Answer Addiction

Category: Teen Vaping

  • Concentrated Cannabis Is Potent, Hard To Detect And Popular Among Teens 

    Concentrated Cannabis Is Potent, Hard To Detect And Popular Among Teens 

    According to a new study, 72% percent of teens who had tried marijuana had used the concentrates. 

    Nearly a quarter of teens report using highly concentrated cannabis products, often vaped in e-cigarettes, which can increase their risk of mental health complications and future drug use. 

    According to a study published this week in the journal Pediatrics, 24% of 8th, 10th and 12th graders surveyed had tried a marijuana concentrate. One-third of youth surveyed had tried marijuana, the study found. Seventy-two percent of teens who had tried marijuana had used the concentrates. 

    Health experts say that the findings are concerning because they show that the use of concentrates is prevalent. However, since concentrates are used with e-cigarette devices, or as edibles, they can be hard for parents to detect. This is especially true because they don’t have the same distinct smell as traditional cannabis. 

    Dr. Abigail Schlesinger is chief of the behavioral science division at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She told NBC News that parents need to be aware of cannabis concentrates, and that they can have long-term effects for teens. 

    Parents Get Informed

    “Parents need to know about the risks,” Schlesinger said. “This is not your grandparents’ cannabis. It’s more concentrated. And there’s a lot of reason to believe that in the adolescent years, it alters brain development.

    Parents and other adults need to make it clear to teens that vaping or using edibles is as dangerous as smoking pot. 

    She said, “Parents need to be clear that they don’t support cannabis use. Because if we don’t give a clear message, then teens can take it as a tacit statement that it’s OK. That doesn’t mean you say they will be expelled from the family if they try something. But we need to tell them that if they do these things, they may not reach their full potential.”

    The study found that teens who used concentrates were more likely to engage in other drug use as they got older. Youth who had used concentrates were more likely to have tried other drugs as well. 

    Study author Madeline Meier, who teaches psychology at the Arizona State University, said that parents need to know about how teens are using cannabis concentrates. 

    “I don’t know that parents know about this stuff,” Meier said. “If I weren’t a marijuana researcher, I don’t know if I saw [a vape with marijuana] that I would know what it was. Parents should educate themselves about what these forms of cannabis look like.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Teen Posts Photos Of Collapsed Lungs To Warn Others Against Vaping

    Teen Posts Photos Of Collapsed Lungs To Warn Others Against Vaping

    “I don’t think anyone could have said anything to make me stop. But your lungs will most likely look like this too if you’ve been smoking,” the teen warned.

    A teen has posted photos of his collapsed lungs on social media to warn people against vaping.

    Chance Ammirata, 18, shared his story with the New York Post. A year and a half ago, Ammirata started vaping. He had never smoked before, and he was under the impression that vaping was safe. Then he had to be rushed to the ER, and believes his collapsed lung was caused by toxic chemicals in the Juul pod he inhaled.

    The Incident

    Ammirata first had a pain in his side, and initially thought he pulled a muscle. The next day, “It felt like my chest was collapsing, like I was having a heart attack.” Once he was in the hospital, he had to have a tube put in his chest to keep his lung inflated.

    After surgery, a doctor told him, “Whatever you’ve been smoking has been leaving these black dots on your lungs” and it would take years to potentially heal them.

    Because of the black spots on his lungs, Ammirata won’t be able to do cross-country running or scuba diving, and he won’t be able to fly on a plane for a while either. He then went on social media with a warning:

    “You thought Juuls were safe. So did I. The black dots on my lungs are all [remnants] of juuling. I’ve been doing it for a year and a half and can never do it again. You really shouldn’t either. I know how hard it is to change anyone’s mind who’s addicted because I was too. And I don’t think anyone could have said anything to make me stop. But your lungs will most likely look like this too if you’ve been smoking.”

    Ammirata concluded his posts by pleading, “Don’t let it get worse. Please stop. Like really please. It’s so fucking scary.”

