Speaker 1: Next Question with Katie Kuric is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media. Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Next Question, where we try to understand
Speaker 1: the complicated world we're living in and the crazy things
Speaker 1: that are happening by asking questions and by listening to
Speaker 1: people who really know what they're talking about. At times,
Speaker 1: it may lead to some pretty uncomfortable conversations, but stick
Speaker 1: with me, everyone, let's all learn together. Whether you call
Speaker 1: it Julian vaping or using East cigarettes. By the time
Speaker 1: we even realized it was happening, it was already an epidemic.
Speaker 1: But we're going to begin with America's vaping crisis. The
Speaker 1: alarming update today from the CDC vaping related illnesses and
Speaker 1: deaths continue to climb across the US. He sees updating
Speaker 1: on the numbers of the lung illnesses associated with vaping.
Speaker 1: They are now up to and twenty six deaths across
Speaker 1: twenty one states. Now. That's up from about one eighty
Speaker 1: last week and eighteen deaths. So this continues to grow
Speaker 1: and it continues to impact middle and high school kids
Speaker 1: across the country. I'm sixteen years old. I've been dueling
Speaker 1: during class and jeweled pretty much every moment where I
Speaker 1: wasn't in class For those who have missed the onslaught
Speaker 1: of headlines. Jewels, babes, or e cigarettes are small, battery
Speaker 1: powered handheld devices used to inhale aerosol produced by heating
Speaker 1: a pod full of liquid that often contains nicotine flavorings
Speaker 1: and other chemicals. Tobacco companies have been developing them since
Speaker 1: the mid sixties, but they didn't hit the market until
Speaker 1: two thousand seven and didn't really become widely used until
Speaker 1: just a few years ago. Initially, they were marketed as
Speaker 1: a way to help adults quit smoking, but their hip
Speaker 1: advertising and candy like flavors like bubble Gum, mango and
Speaker 1: grape entice a lot of kids. The FDA is holding
Speaker 1: a hearing this morning to address the alarming spike in
Speaker 1: teen vaping. Most East Sig brands contain nicotine salts, which
Speaker 1: exit the blood string quickly, triggering cravings, and that means
Speaker 1: they're highly addictive. Jewel, the most popular in the category,
Speaker 1: accounted for just two percent of the market in two
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen. Three years later, the company captured nearly seventy
Speaker 1: of the market, with its sexy, sleek and discreet design,
Speaker 1: jewel quickly became the iPhone of e Siggs. I'm fourteen
Speaker 1: years old and I'm used the jewel. I'm fifteen years
Speaker 1: old and I am a jewel user. I'm fourteen and
Speaker 1: I've been using a jewel for nine months. Because babes
Speaker 1: were marketed as less dangerous than cigarettes, many young users
Speaker 1: didn't even realize they contain nicotine until they were already hooked.
Speaker 1: All of my friends, like all my best friends are
Speaker 1: like addicted to It's just a part of my life
Speaker 1: now that like, I know it's bad, but I can't stop.
Speaker 1: The number of people smoking cigarettes has reached record lows,
Speaker 1: but now we have a new generation of nicotine addicts.
Speaker 1: So how did this happen? That's my next question, and
Speaker 1: perhaps more importantly, what can we do about it? The
Speaker 1: first thing I observed was that whenever I go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom in the stalls, there would be these plastic squares,
Speaker 1: and at the beginning I didn't really know what it was,
Speaker 1: and then I realized that it was the cartridges from
Speaker 1: the Jewel. Two years ago, Jack Waxman, then a junior
Speaker 1: at spar Sale High School outside New York City watched
Speaker 1: the vaping epidemic unfold firsthand. It was January, and what
Speaker 1: I noticed was that kind of over the ensuing months,
Speaker 1: the number of kids that were in the bathroom jeweling
Speaker 1: and the amount of jewel pods left kind of continued
Speaker 1: to increase, and it felt like jewel was kind of
Speaker 1: spreading like wildfire amongst my friends and amongst the entire school,
Speaker 1: And like so many at the time, he didn't know
Speaker 1: what to make of this new trend. It was something
Speaker 1: that I hadn't really experienced before. When I was a
Speaker 1: freshman of sophomore, bathrooms and schools were places of education
Speaker 1: and if any kids were going to be doing drugs,
Speaker 1: it would be on the weekend. But I think what
Speaker 1: the jewel did is it took kids and kind of
Speaker 1: flipped their life backwards and forwards. It's really a twenty
Speaker 1: four hour, seven day a week addiction in a way
Speaker 1: that many other drugs aren't. And what they did is
Speaker 1: it took bathrooms and classrooms and turned them into places
Speaker 1: to basically just hit the jewel and fulfill your nicotine addiction.
Speaker 1: You made a p s a called Jewelers against Jewel
Speaker 1: that went viral and you haven't stopped. You're now a
Speaker 1: sophomore at Cornell and the founder of Students Against Nicotine.
Speaker 1: How did this problem get so big so fast? And
Speaker 1: do agree that it's an epidemic? Yes, So we called
Speaker 1: an epidemic in the video last May, and the Surgeon
Speaker 1: General called it an epidemic last November. This is what
Speaker 1: it is as an epidemic. UM rates went from ten
Speaker 1: percent in one year of youth that vape. And that's
Speaker 1: the large a single year increase of a drug and
Speaker 1: recorded history. And that's not just where I'm from, It's
Speaker 1: in every single school because nicotine doesn't discriminate UM and
Speaker 1: every single school, every single state, they're experiencing it, just
Speaker 1: like where I'm from. What motivated you to shoot this
Speaker 1: p s A in the first place. After my junior year,
Speaker 1: in my summertime, I was an intern for Chuck Schumer
Speaker 1: in the city, and as an intern, I got to
Speaker 1: write a policy paper, and a lot of my friends
Speaker 1: chose to write about gun control, climate change, very noble issues,
Speaker 1: but I just decided to write mine about the jewel
Speaker 1: because it was something that I had seen a bit
Speaker 1: during my spring year and what I found it was crazy.
Speaker 1: I I found that in two thousand nine, Congress band
Speaker 1: flavored cigarettes and put all these regulations on cigarettes as
Speaker 1: part of the Tobacco Act, but all this stuff was exempted.
