Editorial for Portfolio

In this day and age, vaping e-cigarettes is continuing to climb in growth. More and more teenagers are vaping and have no idea what it is doing to their body. This situation must end and these teenagers need to be educated.

For years, I have seen my own friends’ health deteriorate from vaping electronic cigarettes. I have educated most of them, explaining why it is a very harmful thing to do to their bodies. But not all of them have listened to me. A lot of them continued to vape, and are still vaping to this date. But scratch out my friends, all of these innocent kids are headed down the same path as them. Wasting money, even parents money to buy more, setting themselves up for a life of addiction and health problems.

Addiction has created problems in the 21st century. Many teenagers are developing addictive personalities thanks to the nicotine found in most electronic cigarettes. Once someone starts inhaling this dangerous chemical, their brain continues to want more of it, as it releases endorphins giving that “buzzed” feeling. Since obtaining this feeling can be very discrete and feels good to teenagers, they continue to do it, without realizing what they are truly doing to their health. Vaping needs to stop and end now, before people’s lives are ruined, or even taken by it.

In order to combat vaping, we as a nation need to become more strict on laws. Some laws that the government should be more strict on fines for selling to underage kids. Stores who sell to underage kids should have to receive a very absurd fine so that they will stray away from selling to underage kids. This could prove very effective because no store would want to pay thousands of dollars just to make some extra money off some teenagers. Another law that should be created is to remove all flavored electronic cigarettes. These teenagers and under age kids all love the taste of vaping, which makes it even easier for them to become addicted. If flavored products are removed, a lot of teenagers will end up stopping vaping. This is because since most of them who vape did not start out with cigarettes, so the tastes of the flavors that aren’t fruity or sweet will not appeal to them. There is the notion that if kids stop vaping they will move to cigarettes, but that could have been big tobaccos plan the entire time.

The message of anti-vaping needs to increase overall. The majority of people who vape don’t understand the negative side effects from it. Schools could spread the message, news channels, even commercials in between kid’s TV shows. The more people that are aware of how bad it is for you, the better, and the less people will use electronic cigarettes or vape. There is still hope, and this battle is not over. Change is prominent and we need to work together as a country to fight against big tobacco and these big vaping companies.