MENTHOL: DON’T LET BIG TOBACCO TAKE AWAY OUR KIDS’ FREE WILL.
After a year and a half of remote learning and social distancing, kids are once again socializing after school and between classes, and are being confronted with one of the biggest dangers on school campuses — vaping.
As smoking cigarettes became less popular with younger generations, tobacco companies have adapted — changing their products to appeal directly to kids. They use misleading advertising to push colorful vapes and fruity flavors that make tobacco use look trendy, fun and empowering. This kind of advertising is why e-cigarettes are now the most commonly used type of tobacco product among California high school students.
The tobacco industry tries to hook young people, whose developing brains are more vulnerable to addiction, with candy-flavored vapes and youth-targeted social media marketing. Youth who live in rural areas are even more vulnerable, because the tobacco industry takes advantage of weaker tobacco retail laws in smaller communities.
Because of these practices, rural counties have some of the highest smoking rates in California, and rural residents start smoking at an earlier age, often after becoming addicted to nicotine through vaping.
Kid-friendly flavors like Blue Razz, Banana Ice and Pegasus Milk mask the harsh taste of tobacco, making it easy to start vaping and harder to quit. The tobacco industry also continues to lie and say that vaping and flavors are harmless, even though it’s been proven that tobacco products lead to poor health and behavioral outcomes for teens.
Nicotine rewires the brain to crave more of it, creating nicotine withdrawal symptoms like headaches, shaky hands, mood swings and the inability to concentrate, ultimately holding them back developmentally and impacting kids’ relationships, academic performance and ability to have happy, successful futures as adults.
“Parents, school officials, and community leaders need to be more aware of the how, where, and why our children are accessing and using tobacco products,” said Larry Olson, Chair of the Mendocino County Tobacco Prevention
Coalition. “By knowing more about these products and the tobacco companies’ tactics to hook our youth, we can be effective advocates to push for local policies that curb tobacco use and save our children from a lifetime of addiction.”
The good news is that kids are starting to get the message. In California, data from the California Student Tobacco Survey shows that 8.2% of high school students vape, a significant drop from 2019, and half that of the US high
The tobacco industry tries to hook young people whose developing brains are more
vulnerable to addiction, with candy-flavored vapes and youth-targeted social
media marketing.
school vaping rate (19.6%). Yet the majority of youth who vape want to quit, and reported making multiple attempts to quit in the past year.
This is a critical moment in the fight against tobacco. We cannot let the tobacco industry steal the free will of another generation by convincing them that vapes are empowering. We can help our children keep their free will intact by choosing not to fall prey to the false advertising of the tobacco industry. We have the power to create a better, tobacco-free future in California—and we must start by protecting our kids.