schools claim is so dangerous, the actions they take to prevent it do not make it seem like such.
The government, though it has initiated some programs with minimal effectiveness, has not been taking as much action as it should. Politicians need to take this issue more seriously as it is becoming a more prominent issue, causing teens’ health to deteriorate much faster at an extremely high rate. Actions they should, and in some cases, need to take are shutting down advertisements specifically targeted toward children and teens, heavily enforcing the age limit and tracking the buyer to see if they used a fake identification card or confirming the name they paid for the vape under.
It is disturbing how the ages of teens being exposed to vapes and other drugs are getting lower and lower when these substances are meant for an older consumer market. The government needs to create and enforce programs to stop these kids from going overboard, monitoring when signs of vaping begin and stopping them before they fall down the rabbit hole of addiction.
