Warnings of e-cigarette health risks appear to be drowned out by a flurry of promotional items that teens receive, according to research by the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Marketing has a tremendous influence on teens, indicates the study published May 17th in JAMA Network Open. Stanford’s study received contributions by researchers from the University of California-Berkeley and the University of California-San Francisco.

For a full year, researchers tracked the habits of 757 California teenagers, who were 13 to 19 years old when the study was initiated. Participants were interviewed at the onset of the study to ensure they had never used any alternative tobacco products, but admitted to having in their possession branded hats or T-shirts, coupons or samples of such materials.

Researchers wanted to see if owning marketing materials would influence the students’ decisions to use products, such as e-cigarettes, down the road. They concluded that teens who own branded materials are more apt to use e-cigarettes and other alternative tobacco products.

Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibits the marketing of tobacco products to teens, but most alternative tobacco products are escaping FDA regulations because the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act extended the requirement for tobacco companies to submit premarket applications until 2021 or 2022. As a result, the promotion of e-cigarettes and other vaping apparatuses has boomed without receiving FDA reviews at all.

Ignoring E-Cigarette Health Risks Prompt Warning

More than 3.6 million middle school and high school students identified themselves as current e-cigarette users in 2018, according to a survey by the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. High school students experienced a 78 percent increase in e-cigarette use between the years 2017 and 2018.

Upon learning of those statistics, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams declared e-cigarette use an “epidemic among youth.”

By far the most popular among the e-cigarette brands is the JUUL, a pod-based e-cigarette that delivers flavored nicotine vapor via a small device that looks identical to a USB computer device. Using a JUUL is often called “JUULing,” and most teens who use a JUUL or other e-cigarette will respond “no” if you ask them if they smoke. Many teens do not even know that JUUL pods contain nicotine.

JUUL currently holds 75 percent of the e-cigarette market and recently became a partner with Altria (formerly Philip Morris), which makes Marlboro cigarettes. Experts predict the e-cigarette market to become a $34 billion industry by 2021.

One JUUL pod contains the same amount of nicotine found in an entire pack of cigarettes. The most popular flavor, mango, contains the most nicotine of the entire assortment of JUUL pods. Because of the high dose of nicotine delivery, there have been some reports of seizures as an alleged result of using these e-cigarettes.

Doctors warn that human brains continue to develop until age 25. The introduction of nicotine to the young brain can cause problems with memory and mental health, warn physicians.

Many teens express that they believe e-cigarette health risks are virtually nil because they think they are only inhaling water vapor from an e-cigarette. They also say that because there is no tar in the mixtures, they believe there’s no danger.

Nicotine is an addictive chemical that restricts blood vessels, which can lead to cardiovascular and circulation problems.

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This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.