Comprehensive approach needed to protect teens from vaping

E-cigarettes were initially portrayed as a harmless alternative to cigarettes to help people stop smoking. Yet, studies have shown that for every one adult who switches to e-cigarettes, 81 kids will pick up a nicotine habit.

Candy-flavored vaping products with innocuous names such as Gummy Bear and mentholated flavors like Lychee Ice are aimed squarely at our youth, and now we know that 82 percent of kids who vape started with a flavored product.

The Hawaiʻi Department of Health’s 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey revealed that a disturbing 31 percent of high school teens tried electronic vapor products in the prior 30-day period, and nearly 8 percent of Hawaiʻi students vape daily. This puts Hawaiʻi teens in the nation’s highest percentile of e-cigarette users despite the legal age to purchase vaping products being 21.

We don’t sell cigarettes and alcohol at kiosks in the mall. Why do we allow e-cigarettes to be sold that way even knowing the dangers they pose and how easily they land in the hands of teens?

What is needed is a comprehensive approach to protect our youth from products that we know are unsafe and whose long-term effects may cause decades of health problems in the future.

Numerous bills are being proposed at the state legislature to ban flavored nicotine products, as well as tax and regulate e-cigarettes just as we do with other tobacco products. These all make sense, and we ask our legislators to take action now to stop the youth vaping crisis in Hawaiʻi. Our kids deserve an addiction-free future.