Speaker 1: These cigarettes were exempted from this regulation. And I also
Speaker 1: researched nicotine and found that nicotine, the same thing that
Speaker 1: was in cigarettes in the twentieth centuries now in eat
Speaker 1: cigarettes in the twenty first century. And I presented my
Speaker 1: findings to Senator Schumer and he was so blown away
Speaker 1: that he invited me up to do a press conference
Speaker 1: with him. He encouraged me, and the whole staff encouraged
Speaker 1: me to continue with it. So I had the idea
Speaker 1: to make this video and basically recruited some of my
Speaker 1: best friends who were struggling with this, and they opened
Speaker 1: up and they were so courageous to tell their stories.
Speaker 1: And what's happening now is parents understand the problem, and
Speaker 1: the younger kids when they're watching his video and classrooms
Speaker 1: and other places, they're hearing the stories of these older kids,
Speaker 1: and they're basically saying, these older kids regret that they
Speaker 1: started jeweling. This is not a cool thing. It's just
Speaker 1: a flash drive. It's a loving finger, and this is
Speaker 1: not something I want to be doing. Cigarettes are so
Speaker 1: stigmatized right now in our country, kids would never pick
Speaker 1: up a cigarette. But we're starting to do right now
Speaker 1: is we're starting to stigmatize these cigarettes in the same
Speaker 1: way that cigarettes are today. When Jack and I sat
Speaker 1: down for this interview, it was at the end of August,
Speaker 1: and the news linking vaping to a variety of health issues,
Speaker 1: even deaths hadn't broken. Many parents and young vapors were
Speaker 1: unaware of the dangers. I spoke to one person who
Speaker 1: said that their friends were buying jewel for their kids
Speaker 1: because they thought that the jewel is a safe alternative
Speaker 1: to cigarettes, And now we know that's completely ludicrous. But
Speaker 1: I think what we have to do is just continue
Speaker 1: to educate parents about what's actually going on and that
Speaker 1: these products not only have these crazy, you know, long
Speaker 1: term consequences that researchers are looking at right now, but
Speaker 1: they rewire the prefrontal cortex in ways that drugs like
Speaker 1: cocaine and cigarettes do. It's not a harmless thing. When
Speaker 1: I think parents are starting to seething at now, and
Speaker 1: for a lot of kids, unfortunately it's too late, but
Speaker 1: for millions of other kids, this is a perfect time to,
Speaker 1: you know, get these prevention mechanisms out of education and
Speaker 1: then also trying to get kids to think about what
Speaker 1: they could be doing instead. That was easier said than done.
Speaker 1: They didn't continue vaping just to be cool. They were addicted.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about some of the kids, your
Speaker 1: friends who you featured in the video. Were they able
Speaker 1: to get help? Are they still struggling? So four friends
Speaker 1: in my video are still vaping um and it's not
Speaker 1: like they didn't try to quit. I want to say,
Speaker 1: like I'm surprised, but I'm not right because it's Nicotine
Speaker 1: is one of the us addictive drugs in the world,
Speaker 1: and that's the reason why they made the video, because
Speaker 1: we know how insidious nicotine is, and anyone that smoked
Speaker 1: in the past cigarettes or has friends that smoke cigarettes,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. Jack knew early what everyone else
Speaker 1: would soon find out. Jewel was in the hot seat.
Speaker 1: Within months of this interview, their CEO, Kevin Burns, would
Speaker 1: be replaced by an executive from tobacco giant Altria. The
Speaker 1: CEO of Jewel apologized in essence. Recently, I guess to
Speaker 1: a family who had a child who was addicted, what
Speaker 1: did you make of that apology. It's not gonna do anything, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say. You thought the words
Speaker 1: were hollow. It doesn't do anything for the three million
Speaker 1: kids that I've already got addicted to the practs. It
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything for the parents, doesn't do anything for us. Besides,
Speaker 1: you create noise that won't move the issue forward at all.
Speaker 1: And it's just that's really all you can say about it.
Speaker 1: It's not even a story. Three million kids are addicted. Mhm.
Speaker 1: Where did you get that number? C D, C F
Speaker 1: D A, all these you know, public health agencies, they
Speaker 1: run these studies and those are the numbers that are
Speaker 1: out there today. In addition to the flavors, manufacturers seemed
Speaker 1: to be pretty effective at social media. How big an
Speaker 1: impact has that had? In sixteen, that's when Jewels social
Speaker 1: media was kind of insane. They were featuring like twenty
Speaker 1: year old models with you know, cool photos, And there
Speaker 1: was this crazy study done by the Stanford about how
Speaker 1: Jewels marketing in those two years compared to Marlborough and
Speaker 1: other big tobacco companies, and it was practically identical. So
Speaker 1: Jewel basically spent millions of dollars putting these it's it
Speaker 1: was the vaporized advertisement. It was all over Time Square
Speaker 1: of these you know, hit models with all these crazy colors,
Speaker 1: and they used social media to get kids interested in
Speaker 1: the products. You can't be doing that. That's just not okay. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Jack, Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me on. Jack wasn't the only one sounding the alarm. Next,
Speaker 1: we'll talk with one of the first journalists to report
Speaker 1: on the teenage babing epidemic, as well as the doctor
Speaker 1: who blew the whistle on the hidden nicotine levels of
Speaker 1: the cigarettes. This was just one of those stories that
Speaker 1: it felt like everywhere I turned and everyone I talked to,
Speaker 1: they were talking about this. They were worried about their kids,
Speaker 1: or they were kids, you know, children are friends of
Speaker 1: mine who were talking about this. Last year, New York
Speaker 1: Times reporter Kate Cernaki wrote a bunch of articles that
Speaker 1: covered the vaping crisis in high schools and middle schools
Speaker 1: across the country, and what she uncovered shocked her as
Speaker 1: much as her readers. It was really one of those
Speaker 1: things that you found at every socio economic level. Geographically,
Speaker 1: it was everywhere California, Rhode Island, Florida. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was just any when you talked to agreed that this
Speaker 1: was a problem. So it was happening almost in every state.
Speaker 1: This is happening in Middle America, and not just on
Speaker 1: the coast, not just urban centers. Absolutely, it was everywhere,
Speaker 1: and it was girls and boys, which I think surprised
Speaker 1: school administrators as well. What was shocking about it to
Speaker 1: me was that it had come up on them so quickly.
