WEBVTT - How did teen vaping become an epidemic? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.440 Next Question with Katie Kuric is a production of I 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:06.440 Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media. Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic, 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.520 and welcome to Next Question, where we try to understand 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:13.119 the complicated world we're living in and the crazy things 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:17.040 that are happening by asking questions and by listening to 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.320 people who really know what they're talking about. At times, 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:24.400 it may lead to some pretty uncomfortable conversations, but stick 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:32.599 with me, everyone, let's all learn together. Whether you call 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:36.240 it Julian vaping or using East cigarettes. By the time 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:40.200 we even realized it was happening, it was already an epidemic. 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.320 But we're going to begin with America's vaping crisis. The 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:47.640 alarming update today from the CDC vaping related illnesses and 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.479 deaths continue to climb across the US. He sees updating 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.560 on the numbers of the lung illnesses associated with vaping. 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.680 They are now up to and twenty six deaths across 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:00.440 twenty one states. Now. That's up from about one eighty 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:04.120 last week and eighteen deaths. So this continues to grow 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.440 and it continues to impact middle and high school kids 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:13.440 across the country. I'm sixteen years old. I've been dueling 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:19.119 during class and jeweled pretty much every moment where I 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.640 wasn't in class For those who have missed the onslaught 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:27.200 of headlines. Jewels, babes, or e cigarettes are small, battery 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:32.000 powered handheld devices used to inhale aerosol produced by heating 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:36.400 a pod full of liquid that often contains nicotine flavorings 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.600 and other chemicals. Tobacco companies have been developing them since 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.520 the mid sixties, but they didn't hit the market until 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.480 two thousand seven and didn't really become widely used until 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:51.160 just a few years ago. Initially, they were marketed as 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.160 a way to help adults quit smoking, but their hip 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.360 advertising and candy like flavors like bubble Gum, mango and 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:02.800 grape entice a lot of kids. The FDA is holding 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.480 a hearing this morning to address the alarming spike in 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:11.600 teen vaping. Most East Sig brands contain nicotine salts, which 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:15.400 exit the blood string quickly, triggering cravings, and that means 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.440 they're highly addictive. Jewel, the most popular in the category, 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.520 accounted for just two percent of the market in two 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:27.320 thousand sixteen. Three years later, the company captured nearly seventy 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.760 of the market, with its sexy, sleek and discreet design, 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:36.600 jewel quickly became the iPhone of e Siggs. I'm fourteen 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.280 years old and I'm used the jewel. I'm fifteen years 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.960 old and I am a jewel user. I'm fourteen and 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.920 I've been using a jewel for nine months. Because babes 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:51.040 were marketed as less dangerous than cigarettes, many young users 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:55.640 didn't even realize they contain nicotine until they were already hooked. 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.600 All of my friends, like all my best friends are 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.679 like addicted to It's just a part of my life 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.440 now that like, I know it's bad, but I can't stop. 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:08.480 The number of people smoking cigarettes has reached record lows, 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.280 but now we have a new generation of nicotine addicts. 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.320 So how did this happen? That's my next question, and 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:20.320 perhaps more importantly, what can we do about it? The 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.600 first thing I observed was that whenever I go to 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:26.440 the bathroom in the stalls, there would be these plastic squares, 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:28.560 and at the beginning I didn't really know what it was, 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:30.520 and then I realized that it was the cartridges from 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.079 the Jewel. Two years ago, Jack Waxman, then a junior 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.120 at spar Sale High School outside New York City watched 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:42.600 the vaping epidemic unfold firsthand. It was January, and what 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.160 I noticed was that kind of over the ensuing months, 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.720 the number of kids that were in the bathroom jeweling 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.280 and the amount of jewel pods left kind of continued 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.800 to increase, and it felt like jewel was kind of 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.240 spreading like wildfire amongst my friends and amongst the entire school, 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.640 And like so many at the time, he didn't know 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:02.760 what to make of this new trend. It was something 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.240 that I hadn't really experienced before. When I was a 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.280 freshman of sophomore, bathrooms and schools were places of education 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:11.520 and if any kids were going to be doing drugs, 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:13.400 it would be on the weekend. But I think what 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.280 the jewel did is it took kids and kind of 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.080 flipped their life backwards and forwards. It's really a twenty 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:20.800 four hour, seven day a week addiction in a way 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.279 that many other drugs aren't. And what they did is 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.960 it took bathrooms and classrooms and turned them into places 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.359 to basically just hit the jewel and fulfill your nicotine addiction. 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.800 You made a p s a called Jewelers against Jewel 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.599 that went viral and you haven't stopped. You're now a 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.839 sophomore at Cornell and the founder of Students Against Nicotine. 