Not only in Forsyth County, but high schoolers all across the country are starting to turn public school bathrooms into smokehouses. E-cigarettes and vapes, an alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes, are in current use amongst over 15 percent of the student population. And even while many understand the negative effects, such as damage to different organs and organ systems, and choose to ignore them, both middle and high school students continue to put drugs and pharmaceutical products into their bodies, giving money to corporate companies for destroying their health.

Yes, it is true that e-cigs and vapes do not emit as many of chemicals and toxins that regular, traditional cigarettes do. However, teens continue to believe that vaping is harmless to their body, which is not true. Most artificial smokers, still contain some trace amounts of nicotine, the drug that makes smoking so addictive. Also, the “flavor” of smoke, in both e-cigs and vapes, pass through a piece of metal within the e-cig/vape, and when used for even a short amount of time, it gets hot. And when the “flavor”, most commonly a liquid, interacts with metal, it is vaporized into a gas. This gas is what the users of vaporizers and e-cigarettes experience. Now once these chemicals that produce flavor are heated, mixed with a hint of added nicotine,  they can often change their chemical composition to a more dangerous drug to the human body.

Also, vapors produced from e-cigarettes and vaporizers are damaging to cells in your mouth and affect the body’s immune system. The vapors produced from vapes and e-cigs are extremely dangerous to the cells in users’ mouths. The mouth is an essential part of the immune system and prevents several different types of harmful bacteria from entering the body. If those cells are damaged, your immune system is weakened. After an extensive study, researchers have determined that the use of artificial smokers, especially vaporizers, leave its users extremely susceptible to infections. The use of vaporizers has been linked to a decrease in the body’s white blood cells (cells that fight against infections).

While many students, both high school and middle school, engage in vaping and the smoking of e-cigarettes, many of them do not know the risks. However, those who do, choose to further an addiction that may lead to stronger drugs. The trace amounts of nicotine in vaporizers and e-cigs have been linked to a need for a stronger dose in users, leading them to use other drugs such as stronger forms of tobacco later on in life. These negative effects and consequences go unnoticed and unmonitored by most teens and young adults, who are the most vulnerable to the influence of the common smoking substitutes.