Speaker 1: It really was. These things had appeared in the fall,
Speaker 1: and I guess it was and suddenly by spring it
Speaker 1: was just everywhere, and the schools did not know what
Speaker 1: to do. They were completely unprepared. I think that for
Speaker 1: a lot of kids, you know, we've raised them to
Speaker 1: understand that drinking and driving is bad, and cigarettes are
Speaker 1: bad and they're ugly, but vaping, but jewel in particular,
Speaker 1: came across as kind of a clean thing to do,
Speaker 1: you know. It wasn't messy like cigarettes. Almost invariably the
Speaker 1: schools I talked to would say, you know, a kid
Speaker 1: comes into my office and says, you know, I've caught
Speaker 1: someone jeweling, and I said, would you smoke a cigarette?
Speaker 1: The kid would be horrified at the idea of smoking
Speaker 1: a cigarette, but vaping somehow seemed cleaner to them. It
Speaker 1: didn't seem addictive, it didn't seem like an ugly thing
Speaker 1: to do or something that was going to make your
Speaker 1: teeth look bad or make you smell bad. And a
Speaker 1: lot of kids, when I spoke to them, they would
Speaker 1: have arguments with me about oh no, there's no there's
Speaker 1: no nicotine and jewel. So I think there was a
Speaker 1: lot of misunderstanding about what exactly it was. You opened
Speaker 1: your first story with a boy from Cape Elizabeth, Maine
Speaker 1: confiding in his vice principle tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about that conversation. So this was a student who had
Speaker 1: been caught vaping. I think not once, maybe not even twice,
Speaker 1: but maybe a third time. I can't remember, but it
Speaker 1: was several times. And so the principle was saying, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what is it like? You want to, you know, you
Speaker 1: want to understand a teenager why they're misbehaving. And the
Speaker 1: kid kids said, I can't stop. That was his line,
Speaker 1: I can't stop. And this was really what was alarming schools.
Speaker 1: This must be so disruptive, Kate, when it comes to
Speaker 1: teaching and learning with kids not being able to concentrate.
Speaker 1: You know, I know that they're calling bathrooms jeweling lounges
Speaker 1: with toilets. I mean, how how much of a problem
Speaker 1: is this creating in terms of actually doing the job
Speaker 1: schools are supposed to be doing. It's been really huge.
Speaker 1: I mean, in California, I talked to one high school
Speaker 1: that had to close two bathrooms so that no more
Speaker 1: than one student could go into the bathroom at a
Speaker 1: time because they were going to share jewels. You know.
Speaker 1: One thing that was interesting to me was that schools
Speaker 1: felt like this had become such a disruption that they
Speaker 1: were actually now treating it not as a disciplinary problem,
Speaker 1: but is the medical problem right where they needed to intervene.
Speaker 1: And so one of the schools in Colorado that I
Speaker 1: spoke to said that there was a young woman who
Speaker 1: came in and they gave her a treatment plan to
Speaker 1: try to kick the jewel and part of her treatment
Speaker 1: plan was standing in the back of the classroom shaking
Speaker 1: her foot because it was she just needed to get
Speaker 1: that anxious energy out. So I think schools are really
Speaker 1: struggling to figure out is this a disciplinary problem. Is
Speaker 1: it a disciplinary problem where they need to expel kids
Speaker 1: or suspend kids, or is this primarily a health issue
Speaker 1: and do they just need to get these kids some
Speaker 1: kind of treatment. What needs to happen in your view, Well,
Speaker 1: I do think you know, look, I think we need
Speaker 1: to understand that this generation, as I said, has been told,
Speaker 1: there are so many things they can't do. You know,
Speaker 1: we've raised them in such a bubble. In many ways,
Speaker 1: you've tried to preserve their perfect health, and so I
Speaker 1: think we need to give them some education around vaping
Speaker 1: and around nicotine in particular. I think we were very
Speaker 1: good at saying that cigarettes cause cancer, and it was
Speaker 1: the tar and the cigarettes, right, it was the smoke,
Speaker 1: it was all those chemicals. They didn't understand that nicotine
Speaker 1: was also bad for you, and in this case, it's
Speaker 1: getting them hooked. We also don't know all the chemicals
Speaker 1: that are in vaping devices, So I think really education
Speaker 1: is a huge part. I think a lot of kids,
Speaker 1: in particular, if they understood the chemicals that are in
Speaker 1: these devices, they would look at this and think, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't you know, I want that in my sunscreen, much
Speaker 1: less in my lungs. What kind of chemicals are in
Speaker 1: these besides nicotine? Well, there's uh, some studies have found propylene, glycol,
Speaker 1: glycerol um. There's one chemical called I think it's a
Speaker 1: dia setal. I'm not sure how you say it, but
Speaker 1: it's It creates popcorn lung, which has been really obviously
Speaker 1: very dangerous and scary. But the thing that struck me
Speaker 1: there was a there was an article in the journal
Speaker 1: Pediatrics I believe it was in March of seen and
Speaker 1: it found elevated levels of five carcinogenic compounds in the
Speaker 1: urine of students who vaped. We've done so much research
Speaker 1: on tobacco and on cigarettes, we know what's in them.
Speaker 1: We don't know a lot about vaping devices. We haven't
Speaker 1: studied them over the long terms. We don't know what
Speaker 1: the long effects are because it's so new. And to
Speaker 1: that end, parents are slightly clueless, aren't they. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm clueless. I actually our team went out and
Speaker 1: they bought me a vape. It looks a little like
Speaker 1: a cross between a big lighter and a thumb drive, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really small. It's then this is again
Speaker 1: the double edged sword of the jewel, which is that
Speaker 1: it's designed so that someone who wants to quit smoking
Speaker 1: can take a hit of the jewel and have something
Speaker 1: that gives them the same you know, buzz of a cigarette, right,
Speaker 1: because it's a huge dose of nicotine. But that same
Speaker 1: thing is going to give a kid who's never smoked
Speaker 1: before that huge dose of nicotine. So there's the addiction
Speaker 1: is going to come faster. They're eighteen cigarettes in that
Speaker 1: eighteen cigarettes in a pod. Right. The other in citious
Speaker 1: problem with vapy, kids were absolutely clueless about what they
Speaker 1: were inhaling. We made a survey, an anonymous survey which
Speaker 1: we gave to just over five kids in our clinical
Speaker 1: practice over the course of a year, and the survey
Speaker 1: was based on other national surveys with standard questions about
Speaker 1: their use of tobacco, electronic cigarettes, and marijuana and so forth.
