Smoking is no longer considered to be cool, only an annoying
nuisance, meaning the long war on tobacco finally appears to be coming to an
end. Gone are the days of high school kids running off to the bathrooms to grab
a quick rebellious cigarette. In my own experience, I was thankfully never able
to inhale (truthfully taking a line from Bill Clinton) and also first attempted
to smoke Virginia Slims which conveniently led to reactions that did not
encourage me to keep trying.
Big Tobacco has struck back with a marketing vengeance
directing their attention, again, at kids. The successful movement to
effectively curtail smoking has caused them to reinvigorate their efforts with
e-cigarettes, an activity that is becoming increasingly popular with teenagers
commonly known as vaping.
Using a tiny device that can be easily mistaken for a USB
drive, vaping devices with brand names such as Juul and Blu can be discreetly
used in the middle of class, at lockers, on the bus, as well as in the more
traditional school bathrooms. They are small, easy to hide, free of smoke, and
can be conveniently shared by kids. Students
as young as middle school age have been known to fasten vaping devices to their
inner sleeves giving them undetectable opportunities to vape even during school
hours.
Tobacco companies are marketing E-cigarettes with the same
manipulative strategies they originally used to sell cigarettes to teenagers
with a clear understanding that the younger a person is when they start smoking
the more likely they are to become hooked. “E-cigarettes are sold in dozens of
flavors that appeal to kids such as cotton candy, bubble gum, blueberry blast,
and mango paradise. They are sold in colorful packages that appeal to kids such
as tie-dye,” says Mary Cole, Program Coordinator at the Greater Boston Tobacco
Free Community Partnership. They come with designer sleeves, similar to the
cases that kids proudly have for their cell phones. These products are widely
available at corner stores and other retailers that kids frequent and they are
often displayed in highly visible locations within the store often right next
to the candy.
I recently stopped by a convenience store in North Weymouth,
an establishment that primarily sells candy, lottery tickets, and
tobacco/vaping products. The small store was filled with posters colorfully advertising
for both Juul and Blu (no pun intended). The man behind the counter told me
that vaping was currently far more popular and profitable than standard cigarettes.
“Mostly 18 to 35 year-olds who are trying to quit smoking,” the man said about
his typical vaping customers although he must have thought I had just rolled in
off the proverbial turnip truck. I think that it can be realistically stated that
the 18 to 35 year-old age bracket is no longer smoking enough to keep the
tobacco companies financially satisfied. In the store it was difficult for me
to decipher the line between the candy at the counter and the various vaping pods,
cartridges, cases, and bottles of E-liquid, some of which actually included the
word candy on their labels.
“They’re sweet, they’re cheap, and they’re easy to get,”
says Cole. Price is also a major comparative selling point. A Juul starter kit
that can normally be as expensive as $50.00 can be found for as little as $1.00
including shipping on the internet. And a $4.00 vape pod pales in comparison to
an equivalent pack of cigarettes that sells for $10.00. Cheaper is better,
particularly from the perspective of a financially challenged kid, not to
mention the parent companies who are perfectly willing to sell those first
addictive vaping kits for a fraction of the eventual price.
Instagram cleverly allows vaping related advertisers to
offer give away opportunities directly marketed toward teenagers. Using the
internet, kids can safely work their way around age restrictions using gift cards
and relying on Federal Express for delivery.
A vape contains nicotine and nicotine is highly addictive whether
it tastes like cool mint, fruit medley, or that pack of Lucky Strikes that were
rolled up in the sleeve of the kid you never wanted to run into in your high
school bathroom. “As a consumer there is no way to know what you are buying,”
says Mary Cole, especially when you take into account that e-cigarettes are not
yet regulated on the federal level allowing them a substantial amount of
freedom with regard to truth and packaging.
Like the wondrous items you normally found at the local
candy counter when you were an innocent kid (at least in my case), vaping can
give you the taste of roughly 8,000 E-liquid flavors currently available in the
United States including Watermelon Wave, Gummi Bear, Very Berry Slushie,
Strawberry Shortcake, and even one vaping juice that claims to be an adequate
substitute for chocolate milk. And although that Charleston Chew that you spent
your spare change on all those years ago was never marketed as a product that
was healthy in any way, it was not a vehicle to deliver the following dangerous
chemicals into your respiratory system like a vaping pod, pen, or vaporizer
including nicotine, formaldehyde, propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, and
flavor diacetyl – an ingredient that has already been proven to irreversibly scar
the lungs when inhaled.
If you are not worried about your kids’ vaping, you should
be. That is, unless they are showing a historical fondness for the Clinton administration.
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