Teen Vaping, Nicotine and Addiction – What’s Going On?

This week our multi-tallented vice president Emma Jade gives us the low down on vaping.

When one tends to think of psychiatry, one’s mind will often venture towards things like treating depression, anxiety, OCD and more, but a large part of psychiatry also involved addiction! And while when we think of addiction we may often picture a lower class alcoholic, a drug dealer, or some middle aged people chewing Nicotinell gum; the image of addiction is changing in some age groups. The emergence of vaping has, in many cases, lead to increased addiction rather than helping minimise smoking, as its intention is supposed to be. This is currently being seen most prevalently in teenage populations in the United States.

Within psychiatry, like any other part of medicine, we are always aiming to help people as much as possible – so vaping must be good if it’s not as bad as smoking, right? But while we see smoking rates declining every year, including for teenagers, the increased normalisation and popular culture endorsement of vaping has resulted in skyrocketing nicotine addiction amongst the teenage age group. From 2011 to 2015, teenage vaping grew by 900%.

Of all the vape brands, JUUL is by far the most popular. Although the brand has said that they are firmly committed to giving adults a “safer alternative to cigarettes”, this is evidently not the case - with advertising and flavours directed towards younger consumers, and not labelling their pods as containing nicotine except for in very fine print until over a year after it became evident that there was a growing crisis amongst the teenage and young adult population. In addition, JUUL contains high amounts of “nicotine salts”, which do exist naturally in tobacco, but not in a refined form. JUUL has developed a specific formulation in their pods with more purified nicotine in order to intentionally make their e-cigarettes more addictive.

Smoking rates have been in decline amongst younger populations, but the opposite is happening with vaping products and e-cigarettes, which are now becoming the new cool thing to do. The health risk this poses is significant, and we could be having an entire generation being hooked on nicotine – again.

So, what can we do about it?

• Talk to people about it and make sure they are informed/educated! Make sure that whoever is choosing to use vaping products is aware of the fact that they contain nicotine and is likely to be more addictive than a cigarette. But make sure you do this in an empathetic way – we want the best for people, so they should also be able to make their own informed choices!

• If you are a user of vape products, investigate the company consider switching to a company that is actually more focused on helping people with smoking cessation. Your investments will go towards improving others’ lives (and yours!) for the better! Also, take care of yourself - ensure that you are taking no more than 5mg of eliquid per kg of body weight per day, as this is what’s considered a safe amount by WHO!

• Continue to educate yourself on the topic as well – it’ll be highly beneficial knowledge to have once F1 & F2 roll around, no matter what kind of speciality you plan on going into in the future!