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.200 How did this problem get so big so fast? And 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.520 do agree that it's an epidemic? Yes, So we called 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.120 an epidemic in the video last May, and the Surgeon 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.040 General called it an epidemic last November. This is what 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.600 it is as an epidemic. UM rates went from ten 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.560 percent in one year of youth that vape. And that's 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:01.320 the large a single year increase of a drug and 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.040 recorded history. And that's not just where I'm from, It's 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.520 in every single school because nicotine doesn't discriminate UM and 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.680 every single school, every single state, they're experiencing it, just 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.880 like where I'm from. What motivated you to shoot this 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.440 p s A in the first place. After my junior year, 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:19.839 in my summertime, I was an intern for Chuck Schumer 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:21.760 in the city, and as an intern, I got to 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:23.840 write a policy paper, and a lot of my friends 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.040 chose to write about gun control, climate change, very noble issues, 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.240 but I just decided to write mine about the jewel 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:30.800 because it was something that I had seen a bit 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.560 during my spring year and what I found it was crazy. 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.200 I I found that in two thousand nine, Congress band 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.480 flavored cigarettes and put all these regulations on cigarettes as 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.360 part of the Tobacco Act, but all this stuff was exempted. 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.159 These cigarettes were exempted from this regulation. And I also 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.720 researched nicotine and found that nicotine, the same thing that 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:50.720 was in cigarettes in the twentieth centuries now in eat 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:54.320 cigarettes in the twenty first century. And I presented my 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:57.000 findings to Senator Schumer and he was so blown away 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:58.799 that he invited me up to do a press conference 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.160 with him. He encouraged me, and the whole staff encouraged 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:02.640 me to continue with it. So I had the idea 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.320 to make this video and basically recruited some of my 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.480 best friends who were struggling with this, and they opened 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.040 up and they were so courageous to tell their stories. 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.280 And what's happening now is parents understand the problem, and 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.600 the younger kids when they're watching his video and classrooms 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.159 and other places, they're hearing the stories of these older kids, 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.240 and they're basically saying, these older kids regret that they 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.200 started jeweling. This is not a cool thing. It's just 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.760 a flash drive. It's a loving finger, and this is 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:28.760 not something I want to be doing. Cigarettes are so 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.360 stigmatized right now in our country, kids would never pick 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:33.720 up a cigarette. But we're starting to do right now 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:35.720 is we're starting to stigmatize these cigarettes in the same 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.440 way that cigarettes are today. When Jack and I sat 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.080 down for this interview, it was at the end of August, 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.200 and the news linking vaping to a variety of health issues, 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:50.560 even deaths hadn't broken. Many parents and young vapors were 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.279 unaware of the dangers. I spoke to one person who 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.040 said that their friends were buying jewel for their kids 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.160 because they thought that the jewel is a safe alternative 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.240 to cigarettes, And now we know that's completely ludicrous. But 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:04.160 I think what we have to do is just continue 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.040 to educate parents about what's actually going on and that 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.400 these products not only have these crazy, you know, long 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.600 term consequences that researchers are looking at right now, but 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.800 they rewire the prefrontal cortex in ways that drugs like 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.080 cocaine and cigarettes do. It's not a harmless thing. When 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.320 I think parents are starting to seething at now, and 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:24.760 for a lot of kids, unfortunately it's too late, but 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.800 for millions of other kids, this is a perfect time to, 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.040 you know, get these prevention mechanisms out of education and 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:32.720 then also trying to get kids to think about what 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.600 they could be doing instead. That was easier said than done. 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.680 They didn't continue vaping just to be cool. They were addicted. 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.280 Let me ask you about some of the kids, your 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.960 friends who you featured in the video. Were they able 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:50.680 to get help? Are they still struggling? So four friends 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.080 in my video are still vaping um and it's not 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:55.880 like they didn't try to quit. I want to say, 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.600 like I'm surprised, but I'm not right because it's Nicotine 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:01.120 is one of the us addictive drugs in the world, 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:02.840 and that's the reason why they made the video, because 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.000 we know how insidious nicotine is, and anyone that smoked 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.440 in the past cigarettes or has friends that smoke cigarettes, 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.400 it's the same thing. Jack knew early what everyone else 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.320 would soon find out. Jewel was in the hot seat. 