3,200. 3,200 is around the number of teens that smoke their first cigarette, vape, or hookah every day in the United states of America. This is horrifying considering that most of these teens use a vape, and studies have shown that most teens transition from vape to cigarettes. What is also surprising is that most lifetime smokers have attended to starting young: 5.6 million teens who started smoking as teens will die early as adults.
How are kids/teens getting hooked on vapes? It all has to do with advertisement. Tobacco companies appeal to young highly impressionable teens by making vapes look like cool, sleek gadgets. They also discount prices to make it easier for teens without jobs to get one.
Now onto solutions that have worked in the past. One solution is rising cigarettes, vapes, and hookah prices. This will make them unaffordable to teens. Another idea that has worked is limiting tobacco marketing. Doing this will cause teens to not see it as cool or a good thing/safe thing to do.
Two other options to stop the uptick in teen vape usage, are teaching the dangers of smoking and providing quitting programs. If we teach the youth about the dangers of smoking it is most likely that they will use a cigarette, vape, or hookah. There are so many dangers that it could be a class for high school. Quitting programs. Quitting programs are really effective, and the best part is that they are free. There are so many quitting programs in the state of California and THEY’RE FREE. This is most likely the best way to help teen smokers stop from smoking.
Let’s see what the teen’s parental guardian can do to help. The first thing you can do to help your child is talking to them, start early about telling them the danger of smoking. If your child is smoking, try to understand why they’re smoking in the first place. In the end it is more than just the cigs, vapes, and hookahs, it’s the nicotine addiction.
Another helpful tip to help a child is to prepare them for peer pressure. Because in a real situation a random guy on the side of the street won’t make your kid try smoking, it will be one of their friends. Teaching the child to say no to smoking is one of the best things a parental guardian can do for their children.
These next tips are pretty short but important. Set a good example for the child. If you don’t want the child to smoke then the parental guardian has to stop. Next up is to establish a smoke-free zone. Don’t let anyone smoke in the house, or inside the car. If the teens have nowhere to smoke and realize they are in the wrong.
Mission Viejo High School has a vaping problem no doubt, and it is happening in the bathroom. But some ways to solve this problem that doesn’t involve closing off the boys bathroom to everyone, is to have a supervisor just there. Even if they go in a check on the bathroom once in a while letting kids know that the supervisor’s pattern is unpredictable.
