Vaping is something that recently in past years has become very popular among teenagers. It’s the new and cool thing to do except it’s not, it’s actually the complete opposite. Vaping can cause very bad damage inside your body whether it slows down your brain development, makes you form an addiction, or affects your ability to learn in school and focus in general. The biggest effect of it being death or close to it. By vaping your chances of ending up in the hospital with a terrible condition are higher than you think. 

Recently, however,  the percentage of teenagers vaping in the U.S. fell dramatically this year, especially among middle schoolers. According to a federal report released this is exciting news. It’s been a struggle trying to get the numbers down in the middle schoolers now the challenge is to get a dramatic drop to happen in high schoolers as well. 

“Experts think last year’s outbreak of vaping related illnesses and deaths may have scared off some kids, but they believe other factors contributed to the drop, including higher age limits and flavor bans.” As stated in an article published by The Denver Post 

 Vaping can seriously damage someone, especially at such a young age. So to have so many teens using vapes and starting from a young age is seen as very concerning. Vaping is something that if you do once you have a 50/50 chance that you will continue to do it again and again even if you say you won’t. The sudden drop of teens using vapes is an amazing thing to see not just for the people that work in health care but also for parents. The drop had to have a background story, especially because many who have tried to stop have said multiple times that it is a huge challenge and is something that a person needs a huge amount of motivation in order to accomplish. Teens choosing to stop vaping is a huge step in the right direction. It doesn’t just affect them but it also affects people around them for the better. 

“Federal health officials believe measures like public health media campaigns, price increase, and sales restrictions deserve credit for the vaping decline. The age limit for sales is 21 now.” The Denver Post continued to say in their article.

The rise in the age limit is another huge thing because it helps to keep more teenagers away and it helps to prevent them from buying vape products. With this, their bodies can stay healthy and they stay out of trouble themselves. Of course, there are ways around that age limit and that’s not unknown but it’s another step in the right direction and that’s what we’re looking at.

Teenagers need more motivation to stop vaping, they need something to help them come to see that what they’re doing to their body is more harmful than it is good. They need to see that what they’re constantly putting inside of their body on a daily need to stop. If more people took the repercussions to this problem seriously and more people read about what vaping does to a person’s body then there would be way fewer teens vaping now. 

Maybe Proposition EE will help. Proposition EE is trying to raise taxes on all tobacco and nicotine products. With this new increase it brings a higher change of lowering the percentage of teen vaping even more than what’s already occurred. This increase can be huge for those percentages. As a whole we want teen vaping to drop even more if not to disappear for good. This proposition may help with just that. (If you want to read more about Proposition EE check out Riley McGroarty’s article Proposition EE Causes Conflict)

The fewer teens vaping this year is a major win, but we can get so many more to stop if we try and keep trying. When doing the right things they will respond and try to help themselves.  We can only try to help a person understand the effects of their choices. We can’t make them do anything. Kids’ futures depend on their childhood and what choices they make when young and innocent. Think about the future and what you want it to look like. The future can hold a healthy and clean future or a sickly and possibly even deathly future. What do you want your future to look like?