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.440 Within months of this interview, their CEO, Kevin Burns, would 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:24.880 be replaced by an executive from tobacco giant Altria. The 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.240 CEO of Jewel apologized in essence. Recently, I guess to 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:33.520 a family who had a child who was addicted, what 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.760 did you make of that apology. It's not gonna do anything, right, 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.360 I don't know what to say. You thought the words 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.360 were hollow. It doesn't do anything for the three million 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:45.480 kids that I've already got addicted to the practs. It 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.600 doesn't do anything for the parents, doesn't do anything for us. Besides, 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.480 you create noise that won't move the issue forward at all. 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:55.600 And it's just that's really all you can say about it. 0:08:55.600 --> 0:09:00.319 It's not even a story. Three million kids are addicted. Mhm. 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.120 Where did you get that number? C D, C F 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.160 D A, all these you know, public health agencies, they 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.120 run these studies and those are the numbers that are 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.280 out there today. In addition to the flavors, manufacturers seemed 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:16.800 to be pretty effective at social media. How big an 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:22.040 impact has that had? In sixteen, that's when Jewels social 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:25.520 media was kind of insane. They were featuring like twenty 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:29.000 year old models with you know, cool photos, And there 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.000 was this crazy study done by the Stanford about how 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.680 Jewels marketing in those two years compared to Marlborough and 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.280 other big tobacco companies, and it was practically identical. So 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:44.080 Jewel basically spent millions of dollars putting these it's it 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.240 was the vaporized advertisement. It was all over Time Square 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.760 of these you know, hit models with all these crazy colors, 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:55.680 and they used social media to get kids interested in 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.040 the products. You can't be doing that. That's just not okay. Well, 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.360 thank you so much, Jack, Thank you so much for 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:06.520 having me on. Jack wasn't the only one sounding the alarm. Next, 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.439 we'll talk with one of the first journalists to report 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.840 on the teenage babing epidemic, as well as the doctor 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.560 who blew the whistle on the hidden nicotine levels of 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.079 the cigarettes. This was just one of those stories that 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.440 it felt like everywhere I turned and everyone I talked to, 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.720 they were talking about this. They were worried about their kids, 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.400 or they were kids, you know, children are friends of 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.840 mine who were talking about this. Last year, New York 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.160 Times reporter Kate Cernaki wrote a bunch of articles that 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:36.480 covered the vaping crisis in high schools and middle schools 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.800 across the country, and what she uncovered shocked her as 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.360 much as her readers. It was really one of those 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.760 things that you found at every socio economic level. Geographically, 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.360 it was everywhere California, Rhode Island, Florida. I mean, it 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.320 was just any when you talked to agreed that this 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.360 was a problem. So it was happening almost in every state. 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.320 This is happening in Middle America, and not just on 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.320 the coast, not just urban centers. Absolutely, it was everywhere, 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.599 and it was girls and boys, which I think surprised 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.680 school administrators as well. What was shocking about it to 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:08.800 me was that it had come up on them so quickly. 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.240 It really was. These things had appeared in the fall, 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.040 and I guess it was and suddenly by spring it 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.320 was just everywhere, and the schools did not know what 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.000 to do. They were completely unprepared. I think that for 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:20.520 a lot of kids, you know, we've raised them to 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.920 understand that drinking and driving is bad, and cigarettes are 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.880 bad and they're ugly, but vaping, but jewel in particular, 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.120 came across as kind of a clean thing to do, 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.480 you know. It wasn't messy like cigarettes. Almost invariably the 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:34.880 schools I talked to would say, you know, a kid 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.040 comes into my office and says, you know, I've caught 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:39.480 someone jeweling, and I said, would you smoke a cigarette? 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:41.600 The kid would be horrified at the idea of smoking 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.440 a cigarette, but vaping somehow seemed cleaner to them. It 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.480 didn't seem addictive, it didn't seem like an ugly thing 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:49.800 to do or something that was going to make your 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.360 teeth look bad or make you smell bad. And a 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:54.200 lot of kids, when I spoke to them, they would 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.000 have arguments with me about oh no, there's no there's 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.080 no nicotine and jewel. So I think there was a 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.480 lot of misunderstanding about what exactly it was. You opened 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.360 your first story with a boy from Cape Elizabeth, Maine 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:08.280 confiding in his vice principle tell us a little bit 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.320 about that conversation. So this was a student who had 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.199 been caught vaping. I think not once, maybe not even twice, 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:15.840 but maybe a third time. I can't remember, but it 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.480 was several times. And so the principle was saying, you know, what, 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:20.800 what is it like? You want to, you know, you 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.559 want to understand a teenager why they're misbehaving. And the 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:25.680 kid kids said, I can't stop. That was his line, 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.160 I can't stop. And this was really what was alarming schools. 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:31.720 This must be so disruptive, Kate, when it comes to 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.840 teaching and learning with kids not being able to concentrate. 