E-cigarette use by teens reaching epidemic levels

It seems no matter what, teenagers will always find a way to latch onto some bad habit harmful to their health.  This time, expanding e-cigarette use by teens has caught the attention of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  This has prompted the FDA sending out a stern warning to the e-cigarette industry to address the problem or risk having their flavored products pulled from the market.

This latest message from the FDA is a shift in their previous tone in the past.  Just last year, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb and other federal officials had believed that e-cigarettes could be a potential tool to ween adult smokers off cigarettes, which has not been proven.

What has abruptly changed their minds is the unforeseen “epidemic of addiction” among teenagers, mainly driven by flavored products. Gottlieb sent out a statement which read, “E-cigarettes have become an almost ubiquitous and dangerous trend among teens.  The disturbing and accelerating trajectory of use we’re seeing in youth, and the resulting path to addiction, must end. It’s simply not tolerable.  The FDA won’t tolerate a whole generation of young people becoming addicted to nicotine as a tradeoff for enabling adults to have unfettered access to these same products.”

After the announcement by the FDA to crack down on e-cigarettes, the five largest e-cigarette manufacturers will have 60 days to produce plans to reverse underage use of their products. Up to 97 percent of U.S. e-cigarette sales are the Vuse, Blu, Juul, MarkTen XL, and Logic cigarette brands.  The FDA wants to work together with these companies to meet the goal of preventing access of e-cigarettes to minors.

A chief administrative office of the e-cigarette Juul, had made a statement in June that their intention was never to market to teens and emphasizing that their product is meant only for adult smokers.

Besides the manufacturer’s responsibility in preventing e-cigarettes ever getting into the hands of minors, more than 1300 letters of warning were sent by the FDA to stores across the country for the illegal sale of these products to teens and issued more than 131 civil money penalties to stores that continued to violate the restrictions on sales to minors.

How are e-cigarettes harmful to teens?

The rise of e-cigarette use among teens has grown dramatically in the last five years.  Today, more high school students use e-cigarettes than regular cigarettes, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey.  The concern of teenagers taking up the use of e-cigarettes is alarming for many reasons. To understand these concerns, it helps to know what exactly e-cigarettes are. E-cigarettes are devices that heat a liquid into an aerosol that the user inhales. In this liquid are usually nicotine and flavoring along with other ingredients. Nicotine found in both regular cigarettes and e-cigarettes are addicting. Nicotine is not the only concern of what is found in e-cigarettes. Other potentially harmful substances found in them include:

·      Ultrafine particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs

·      Flavorants such as diacetyl, a chemical linked to serious lung disease

·      Volatile organic compounds

·      Heavy metals such as nickel, tin, and lead

For adolescents taking up this habit, it can have future ramifications.  During the years of adolescence is when important brain development is happening. From conception throughout childhood and to around age 25, the brain is undergoing massive changes.  Youth who are exposed to nicotine during this time can cause addiction and harm to the developing brain.

Even for adults, the benefit of vaping using e-cigarettes for cessation from regular cigarettes has not yet borne out at the population level in clinical or observational studies. The FDA’s main message in this latest news is that access to nicotine products and the advertising of these products appeals to teens and should be restricted to minimize youth exposure.

E-cigarette Basics

E-cigarettes are devices that heat a liquid into an aerosol that the user inhales. The liquid usually has nicotine and flavoring in it, and other additives. The n

Besides nicotine, e-cigarettes can contain harmful and potentially harmful ingredients, including:

§  ultrafine particles that can be inhaled linked to serious lung heavy metals, such as nickel, tin, and lead