This is the new face of tobacco. Long gone are the days of Joe Camel and stinky cigarette smoke, but it's still tobacco and it's still harmful. Vaping is clean and flavorful. Flavors like ice cream, popcorn, and candy in fun packaging make it look fun and harmless. It looks safe, but it isn't. Teens are risking a lifetime of nicotine addiction and lung damage.
Vapes and Juuls contains nicotine, which is addictive, and 1,000's of other chemicals. The long term health risks are still unknown. According to the Surgeon General, because their brains are still developing and addiction is a form of learning, teens can get addicted more easily than adults. The nicotine in e-cigarettes and other tobacco products can also prime the teen brain for addiction to other drugs such as cocaine.
The chemicals used for flavoring also have risks. One of the popular chemicals used in flavoring is diacetyl, which is associated with the deadly disease "popcorn lung." It was used as a buttery flavor in microwave popcorn until workers in a microwave popcorn factory were sickened by breathing it in. Diacetyl was linked to deaths and hundreds of cases of bronchiolitis obliterans, a serious and irreversible lung disease. As a result, the major popcorn manufacturers removed diacetyl from their products, but it is still used as a flavoring in vapes and e-cigarettes.
Let's protect our kids. They don't need popcorn flavored tobacco and they don't need popcorn lung. Find out more at flavorshookkids.org.
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