I don’t want to feel a crackle run up my chest when I breathe anymore. I noticed it a few years back when I got sick. Every time I took a breath, I felt my windpipes quake. I hated it then. I hate it now. I’m 21 years old, and I’m addicted to tobacco products.
Flavored tobacco has a grip on my generation more than we ever thought it would. Big tobacco companies roped in kids, made millions, and got a whole new generation addicted to nicotine and tobacco through the appeal of thousands of flavors. The same generation that clearly understood the harmful effects of cigarettes became addicted to its flavorful twin, vapes.
It isn’t enough to offer children nicotine gum, anti-vaping campaigns, and advice about how to quit. We need to destroy the source. In January, the Vermont Legislature will vote on S.18, a bill seeking to end the sale of flavored tobacco. I am writing so that people tell their legislators we must pass S.18.
I sometimes wonder how I ended up here. I grew up with a hatred for cigarettes. My whole life, I was told how disgusting they were, the terrible health effects they had, and how addictive the substance tobacco can be. I wanted nothing to do with it.
Around my eighth-grade year at Georgia Elementary and Middle School, some friends started throwing around the term “vape.” It was described to me as a harmless smoke alternative that might have some health benefits. Fast forward to what we know now, and it just seems silly. I never indulged while at GEMS, but that’s where the seed was planted, in eighth grade.
I was in high school at South Burlington when I first used a vape. It was fruit-flavored and filled my lungs with toxic chemicals that I had no idea about because, after all, vapes were “safe.” It made me vibrate from head to toe. The best way I can describe the feeling is that your whole body feels like TV static. I wouldn’t say I liked it at first. Yet, I have an addictive personality, and much like most things that give me any sort of sensation, I’d find my way to it again.
The one thing that kept me coming back more than anything is it tastes like candy. This was not the disgusting, makes-you-smell-bad substance I was warned about.
I was so naïve to claim I wasn’t an “addict.” I could stop at any time, so I was OK.
Let me tell you something: If you’ve ever left your work to go to the bathroom (as so many people around me did) and use a substance to settle down, you are addicted to that substance. I was far from OK.
As part of my senior capstone, I was involved in a tobacco prevention campaign for Burlington High School students, partnering with Burlington Partnership for a Healthy Community. The campaign BHS Elevate hopes to prevent kids from using tobacco. Chantal Finley and I conducted interviews with UVM students to create a sense of understanding between the younger audience and the students right up the road.
What we found was astonishing. Students understood how bad these tobacco products are for you. Yet, when questioned further, almost everyone we interviewed had some level of experience with vapes. At the bare minimum, they had seen the use of one from their friends.
When asked how long they had been vaping, one UVM student had this to say: “I have vaped every day since I first started going into freshman year of high school; I started with a mango Juul pod before cross-country practice.”
Another student put it into simple terms: “Every time I do it, I can feel it in my lungs, and I’m like ‘oh, I need to not do this.’ Now and then, I’ll still hit a vape. But I can tell it’s not good for you.”
Other states have already ended the sale of flavored tobacco products; Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and California all have some sort of restriction on selling flavored tobacco products. The research is out, folks, and we need to act now. In the wake of a global pandemic, young people seek new ways to cope with a forever-changing world. Let’s make sure those mechanisms to cope are healthy ones.
Join me and many others and tell the Legislature to pass S.18 and prevent a generation of Vermont kids from becoming addicted to nicotine.
Marcus Aloisi lives in Burlington.
