Vaping: A young person’s perspective

Following Darush Attar-Zadeh’s tobacco dependency article in PCRS’s Spring/Summer edition of Primary Care Respiratory Update, his 16-year-old daughter, Sophia Attar-Zadeh took it upon herself to write a blog on vaping providing a ‘first-hand account’ of how an increased number of children and young people have been drawn to it since the covid 19 pandemic.  

This blog will explore my personal experience and view on the rapid growth of vapes around the city of London as a 16-year-old girl.

Teenage vaping has been a growing issue, especially in the last ten years. I personally noticed this change when I made my first steps into secondary school as I saw peer pressure, stress and mental problems growing. More specifically, I have seen, spoken and tried to help friends around me stop vaping as they become more and more reliant on it over the years.

In 2019, as a 12-year-old, I did not believe the covid 19 lockdown would cause people around me to resort to vaping as an outcome of the mental problems that accompanied the pandemic, but I was wrong. This was the first time I was exposed to these issues, and I realised how little our society does to shield young people from vapes.  There are:

• adults who are unaware or not too concerned about their children vaping, or they themselves vape enticing their children to want to try it, and 
• corner shop owners who can exploit not only my friends but masses of young people across London to rely on vapes as a coping mechanism for their problems, it soon became a routine. 

This is where I saw addiction begin despite smoking rates being low amongst young people in my year. It is shown that 23.6% of 16–24-year-olds now vape compared to 5.2% in 2019.and 7.2% for 11–17-year-olds. Hardly anyone smokes in my year at school but I hadn’t witnessed how nicotine from vapes can be very addictive for some of my friends.

As I grew up students found it “cool”, and some saw it as an “intimidating look” to vape.  It’s not just the fun flavours or the vibrant coloured packaging, the names of the vape companies or the fact that the vape cloud is thick. It is not just the effect it has on you instantly, the rush of the nicotine and that dizzy feeling. It is also because of peer pressure or a need to join in if everyone is doing it so you don’t  feel left out. This happened in front of my face with people talking about ‘hotboxing’ in their rooms, what new fantastic flavour is out and the number of new puffs in a vape. I saw a countless amount of people give in to this and start vaping. 24% of young people aged 16-19-years-old have vaped in the last 30-days and this is likely to grow unless something is done about it.

Although my school did notice this and tried to counsel and help everyone in the community, students didn’t change. Many students skipped classes to vape in the toilets, people were suffering with anxiety and stress and resorted to vaping, which was originally fun, to cope with their problems. This has continued over the years and even now, those same people are still vaping daily, not believing in the consequences or that ‘there are health risks attached’. I’ve read that a few young people have ended up in the hospital but still continue to do it because they are addicted.

This is not only in my local area; I have seen worse things that have happened on the Island of Crete, Greece where I’ve seen vapes (including cannabis) sold next to toys and lollipops. This shows it is a global problem.

Table 1: Popular vape brands and flours

Table 2: Timeline
 

(Click on image to open in window)