Detroit Today: Why Gen Z is gravitating toward vaping and e-cigarettes

If you go to Europe or Asia, you’ll notice how common smoking is. Americans, by contrast, have created really strong norms and laws against the activity — at least until e-cigarettes and vaping hit the scene.

Gen Z has been gravitating toward the devices. That’s partly because e-cigarette companies like JUUL market themselves to kids — attempting to get their colorful products into the hands of a new generation.

The number of students vaping has jumped up as well. From 2017 to 2019, the share of students who vaped increased among 12th graders from 11 to 25%. Increases are also seen among 8th graders, 10th graders and college students.

“As of 2000, there were nearly 3,000 illness-related injuries documented across 50 states and 66 fatalities, so when we hear big tobacco describe e-cigarettes as the safe alternative, it clearly is not safe.” — Dr. Russell Faust, physician

Listen: Why Gen Z is gravitating toward vaping and e-cigarettes

Guests 

Kristy Marynak is a public health advisor at the office of smoking and health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She says vaping and e-cigarette use took off in the late twenty-teens as vaping companies were effectively marketing to young people.

“So, what we saw was JUUL started to really take off, particularly between 2017 and 2018,” says Marynak, “about 11% of high school students were using e-cigarettes in 2017 and that nearly doubled to 20% in 2018 — leaving the surgeon general at the time to declare youth vaping an epidemic.”

Dr. Russell Faust is an Ear, Nose and Throat physician. He’s also the Medical & Lab Director at Oakland County. Faust says e-cigarettes are not harmless as some people suspect.

“As of 2000, there were nearly 3,000 illness-related injuries documented across 50 states and 66 fatalities,” says Faust. “So when we hear big tobacco describe e-cigarettes as the safe alternative, it clearly is not safe.”

Amanda Holm is a project manager at the Henry Ford Health System and a tobacco treatment specialist. She says the strategies used for helping people quit cigarettes are the same for helping people quit e-cigarettes.

“A lot of the treatment principles are the same,” says Holm. “We help them figure out ways to rearrange their daily life, essentially, to cope with it without nicotine use and without dealing with nicotine withdraw.”