    In response to Ammirata’s story, a spokesperson for Juul stated, “We have no higher priority than consumer safety… We have robust safety monitoring systems in place and will vigilantly monitor for any evidence of safety issues as we continue to combat youth usage and eliminate cigarettes, the number one cause of preventable death in the world.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Schools, Parents See Spike In Problematic Behavior Due To Vaping 

    Schools, Parents See Spike In Problematic Behavior Due To Vaping 

    Some schools have taken doors off bathrooms to limit the likelihood of students vaping in them. 

    As a high school freshman, Kristin Beauparlant began noticing changes in her son, Cade. During hockey games, he began to tire more easily, often having coughing fits. But Kristin says the onset of anxiety and mood swings was what really concerned her. 

    Over the next three years, the Washington Post reports, the Beauparlants eventually identified the problem: Cade had become reliant on nicotine via Juul, a type of e-cigarette resembling a USB drive. 

    According to the Post, the rise of e-cigarettes has sparked concern for young users, as pediatricians say they are seeing teens “who behave less like tobacco users and more like patients with [substance use] disorders.”

    Health Harms

    In addition to behavioral changes, nicotine use can lead to nicotine toxicity, as well as respiratory issues. In fact, Beauparlant was diagnosed with restrictive lung disease due to vaping. Beauparlant’s family is one of the few to try suing e-cigarette companies. Cade’s mother hopes it will lead Juul to fund treatment programs. 

    “We were thinking about vapes just like we thought about cigarettes,” Sharon Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Use and Addiction Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, tells the Post. “Over time we realized no, no. This is something really different.”

    One potential reason for the teen behavior associated with e-cigarettes like Juul is their design which allows for greater intake of nicotine than normal cigarettes. 

    “With the Juuls, kids are able to get a much higher dose of nicotine—and dose matters,” Levy said. “These kids have behaviors that we often see in patients who have opioid or marijuana addiction, but we didn’t typically see with kids who developed addiction to traditional tobacco cigarettes.”

    In response, Juul has claimed their products are designed for adult use and claims that studies have shown nicotine from their devices to be absorbed more slowly than nicotine from cigarettes. 

    According to Jonathan Winickoff, pediatrician and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital with a specialization in tobacco cessation, products proven to help adults quit tobacco may not have the same effect on teens. 

    “We have millions of kids now, millions of adolescents who are using mostly Juul—and in some cases other devices—who are unable to quit,” Winickoff tells the Post. “It’s something we don’t have the infrastructure to deal with.”

    Schools Take Action

    The use of e-cigarettes has become especially problematic in schools. Some schools have even turned to forbidding the use of USB drives since they look like Juuls. Others have taken doors off bathrooms to limit the likelihood of vaping in them. 

    Once Beauparlant’s son was caught vaping, the athlete was no longer allowed to play hockey. This took away any chance of playing in college as well. But after treatment from Winickoff, Kristin Beauparlant says she began to see her son return. 

    “We kind of lost four years of Cade to this addiction,” she told the Post. She adds that now that Cade isn’t vaping daily, “He just seems like a different kid. You can’t help but say there’s a correlation.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Teen Injured By Exploding E-Cigarette

    Teen Injured By Exploding E-Cigarette

    The e-cigarette explosion caused extensive wounds to the young man’s mouth, including a broken lower jaw and missing teeth.

    A 17-year-old boy suffered severe facial injuries, including a broken jaw, when an e-cigarette exploded in his mouth.

    The incident and the extent of his injuries were detailed in a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine and penned by the pediatric trauma surgeon who treated him after the explosion.

    While incidents of e-cigarettes or “vapes” exploding are rare, they can cause serious injuries, and two fatalities have been reported as the result of such an explosion.

    According to coverage of the report by Live Science, the explosion, which took place in March 2018, required the teenager to be sent more than 200 miles from his home in Ely, Nevada to an emergency room in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he was treated by the report’s co-author Dr. Katie Russell, a pediatric trauma surgeon at the University of Utah and Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. The boy had suffered extensive wounds to his mouth, as well as several missing teeth and a broken lower jaw.