Speaker 1: And then we also collected from some of those kids.
Speaker 1: We collected urine for what's called biomarker of nicotine, so
Speaker 1: it reflects the nicotine that they're getting in their body.
Speaker 1: Dr Rachel Boykin is an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics
Speaker 1: at Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, and
Speaker 1: she has been doing extensive research on kids and vaping.
Speaker 1: We wanted to know if what they were saying was
Speaker 1: matched in the urine. But we also wanted to get
Speaker 1: a kind of a sense of how much nicotine they
Speaker 1: were being exposed to because this kind of study hadn't
Speaker 1: been done before. So did you find that some of
Speaker 1: the kids on the first question weren't honest or didn't
Speaker 1: realize that they were being exposed to nicotine? We found
Speaker 1: that in general, kids who used electronic cigarettes were truthful
Speaker 1: about what they said. They said they used them, and
Speaker 1: we saw the nicotine byproduct than their urine. But did
Speaker 1: they appreciate the fact that they were being exposed to
Speaker 1: not all of them. So when we asked them, does
Speaker 1: your electronic cigarette have nicotine in it? Some of them
Speaker 1: said I don't know or know when. In fact, in
Speaker 1: their urine we saw that marker of nicotine cotnein, which
Speaker 1: said that they actually were exposed to it. So it
Speaker 1: didn't mean they were necessarily being dishonest, they just didn't
Speaker 1: understand correct. And what did you find in terms of
Speaker 1: the level of nicotine that they were getting in their
Speaker 1: bodies through the cigarettes? Number one, that they were getting
Speaker 1: levels that are comparable, in some cases even higher than
Speaker 1: kids who used cigarettes. We also found that kids who
Speaker 1: used the e cigarettes more frequently, like every day, higher levels,
Speaker 1: which kind of makes sense. We also found that the
Speaker 1: kids who were using what we call the ponds like Jewel,
Speaker 1: which is the latest generation and the most popular of
Speaker 1: them and also has the most nicotine of all the cigarettes,
Speaker 1: those kids also had the highest levels, So it kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense. But it put some objective data, if
Speaker 1: you will, into kind of what we thought was happening.
Speaker 1: So you weren't necessarily surprised. Where you concerned when you
Speaker 1: saw these levels in these young kids? Absolutely well. Nicotine
Speaker 1: is bad for a number of reasons. Nicotine in and
Speaker 1: of itself, we know has bad effects on a teenager's brain.
Speaker 1: Teenagers brains are not actually developed until about agent It
Speaker 1: can have effects on your ability to learn and so
Speaker 1: on cognition. It can affect anxiety, caused depression. Just by itself,
Speaker 1: nicotine is dangerous, but nicotine is also extremely addictive. It's
Speaker 1: the thing that causes people to be addicted to tobacco cigarettes,
Speaker 1: and so the concern, although these are not tobacco cigarettes,
Speaker 1: is that these kids are getting addicted. Addiction is concerning
Speaker 1: in and of itself, but we also know that kids
Speaker 1: who use the cigarettes are more likely to go on
Speaker 1: to use regular cigarettes. And here's where addiction and youth
Speaker 1: are an especially worrisome combination. Because their brains are still developing,
Speaker 1: it's easier for teens to get hooked, and using nicotine
Speaker 1: at a young age can even rewire your brain, making
Speaker 1: it easier to become addicted to other drugs. How does
Speaker 1: nicotine addiction lead to other addictions? Is that something to
Speaker 1: do with your brain and how it impacts the reward
Speaker 1: system or dopamine. So nicotine does work on the dopamine pathways,
Speaker 1: and dopamine is the reward pathway, and so that's probably
Speaker 1: what it is. How it directly primes the brain for
Speaker 1: other addictions. I don't know if it's really understood at
Speaker 1: a very very molecular level, but we know that it happens,
Speaker 1: and I find it interesting. People have asked me, why
Speaker 1: is this that kids who use e cigarettes, now we
Speaker 1: know this one really a lot of good studies, are
Speaker 1: are four times more likely to go on to smoke.
Speaker 1: And kids don't like smoking. We finally got rid of that.
Speaker 1: You know, we were at an all time low for
Speaker 1: kids actually smoking in this country until these cigarettes came along.
Speaker 1: And now it looks like it's starting to move them
Speaker 1: back towards that. And I'm not sure why, whether it
Speaker 1: is the addiction, and why they would go from one
Speaker 1: to the other, but we know that it's happening, and
Speaker 1: I think that's a concern. The numbers among high school
Speaker 1: students are really staggering, aren't they. It's crazy. Tell me
Speaker 1: about the numbers. So from two thousand seventeen to two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen, there was a seventy eight percent increase in
Speaker 1: the use of these cigarettes by high school students. We
Speaker 1: have an uphill battle, I think, because one of the
Speaker 1: problems is it took us decades to get a handle
Speaker 1: on cigarettes, and I kind of look forward. I'm generally
Speaker 1: a very optimistic person and I'm hopeful, but I also
Speaker 1: see that the train is out of the station. And
Speaker 1: one of the problems we have now is we have
Speaker 1: a generation of kids who are addicted and we don't
Speaker 1: know how to help them. As a pediatrician, we don't
Speaker 1: have any evidence based methods to help them quit at
Speaker 1: this point, and so we need to look at that too,
Speaker 1: And so we're kind of chasing after this problem from
Speaker 1: so many angles. I hope we can get a handle
Speaker 1: on it, but I don't want to wait thirty years
Speaker 1: to find out the long term effects. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Up next, a desperate mom and a determined educator confront
Speaker 1: the vaping epidemic. Right now, what we're seeing is really
Speaker 1: the staff struggling on what to say and how to
Speaker 1: say it, and when to do the education with their students.
Speaker 1: Kathy Butler Wit is a tobacco treatment specialist who's been
Speaker 1: working with the New Jersey Department of Health to try
Speaker 1: to get a handle on the vaping crisis as it
Speaker 1: continues to unfold. They themselves don't know what these products
Speaker 1: are all about, how are they created, what levels of
Speaker 1: nicotine are in them? What is a closed pod system?