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.880 You know, I know that they're calling bathrooms jeweling lounges 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:44.080 with toilets. I mean, how how much of a problem 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.520 is this creating in terms of actually doing the job 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:49.840 schools are supposed to be doing. It's been really huge. 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:51.880 I mean, in California, I talked to one high school 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:54.079 that had to close two bathrooms so that no more 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:56.000 than one student could go into the bathroom at a 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.200 time because they were going to share jewels. You know. 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:00.480 One thing that was interesting to me was that schools 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:02.920 felt like this had become such a disruption that they 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.280 were actually now treating it not as a disciplinary problem, 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.800 but is the medical problem right where they needed to intervene. 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.480 And so one of the schools in Colorado that I 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:13.760 spoke to said that there was a young woman who 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:15.320 came in and they gave her a treatment plan to 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:17.400 try to kick the jewel and part of her treatment 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.240 plan was standing in the back of the classroom shaking 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:21.079 her foot because it was she just needed to get 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.839 that anxious energy out. So I think schools are really 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.120 struggling to figure out is this a disciplinary problem. Is 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:29.160 it a disciplinary problem where they need to expel kids 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.600 or suspend kids, or is this primarily a health issue 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:33.000 and do they just need to get these kids some 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.640 kind of treatment. What needs to happen in your view, Well, 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:38.360 I do think you know, look, I think we need 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.480 to understand that this generation, as I said, has been told, 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:43.319 there are so many things they can't do. You know, 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.040 we've raised them in such a bubble. In many ways, 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.240 you've tried to preserve their perfect health, and so I 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.959 think we need to give them some education around vaping 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.319 and around nicotine in particular. I think we were very 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.160 good at saying that cigarettes cause cancer, and it was 0:13:58.200 --> 0:13:59.960 the tar and the cigarettes, right, it was the smoke, 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.440 it was all those chemicals. They didn't understand that nicotine 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:05.319 was also bad for you, and in this case, it's 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.600 getting them hooked. We also don't know all the chemicals 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.520 that are in vaping devices, So I think really education 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:13.280 is a huge part. I think a lot of kids, 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.960 in particular, if they understood the chemicals that are in 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:18.360 these devices, they would look at this and think, I 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.200 wouldn't you know, I want that in my sunscreen, much 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.840 less in my lungs. What kind of chemicals are in 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:29.440 these besides nicotine? Well, there's uh, some studies have found propylene, glycol, 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.640 glycerol um. There's one chemical called I think it's a 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:34.480 dia setal. I'm not sure how you say it, but 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:37.520 it's It creates popcorn lung, which has been really obviously 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.600 very dangerous and scary. But the thing that struck me 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:42.240 there was a there was an article in the journal 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.200 Pediatrics I believe it was in March of seen and 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.520 it found elevated levels of five carcinogenic compounds in the 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:52.240 urine of students who vaped. We've done so much research 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.720 on tobacco and on cigarettes, we know what's in them. 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.800 We don't know a lot about vaping devices. We haven't 0:14:57.800 --> 0:14:59.560 studied them over the long terms. We don't know what 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:01.840 the long effects are because it's so new. And to 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.440 that end, parents are slightly clueless, aren't they. I mean, 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.760 I'm I'm clueless. I actually our team went out and 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.320 they bought me a vape. It looks a little like 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.360 a cross between a big lighter and a thumb drive, right, 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.200 I mean, it's really small. It's then this is again 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:19.920 the double edged sword of the jewel, which is that 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.440 it's designed so that someone who wants to quit smoking 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.320 can take a hit of the jewel and have something 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.120 that gives them the same you know, buzz of a cigarette, right, 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.360 because it's a huge dose of nicotine. But that same 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.440 thing is going to give a kid who's never smoked 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.360 before that huge dose of nicotine. So there's the addiction 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.000 is going to come faster. They're eighteen cigarettes in that 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:46.560 eighteen cigarettes in a pod. Right. The other in citious 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.400 problem with vapy, kids were absolutely clueless about what they 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:54.640 were inhaling. We made a survey, an anonymous survey which 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.360 we gave to just over five kids in our clinical 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.880 practice over the course of a year, and the survey 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.480 was based on other national surveys with standard questions about 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:08.040 their use of tobacco, electronic cigarettes, and marijuana and so forth. 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.680 And then we also collected from some of those kids. 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:15.680 We collected urine for what's called biomarker of nicotine, so 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.400 it reflects the nicotine that they're getting in their body. 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:23.240 Dr Rachel Boykin is an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:27.280 at Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, and 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:31.680 she has been doing extensive research on kids and vaping. 