    Russell and other doctors had to remove several additional teeth from the boy’s mouth because their sockets had been irreparably damaged. A dental plate was installed under his lower gums to stabilize his jawbone, and his jaw was wired shut for six weeks to allow his mouth to close properly.

    Russell told Live Science that she and her colleagues published the report because they had been shocked by the extent of the damage caused by the explosion.

    “When I met this patient, I had no idea that a vape pen could do this,” she said. “It takes a lot of force to break your jaw.”

    According to a report issued by “Tobacco Control,” an estimated 2,035 burn and explosion injuries from e-cigarette use were reported by U.S. hospital emergency rooms between 2015 and 2017.

    Since the event reported in the case study, more explosions have been reported, including an incident in January 2019 when a 24-year-old Texas resident died after a metal shard from an exploding vape entered his neck and severed an artery.

    The exact reason for the explosion has yet to be determined, but as the Times reported, various sources have suggested that the lithium-ion battery used in vape products can overheat to the point of explosion.

    A 2017 report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency noted that such batteries “are not a safe source of energy for such devices,” while a blog post from the Massachusetts General Hospital Research Institute said that vaping devices that employ an “open system” – which include a rechargeable battery with reservoirs that are filled with e-liquid – are less safe than ones with closed systems, which use pre-filled cartridges that attach to a rechargeable battery, or ones that can’t be recharged.

    The Food and Drug Administration offered a list of safety suggestions for e-cigarette users, including the use of devices with safety features, keeping loose batteries away from metal objects (to prevent an accidental charge), replacing wet or damaged batteries, and keeping vape devices away from extreme heat or cold.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • School To Begin Random Nicotine Testing To Combat Teen Vaping

    School To Begin Random Nicotine Testing To Combat Teen Vaping

    The school is also considering installing “Wi-Fi-enabled sensors” in bathrooms and locker rooms to detect vapor or “sounds associated with smoking.”

    A new school district policy in a rural Nebraska community illustrates the wider concern over teenage vaping.

    Starting this fall, as the new school year begins, some public school students at Fairbury Junior-Senior High School (FJSHS) will be subject to random nicotine testing, as the school district tries to dampen the popularity of e-cigarettes.

    Superintendent of Fairbury Public Schools Stephen Grizzle—who called vaping a “widespread epidemic”—discussed the new policy with the New York Times. He said they have observed rising incidents of vaping on school grounds—classrooms, restrooms, locker rooms and more.

    In one year, Fairbury Junior-Senior High School saw a steep rise in disciplinary incidents involving nicotine—mostly vaping. The number rose from seven incidents in the 2017-2018 school year, to 30 incidents in the 2018-2019 school year.

    “We are really wanting this to be a preventive, proactive measure,” Grizzle said. “We are not wanting to punish kids. We are wanting to give them a reason to say no.”

    The policy only applies to students participating in extracurricular activities like sports and marching band—who already have agreed to random drug testing for illicit or performance-enhancing drugs.

    About 60% of kids at FJSHS—which serves almost 400 students in grades 7-12—participate in extracurriculars. Under the new policy, 20-25 of these kids will be randomly selected once a month for a drug screening conducted by the school nurse.

    If they test positive, they will suspended from participating in extracurricular activities for 10 days. If they fail a second nicotine screening, they will be suspended for 45 days and must pay for themselves to attend substance abuse counseling. For a third offense, they will be forced to sit out of extracurriculars for 12 months.

    Apparently this policy isn’t the school district’s only “bright” idea. According to the Times, they are also considering installing “Wi-Fi-enabled sensors” in bathrooms and locker rooms to detect vapor or “sounds associated with smoking.”

    E-cigarettes were originally marketed as a tool to quit smoking, offering an alternative deemed safer than combustible cigarettes. However, it’s become increasingly popular among young people.

    As a result the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been cracking down on e-cigarette companies in the name of reducing and preventing youth vaping.

    “In enabling a path for e-cigarettes to offer a potentially lower-risk alternative for adult smokers, we won’t allow the current trends in youth access and use to continue, even if it means putting limits in place that reduce adult uptake of these products,” said former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in a 2018 statement.

    View the original article at thefix.com