Speaker 1: What is an a juice? And so our team comes
Speaker 1: into the schools and we start with administration. We talked
Speaker 1: to them about policies, We talked to them about including
Speaker 1: education in their curriculum, and then we give of them
Speaker 1: the curriculum to use in their schools. So what kind
Speaker 1: of kids are vaping? You know? When I was in
Speaker 1: high school, even though I did get suspended for smoking
Speaker 1: in the bathroom once and had to take a smoking
Speaker 1: seminar and got kicked off the cheerleading squad. But that's
Speaker 1: a whole another podcast, actually, Kathy, but what kinds of
Speaker 1: kids are doing this? I think most people who smoked
Speaker 1: regularly who went to my high school would be considered troublemakers.
Speaker 1: What about vaping? Does the same profile apply? Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: We are finding when we go into these schools that
Speaker 1: we have students that are very educated, are health driven,
Speaker 1: our sports players, and it's about just this social aspect
Speaker 1: of the product, and jewel in particular, which is we
Speaker 1: know the highest one that's being used right has the market,
Speaker 1: and these students are seeing their peers use them, and
Speaker 1: they look at social media and they see advertising that
Speaker 1: makes it very sexy and appealing and all appear to
Speaker 1: be very very safe. Nothing's going to happen. It's just water.
Speaker 1: And as they use them, they are become addicted to
Speaker 1: this nicotine. And so going back to thinking about who's
Speaker 1: using it, you know, again, we have first of all,
Speaker 1: very young kids as young as fifth grade. Now we're
Speaker 1: seeing their story as youngest fifth grade is starting to
Speaker 1: use these products. At the very least I've heard about
Speaker 1: these products, seeing peers use them in bathrooms and on
Speaker 1: the school buses and sometimes even in the classrooms. Well,
Speaker 1: are they allowed all those places that they know? They
Speaker 1: do sneak them. And it's easy to sneak because the
Speaker 1: pod system the jewel doesn't create that very large vapor
Speaker 1: appearance that we see from other other products. Is that
Speaker 1: why so many parents are clueless about this? Absolutely? And
Speaker 1: I think we have two avenues with parents. We have
Speaker 1: parents who really absolutely no idea that their kids are
Speaker 1: using them, But then we have parents who actually know
Speaker 1: their kids are using them. Like Lorie, who stumbled upon
Speaker 1: and then tried to rationalize her daughter's vaping habit. That
Speaker 1: was in her room cleaning, and I found these colorful
Speaker 1: little plastic things that I actually thought were the end
Speaker 1: of a pencil holder, the lead pencils, And I thought
Speaker 1: it was perplexing because I don't remember buying them. So
Speaker 1: I took them downstairs and I showed them to her.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is all this? She's like, um, from vaping,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, vaping? What is vaping? I didn't even
Speaker 1: know what it was. In a weird way, she had
Speaker 1: to educate me on this horrible thing because I knew
Speaker 1: what cigarettes were, and I guess I knew what a
Speaker 1: cigarettes were, but I didn't know what vaping was. This
Speaker 1: was two years ago, it was, And initially you were
Speaker 1: actually relieved that she was vaping because you were a
Speaker 1: smoker in high school and you thought, well, better that
Speaker 1: then smoking. Right from what I knew, these cigarettes were
Speaker 1: created to help smokers quit, so it wasn't as dangerous
Speaker 1: to your health as cigarette smoking. So I remember being
Speaker 1: sixteen and at a party and somebody handed me a cigarette.
Speaker 1: So I thought it was in some ways natural, this
Speaker 1: was going to happen. This is experimenting, This is a
Speaker 1: little peer pressure, and I thought it would be safer.
Speaker 1: So at first you thought, no big deal. You might
Speaker 1: have been slightly bothered by it, but you didn't think
Speaker 1: it was going to be a huge issue. No. I
Speaker 1: thought it would be the part of learning how to
Speaker 1: become an adult. And this is one of those things
Speaker 1: that happened in high school that you experimented with and
Speaker 1: you cast away. I was not initially concerned. Initially, Then
Speaker 1: you realize that this could be a problem, so you
Speaker 1: started putting restrictions on your daughter's vaping. Yes, so again
Speaker 1: I saw these pods, and I at that point, at sixteen,
Speaker 1: I cleaned her room. So I kept seeing more and yes,
Speaker 1: well that stopped. I started seeing more and more of them,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, this is not she owns them,
Speaker 1: This is not her being at a party. This something's
Speaker 1: weird here, something's wrong. So we put rules around it.
Speaker 1: She said, I do this at parties. I don't go
Speaker 1: to a lot of parties. It's no big deal. It's
Speaker 1: not as bad for your health as smoking was. We
Speaker 1: all know smoking is terrible for you. This is not
Speaker 1: so bad. And again I bought into that. But when
Speaker 1: I saw a few more pods that she owned, my
Speaker 1: husband and I decided to restrict it, which was I
Speaker 1: took what is now I know is a jewel. I
Speaker 1: took the instrument away from her, and we said she
Speaker 1: could have it on the weekends, so that I felt
Speaker 1: like I was monitoring her usage. How did that work out?
Speaker 1: So we had the rule that come Friday after school,
Speaker 1: when all her home work was done and all her
Speaker 1: school activities were done, she was allowed to have it
Speaker 1: from Friday to Sunday morning, thinking that again, how much
Speaker 1: could she actually intake in a day and a half,
Speaker 1: less than forty eight hours, And it turns out they
Speaker 1: can intake a lot in that very short time frame,
Speaker 1: So she was puffing away on the weekends. Correct, And
Speaker 1: did she then say I need to vape more than
Speaker 1: forty eight hours a week. We never had that conversation,
Speaker 1: and I never saw her actually do any of the intaking. Again,
Speaker 1: I found more pods, and I thought it was curious, like,
Speaker 1: if I have her instrument of vaping, why are all
Speaker 1: these pods here? Because she was borrowing them. And what
Speaker 1: I realized in this vaping community is that it is
Speaker 1: a community, So whoever has the instrument the jewel shares it,
Speaker 1: so it's not like everyone owns one is passed around,
Speaker 1: and it is something that they do activity wise together,
Speaker 1: so that pen is part of their socialization. And all
Speaker 1: these pods meant that they were doing it all the time.