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.400 We wanted to know if what they were saying was 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.320 matched in the urine. But we also wanted to get 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:39.640 a kind of a sense of how much nicotine they 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.040 were being exposed to because this kind of study hadn't 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.560 been done before. So did you find that some of 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:48.360 the kids on the first question weren't honest or didn't 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:52.160 realize that they were being exposed to nicotine? We found 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.920 that in general, kids who used electronic cigarettes were truthful 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:57.960 about what they said. They said they used them, and 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.040 we saw the nicotine byproduct than their urine. But did 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:03.840 they appreciate the fact that they were being exposed to 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.240 not all of them. So when we asked them, does 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.360 your electronic cigarette have nicotine in it? Some of them 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.359 said I don't know or know when. In fact, in 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.080 their urine we saw that marker of nicotine cotnein, which 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.520 said that they actually were exposed to it. So it 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.560 didn't mean they were necessarily being dishonest, they just didn't 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.000 understand correct. And what did you find in terms of 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.920 the level of nicotine that they were getting in their 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:30.399 bodies through the cigarettes? Number one, that they were getting 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.840 levels that are comparable, in some cases even higher than 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.919 kids who used cigarettes. We also found that kids who 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:43.320 used the e cigarettes more frequently, like every day, higher levels, 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.320 which kind of makes sense. We also found that the 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.199 kids who were using what we call the ponds like Jewel, 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.679 which is the latest generation and the most popular of 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:55.920 them and also has the most nicotine of all the cigarettes, 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.640 those kids also had the highest levels, So it kind 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:03.239 of makes sense. But it put some objective data, if 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.680 you will, into kind of what we thought was happening. 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.760 So you weren't necessarily surprised. Where you concerned when you 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:17.080 saw these levels in these young kids? Absolutely well. Nicotine 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.159 is bad for a number of reasons. Nicotine in and 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:24.520 of itself, we know has bad effects on a teenager's brain. 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.960 Teenagers brains are not actually developed until about agent It 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.560 can have effects on your ability to learn and so 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.960 on cognition. It can affect anxiety, caused depression. Just by itself, 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:39.960 nicotine is dangerous, but nicotine is also extremely addictive. It's 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.119 the thing that causes people to be addicted to tobacco cigarettes, 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.639 and so the concern, although these are not tobacco cigarettes, 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:51.119 is that these kids are getting addicted. Addiction is concerning 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.640 in and of itself, but we also know that kids 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.040 who use the cigarettes are more likely to go on 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:02.560 to use regular cigarettes. And here's where addiction and youth 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.439 are an especially worrisome combination. Because their brains are still developing, 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.440 it's easier for teens to get hooked, and using nicotine 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:15.520 at a young age can even rewire your brain, making 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.160 it easier to become addicted to other drugs. How does 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.679 nicotine addiction lead to other addictions? Is that something to 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:29.080 do with your brain and how it impacts the reward 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:33.600 system or dopamine. So nicotine does work on the dopamine pathways, 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.600 and dopamine is the reward pathway, and so that's probably 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.119 what it is. How it directly primes the brain for 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:42.840 other addictions. I don't know if it's really understood at 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:46.600 a very very molecular level, but we know that it happens, 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.679 and I find it interesting. People have asked me, why 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.399 is this that kids who use e cigarettes, now we 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.480 know this one really a lot of good studies, are 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.720 are four times more likely to go on to smoke. 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.800 And kids don't like smoking. We finally got rid of that. 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:02.679 You know, we were at an all time low for 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:06.040 kids actually smoking in this country until these cigarettes came along. 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:07.920 And now it looks like it's starting to move them 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.439 back towards that. And I'm not sure why, whether it 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:13.560 is the addiction, and why they would go from one 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:15.320 to the other, but we know that it's happening, and 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.199 I think that's a concern. The numbers among high school 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:23.000 students are really staggering, aren't they. It's crazy. Tell me 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.240 about the numbers. So from two thousand seventeen to two 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.280 thousand eighteen, there was a seventy eight percent increase in 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.440 the use of these cigarettes by high school students. We 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.240 have an uphill battle, I think, because one of the 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.920 problems is it took us decades to get a handle 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.760 on cigarettes, and I kind of look forward. I'm generally 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.240 a very optimistic person and I'm hopeful, but I also 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:47.119 see that the train is out of the station. And 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.240 one of the problems we have now is we have 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.800 a generation of kids who are addicted and we don't 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:54.840 know how to help them. As a pediatrician, we don't 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.160 have any evidence based methods to help them quit at 0:20:58.160 --> 0:20:59.840 this point, and so we need to look at that too, 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.280