Students at Mountain View Intermediate School learned about the dangers of vaping and other tobacco products during a presentation by MountainWise on Sept. 28.
Tobin Lee, MountainWise’s regional tobacco prevention manager, has been conducting seminars on the dangers of vaping and smoking for several years and has visited Macon County Schools on multiple occasions. Most of the time, he visits middle schools and high schools, but times are changing. Unfortunately, Lee says that research is pointing towards younger and younger children experimenting with the drugs, to the point where prevention experts are having to reshape their entire approach.
“We’re getting to a point where we have to figure out a curriculum to teach to elementary school kids,” Lee said. “It’s a big problem.”
The seminar was offered to fifth graders enrolled in student skills classes, which teach students a variety of practical life lessons. Instructor Yvonne Robinson said giving her students an early warning about the risks of tobacco products is one such lesson. Many kids their age haven’t been exposed to tobacco yet, but it’s a conversation better had sooner than later.
“I wanted to add vaping [prevention] to our curriculum,” Robinson said. “Prevention is the focus.”
Tobacco products of any variety are well-documented as contributing factors to often-fatal medical conditions like lung cancer, heart disease, blood clots and more. Vaping, which uses electronic and often disposable devices to deliver nicotine products, has near identical health risks to traditional smoking, but Lee said the way they’re presented to the public takes on a sinister new dimension. Vapors can be produced in a variety of sweet and palatable flavors, their use of liquid cooling keeps them from burning your lungs the way cigarettes would, and they frequently resemble inconspicuous objects like USB drives and pencil lead holders. All of these changes make vaping products more usable for children than their predecessors. As the tobacco industry’s oldest customers die off and their middle-aged ones increasingly abandon the practice, this appears to be a mindful effort to lure in a much younger demographic.
“There isn’t a single product that’s had more marketing research done on it than tobacco,” Lee said. “They know exactly what they’re doing.”
Many of the kids who heard Lee’s presentation had already watched the impacts of smoking at work in their family members and knew how dangerous it could get. Others were hearing a lot of details about smoking and vaping for the first time, like how cigarettes often contain substances also found in fireworks, pesticides, nail polish remover and embalming fluid, while vapors are seldom regulated for any particular contents. In either case, most of them were uninterested in trying the practice themselves.
“A lot of kids do it because they think it’ll make them look cool,” fifth grader Matilee Huff said. “It really just makes them look dumb.”
That response is music to Lee’s ears. He says that 88% of adult smokers pick up the habit before they turn 18. Whether he’s talking about smoking traditional cigarettes or their modern alternatives, it’s safer and more effective to warn kids about the risks from an early age.
“Prevention is a much better option than cessation,” Lee said. “The younger they start, the harder it is to stop.”