Speaker 1: So it didn't matter that she didn't actually have the
Speaker 1: device as long as she was supplying some of the
Speaker 1: fuel or the pods. Correct, she you know, it was
Speaker 1: all's fair? Correct? So when did you realize this was
Speaker 1: a problem? So then the media started to catch on
Speaker 1: and I started reading articles and I really started to
Speaker 1: get concerned. Concerned. That accelerated this fall as news of
Speaker 1: vaping related illnesses began to spread and her daughter left
Speaker 1: for college, still vaping to this day. My daughter does
Speaker 1: not buy it. She does not believe it is as
Speaker 1: bad for you as all the hype says. Even now,
Speaker 1: even given the cover stories, even given all the reports
Speaker 1: and the media, the c d C taking the flavors
Speaker 1: off the market, all these developments, and she's still isn't
Speaker 1: convinced that it's not good for her. So we're going
Speaker 1: to have this conversation. It's interesting. She just turned eighteen
Speaker 1: last week, and when we had our phone call with her,
Speaker 1: our weekly check in, she said, would you and Grandma
Speaker 1: stop sending me all the articles. I'm gonna quit. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna quit. What is your overriding emotion right now about
Speaker 1: this whole thing. I'm scared. I'm scared for her, I'm
Speaker 1: scared for all the kids. Because with cigarettes it was
Speaker 1: harder to hide, right, you could smell it, you could
Speaker 1: see it. Vaping is undercover, so parents who typically regulate
Speaker 1: that can't see it. They can't see when their child
Speaker 1: is participating, and we have to. Laurie's far from alone
Speaker 1: and feeling frustrated and afraid, and her daughter is far
Speaker 1: from alone and her struggles to quit. So where do
Speaker 1: we go from here to a top addiction expert who
Speaker 1: has some answers. That's next on next question. Hi, Hi,
Speaker 1: Dr Avery, so nice to meet you. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for doing this. I decided to make an appointment with
Speaker 1: Dr Jonathan Avery. He's the director of Addiction Psychiatry at
Speaker 1: the Wild Cornell Medical Center here in New York. In
Speaker 1: other words, he knows what he's talking about when it
Speaker 1: comes to addiction and nicotine, and he has a very
Speaker 1: pragmatic approach to tackling the vaping epidemic. The whole issue
Speaker 1: completely exploded this fall. Not to point fingers, Dr Avery,
Speaker 1: but where the hell we're all the health professionals while
Speaker 1: this was becoming an epidemic. It turns out we're not
Speaker 1: much different than anyone else. And I think we were
Speaker 1: may be seduced a little bit too about this idea
Speaker 1: of having a safer product potentially than than cigarettes. But
Speaker 1: I think those on the addiction side were like, you know,
Speaker 1: we feel like we're doctors in the nineteen fifties when
Speaker 1: they were smoking with patients themselves and their white in
Speaker 1: their white jackets stuff in a way, and actually even
Speaker 1: featured in commercials, right, And so we had a feeling
Speaker 1: from the beginning, Hey, this is going to turn out
Speaker 1: similar where the that is going to come out, and
Speaker 1: it's not going to be positive. I mean, there's no
Speaker 1: way it's going to come out positive. At a minimum,
Speaker 1: it's going to be all negative. And so that's sort
Speaker 1: of what happened. The numbers of kids using are are
Speaker 1: just outrageous. Sometimes some high schools tell me that half
Speaker 1: or more are using it around New York City, and
Speaker 1: seriously half. And it just became such a part of culture,
Speaker 1: and um, what we learned if you ask these same
Speaker 1: kids a year ago, is this harmful? They would say no.
Speaker 1: A lot didn't know nicotine was in it. They just
Speaker 1: sort of knew it was like this flavor, new product
Speaker 1: that might be fun. And so everyone was sharing it,
Speaker 1: using it, you know, became a part of um schools
Speaker 1: and everything else, and so it's sort of everywhere, and
Speaker 1: parents weren't the wiser. That's where you come in, Dr
Speaker 1: Avery as a psychiatrist, heer who's a specialist in addiction.
Speaker 1: You know, you're our man, So what should parents do?
Speaker 1: Why always commend checking your own pulse first before going
Speaker 1: into a conversation with kids. You know, I think where
Speaker 1: it goes wrong is when you come in hot and
Speaker 1: you know you're you're both sort of upset, and you
Speaker 1: know when you've got them in that I got you moment.
Speaker 1: And what I'm encouraging parents to do really around all
Speaker 1: substance used behaviors is to have the conversation early and
Speaker 1: often in a non judgmental way, and so to get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of what they know about the product,
Speaker 1: why they think the kids are using or not. And really,
Speaker 1: I mean some recommend as early as nine starting the conversation,
Speaker 1: some a little later. And while that talk might not
Speaker 1: be easy, Dr Avery says it could uncover factors that
Speaker 1: might be driving kids to vape in the first place.
Speaker 1: I think it's just being there from the beginning with
Speaker 1: your kid, letting them know that how they are as
Speaker 1: a person, substance use, mental health issues are important to
Speaker 1: you as a parent. I'll say it's true for everyone.
Speaker 1: But if it's true, you know, more important than all
Speaker 1: this academic stuff and all these other pressures and completing
Speaker 1: your piano homework or whatever it is, that it really
Speaker 1: is their development as a person. And this includes checking
Speaker 1: in on what's going on in terms of substance use
Speaker 1: and so you're not going to solve it all in
Speaker 1: one interaction, and you're not gonna, you know, have the
Speaker 1: magic words at any moment, but just sort of saying
Speaker 1: this is important to me. We're gonna keep talking about it.
Speaker 1: Let's pay attention to what's happening with the news with
Speaker 1: jewel or these electronic nicote delivery systems, and let's just
Speaker 1: have this conversation together. And if you're not ready now,
Speaker 1: I'm ready tomorrow and and we're there in this together.
Speaker 1: I can see why some parents are panicked. You know,
Speaker 1: you're reading about popcorn lung you're reading about reduced lung capacity.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would be freaked out as a mom
Speaker 1: if I knew that one of my kids are both
Speaker 1: my kids or whatever, that they were doing this enough
Speaker 1: to really damage their health. And to be like, we're
Speaker 1: ready to talk about it whenever you are. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: In my house, that dog would not hunt. I think
Speaker 1: that's true for you know though, it's it's tough because
Speaker 1: you want kids to have the information. You don't want
Speaker 1: to get in trouble, but you don't want to push
Speaker 1: these behaviors into the secrets. And my worry about people
Speaker 1: that come down too strong is that the kids go
Speaker 1: the opposite direction, and then you're playing catch up years later. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'm arguing this more almost as prevention. If things
Speaker 1: do get really bad, then certainly intervening and getting them
Speaker 1: to help. And and while they're still eighteen, you can
Speaker 1: sort of do more things against the world than after
Speaker 1: their eighteen um. And so if it looks like they're
Speaker 1: you know, they need, then urgent intervention and then certainly
Speaker 1: do it. But for most kids, there's this space where
Speaker 1: you're preventing it or they're experimenting, where you can start
Speaker 1: the conversation. If you're starting the conversation after they're you know,
Speaker 1: in trouble, then then everyone's in trouble in that that system.
