Photo courtesy of Highland Schools

A local member of the drug task force taught Highland students about the dangers of vaping and e-cigarettes. Highland Middle School and High School students heard as Officer Eric Weber discussed the dangers of e-cigarettes, how they aren’t regulated, and that they often contain nicotine. Derek Ball with Highland school says he feels that youth using these products is a problem everywhere and that marketing targets youth.

Sarah Smith with Prelude Behavioral Services says the Iowa Youth Survey shows that 43% of 11th graders in Washington County have tried e-cigarettes compared to 17% who have tried a regular cigarette, “Teenagers typically are not smoking cigarettes now a days, they’ve gotten those warnings, and then they’ve gotten messages from vaping companies themselves that say vaping is harmless. We now see that, you know, it’s not and there’s definitely dangers that aren’t taking 20 to 30 years to develop. These are kids who probably have been doing it for, I don’t know, a few years maybe because they haven’t been around for that long.”

This year Iowa has had 31 cases of people with severe lung disease associated with vaping. Those patients range in age from 17 to 60. Twenty-seven of those cases reported vaping THC products. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that as of Tuesday, there have been 1,299 lung injury cases with the use of e-cigarette or vaping from 49 states. Approximately 80% of those patients are under 35 years old and 16% are under 18. There have been 26 deaths confirmed.

Smith encourages anyone who wants to stop using tobacco or vaping products to use QuitLineIowa for help, these resources are available to teenagers, too.