DENVER – Colorado teenagers are vaping at twice the rate of teens in other states. That’s the findings of a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of teens in 37 states. The Colorado Lung Association says kids may think vaping is safer than smoking cigarettes, but they’re wrong.
“If you look at one pod of juice, that has as much nicotine as one pack of cigarettes so your kids are ingesting humongous amount of nicotine,” executive director Ellen Penrod told Anne Trujillo on this weekend’s Politics Unplugged. “Plus, they are more likely to take more puffs during the day because there isn’t that end of a cigarette anymore, so they are actually ingesting overall more.”
Penrod says many vaping companies will say the chemicals in the juice pods burned during vaping are safe because they are safe to drink. But she says once you heat it that juice and turn it into an aerosol, it changes the juice into a known carcinogen.
“The tobacco industry who owns a lot of these vaping companies really want to have a whole new set of people who are addicted to their products and they’re using vaping to get you addicted to them for the rest of your life,” Penrod said, adding the best things parents can do is learn about vaping and talk to their kids.
“I would tell parents (to) get educated, find out what these vaping products look like. A lot of parents don’t know they look like pens, they look like USB drives and then talk to your kids about them,” she said. “Every kid I know has been approached about vaping. They know it’s out there, so having an open conversation with your kids is the best way to go.”
Politics Unplugged airs Sundays at 4:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Denver7 and noon on K3-KCDO.