Speaker 1: I feel like the student body needs to get involved
Speaker 1: because so much is pure pressure, right, and so much
Speaker 1: of this activity is going on at school or at
Speaker 1: school functions or outside school functions. So it seems to
Speaker 1: me there has to be a really holistic approach to
Speaker 1: this issue, right. And I think as kids are hearing
Speaker 1: this news, there is sort of this surge in the
Speaker 1: other direction of people posting on social media they have
Speaker 1: quit and that they are motivated to stop using and
Speaker 1: and I've I've heard because when I asked the question
Speaker 1: our friends quitting and a year ago, no one knew
Speaker 1: anyone who had stopped. But now it's increasingly common that people,
Speaker 1: I mean one thing about it. Also in substance use,
Speaker 1: as perceived harm goes up, use goes down. Kids don't
Speaker 1: want to get hurt. Actually they don't want bad things
Speaker 1: to happen to them. And you know, as they see
Speaker 1: their peer group and the momentum shifting in the other direction,
Speaker 1: I think more will quit. I think why smoking was
Speaker 1: smoking sort of you know, it came on over a
Speaker 1: number of years, slowly dissipated. And this is one instance
Speaker 1: where I think social media and the sort of fast
Speaker 1: NewSpace that we have today can be helpful because we're
Speaker 1: getting all this information fast in real time. The CDC
Speaker 1: updates that reports every Thursday. It's sort of a just
Speaker 1: a different way that information is getting out there that
Speaker 1: I think we can all digest and modify behaviors quicker,
Speaker 1: hopefully than what took decades with cigarettes. They started doing
Speaker 1: p S a S. And there are a lot of organizations,
Speaker 1: parent groups I know on Facebook who really cared deeply
Speaker 1: about this issue and making sure that kids are not
Speaker 1: harming themselves. But why is it so hard to kick
Speaker 1: this habit? Or is it really hard? Well, I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that has lost in the hysteria
Speaker 1: of all this is that most people will quit on
Speaker 1: their own, and so most people haven't been using in
Speaker 1: a way that where they'll get stuck and they'll be
Speaker 1: able to say either from that semi successful intervention I
Speaker 1: just had with you talking to your parent, or with
Speaker 1: you know, just sort of the pure environment, they'll be
Speaker 1: able to, um, say hey, I don't want this for myself,
Speaker 1: and they'll actually be able to stop. And one thing
Speaker 1: I've noticed over the last couple of months is I've
Speaker 1: gone into different high schools. There's a bunch of people
Speaker 1: that have stopped on their own, never needed to see
Speaker 1: me as an addiction provider or even their pediatrician, and
Speaker 1: we're able to just stop. And so I think that's
Speaker 1: the good news. So what advice would you give kids
Speaker 1: like that who are really struggling to kick the habit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if they've tried and they can't, and um, I think
Speaker 1: the first thing to do is make people aware. Um,
Speaker 1: that's my advice for kids. Addiction hides in the secrets,
Speaker 1: if you can be honest and forthcoming about it, you know,
Speaker 1: talk to your parents and pediatrician, you know, I think
Speaker 1: help will be there. And you know, not every family
Speaker 1: is able to do it. Not every pediatrician sort of
Speaker 1: aware about this, but I think most are and most
Speaker 1: want to help regardless, and so if they can just
Speaker 1: get that secret out, get into the hands of a pediatrician,
Speaker 1: they can help assess if you I need to refer
Speaker 1: you to a psychiatrist to help with or therapist to
Speaker 1: help with the anxiety depression. That's a big step. Though.
Speaker 1: What about school nurses, They're they're so available. I think
Speaker 1: about the school nurse and my daughter's high school that
Speaker 1: that was just wonderful and was really a part of
Speaker 1: the school community. I feel like they could be really
Speaker 1: effective without reach. Now I think that's right. I think
Speaker 1: they're the ones that are the front line, and and
Speaker 1: that's why pediatrician sometimes of the front line to they're
Speaker 1: the ones that should be asking about it, you know,
Speaker 1: offering support. School counselors another good resource for people struggling
Speaker 1: with different things. And then I think where you might
Speaker 1: need medical attention and not all nurses can do it
Speaker 1: is if you really need sort of like nicotine replacement
Speaker 1: to come off it. If you need the patch or
Speaker 1: the gum to sort of soothe that difficult with those cravings. Well,
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, do you recommend the
Speaker 1: patch or nicotine gum. It's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: difficult space because it's not f D approved under eighteen
Speaker 1: um UM, and there is a way carefully. Often you
Speaker 1: need parents intervention to help buy it or get permission
Speaker 1: for the prescription um. But there is We are for
Speaker 1: those folks that are stuck doing sort of a brief
Speaker 1: course of of nicotine replacement, the patch or the gum,
Speaker 1: which we definitely prefer than people going to cigarettes or
Speaker 1: other measures. As they become concerned about these devices, you know,
Speaker 1: better not go to cigarettes again, Better to you know,
Speaker 1: get tapered off of nicotine if you really need it.
Speaker 1: Is it better to withdraw gradually or should you go
Speaker 1: cold turkey? It's different for everyone. Some people can tolerate it,
Speaker 1: and often those without co occurring mental illness anxiety, and
Speaker 1: those you know, without the predisposition for addiction. You know
Speaker 1: a bunch of kids I've met have said, you know,
Speaker 1: I just decided to stop one day and it was
Speaker 1: miserable for a couple of days, but I wrote it out.
Speaker 1: And then there is that subset that says, this withdrawal
Speaker 1: was the worst thing I've ever experienced in my entire life.
Speaker 1: And for those folks, they really need help with a
Speaker 1: patch more gradually, and stopping all at once will feel
Speaker 1: intolerable to them. How long does it take? Generally it
Speaker 1: takes seventy two hours to get nicotine out of your system,
Speaker 1: correct as everyone knows who's you're in screen for it
Speaker 1: or who every parent is is jumping on them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it can be out that short of time,
Speaker 1: but we've come to appreciate that withdrawal from all substances
Speaker 1: can be a much longer process. And you know, we're
Speaker 1: increasingly talking about sort of post acute withdrawal symptoms, which
Speaker 1: you know are those anxiety symptoms, the inability to concentrate
Speaker 1: and focus, feeling sort of like you've been you know,
Speaker 1: punched in the stomach and don't have the energy and
Speaker 1: breath to to go about your life. And and so
Speaker 1: those things sometimes become the harder barrier as all these
Speaker 1: other pressures from life bear down on these kids, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, they have to go to soccer practice and
Speaker 1: piano lessons and still want to interact with their friends
Speaker 1: and do well academically. There's so much academic pressure on
Speaker 1: these kids, so not to mention social media and all
Speaker 1: the social pressure that comes with that and living your
Speaker 1: life compared to other people, your peers. So I feel
Speaker 1: bad for kids today with all the comparisons, with all
Speaker 1: the pressures, and going back to how parents should talk
Speaker 1: to kids, I mean, we over focus on academics, on
Speaker 1: doing you know, hitting those marks socially and and and academically,
Speaker 1: and we really need to be telling our kids it's
Speaker 1: okay to be them no matter what happens in life.
Speaker 1: Getting back to vaping, there are some real world consequences,
Speaker 1: physical consequences to this habit. How lunch should you be
Speaker 1: when you're talking to your kids about things like popcorn
Speaker 1: lung and decreased lung capacity and things like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you have to be pretty honest, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: They need to know the information, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of them get it. I mean,
Speaker 1: kids get info pretty quick these days, and they're hearing
Speaker 1: it at school and so in an ideal parent kid
Speaker 1: relations ship, they're giving you the information, and you're not
Speaker 1: giving them the information. So I always recommend checking first
Speaker 1: to see what the kids know, and often they know
Speaker 1: a lot. You do have to really check yourself first,
Speaker 1: and if you say mindful parenting, people really realize at you.
Speaker 1: But there is something about that that I think is
Speaker 1: important that you You can't, you know, look at your
Speaker 1: kids behaviors without first looking at your thoughts and feelings
Speaker 1: and also your own substance use. I have to add,
Speaker 1: you know, there are parents who you know, want in
Speaker 1: all kinds of ways. They've set the model for their kids. Right.
Speaker 1: They're the ones taking the drink or two when they
Speaker 1: come home and saying, I'm so stressed, get me a
Speaker 1: beer to the kid or whatever. They're the ones that
Speaker 1: are jeweling and vaping some themselves, including you know, vaping
Speaker 1: marijuana product that's smoking cigarettes or smoking cigarettes, and so
Speaker 1: you know, I think often we ask things of our
Speaker 1: kids we don't ourselves, and and you really have to
Speaker 1: look internally as a parent before you're you're going to
Speaker 1: help them, I think. But it's hard, and you'll fail
Speaker 1: all the time. And to be a parent is to fail, right,
Speaker 1: and and the idea is to just get back on
Speaker 1: the horse and and think about what was going on
Speaker 1: with you at that moment and try to get things
Speaker 1: that going in a positive direction. Again, what's the biggest
Speaker 1: mistake parents make when they're trying to get their kids
Speaker 1: to stop to view it as a bad kid doing
Speaker 1: bad things? And I think the biggest mistake is not
Speaker 1: sort of appreciating that this does veer into a disease
Speaker 1: model of addiction and and kids are self medicating psychiatric
Speaker 1: issues or they're predisposed to addiction, and that you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people will experiment and not get hooked
Speaker 1: the way their kid is and and not behave the
Speaker 1: way their kid is. And there's a reason why it's happening.
Speaker 1: And and often it's the sort of idea that it's
Speaker 1: activated these reward pathways or satisfying this psychiatric need where
Speaker 1: it becomes the answer to all questions for the kid
Speaker 1: during the day, how they're going to survive, how they're
Speaker 1: going to starve off withdrawal, and it's sort of hijacked
Speaker 1: their brain. And one saying in recovery that I love
Speaker 1: especially and and and people who when they stop jeweling
Speaker 1: or stop using whatever product often identify with is that
Speaker 1: I'm not a bad person becoming good, but I'm a
Speaker 1: sick person becoming well. And I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the key points that these aren't just troublemakers, that these
Speaker 1: are kids who have had brain hijacked by this you know,
Speaker 1: seductive product, and now we're trying to you know, feel
Speaker 1: right and get the ship on track. Wow. I cannot
Speaker 1: believe how much has changed between August when we first
Speaker 1: started researching this episode and today, now that we're finally
Speaker 1: airing it. You could barely keep up with all the developments.
Speaker 1: It's still shocking to me that all of us, from
Speaker 1: the medical community to educators, to parents and even kids
Speaker 1: were caught so off guard and why there was definitely
Speaker 1: a lot of smoke and mirrors when it came to
Speaker 1: marketing babes as cool, glamorous, even safe, the same way incidentally,
Speaker 1: cigarettes once were. The advertising was almost as stealthy as
Speaker 1: the vapes themselves. But now this epidemic is out in
Speaker 1: the open, and everyone from local officials to schools to
Speaker 1: even the Trump administration is trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: to do about it, from banning flavors to out lawe
Speaker 1: the devices altogether. We haven't heard the end of this
Speaker 1: story that at least now we're paying attention. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening, everyone, and until we meet again, make
Speaker 1: sure to follow me on Instagram. I'm at Katie Curik
Speaker 1: and sign up for my daily newsletter is called wake
Speaker 1: Up Call, and you can do that by going to
Speaker 1: Katie Currek dot com. Next Question with Katie Curic is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Katie Kuric, Lauren Bright Pacheco, Julie Douglas,
Speaker 1: and Tyler Klang. Our show producers are Bethan Macaluso and
Speaker 1: Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. Associate producers
Speaker 1: are Emily Pinto and Derek Clemens. Editing is by Dylan Fagin,
Speaker 1: Derrek Clements, and Lowell Berlante. Our researcher is Barbara Keene.
Speaker 1: For more information on today's episode, go to Katie Currek
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Speaker 1: Katie Couric m. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio,
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