Due to the recent rise in popularity of e-cigarettes, youth commercial tobacco use has risen in Minnesota for the first time in 17 years. Nationally, the rate of e-cigarette use by high school students rose 78 percent from 2017 to 2018. Locally, the rates of youth commercial tobacco use in Cook County have also risen dramatically. The most recent local data available shows that in 2016, one out of three ninth-grade students in Cook County uses e-cigarettes.
E-cigarettes are battery operated devices that heat a mix of liquid nicotine and other chemicals into a vapor that the user inhales (or “vapes”). Technology has evolved so that these devices can deliver record-high levels of nicotine in a form that the body can more effectively absorb. According to Juul, the manufacturer that sells the most common e-cigarette in the U.S., a single pod contains as much nicotine as a pack of 20 regular cigarettes. Pods come in a variety of flavors such as fruit, sweets, alcohol, or candy that mask the taste of nicotine. Youth list the availability of flavors as one of the top reasons to vape. Other reasons include 1) having friends and family who vape, and 2) the belief that vaping is less harmful than other forms of tobacco, such as cigarettes.
E-cigarette use is harmful for a teen’s brain development and can set youth up for struggles with addiction into adulthood. The vapor created by e-cigarettes can contain heavy metals, cancer-causing ultrafine particles, and the same volatile organic components found in car exhaust. Most notably, the vapor contains nicotine, a highly addictive drug. During adolescence, a teen’s brain quickly builds connections between brain cells based on what a teen is learning and experiencing. Exposure to nicotine as a teen changes the way that these connections in the brain are built, increasing pathways that increase the risk for future addiction to other drugs, while also harming the parts of the brain that control attention, learning, mood, and impulse control.
The recent rise in youth vaping in Cook County sets the stage for greater numbers of young people in our community to struggle with addiction into adulthood. This is a public health problem that requires a broadbased, innovative response to improve adolescent health, both now and in the future and to save money for the healthcare system over the long-term. By gathering committed partners from many parts of the community (from parents, to schools, to medical providers, to youth themselves), it is feasible to decrease local rates of teen vaping and to prevent young people from vaping at all.
Cook County Public Health and Human Services (PHHS) is committed to being part of the solution to youth vaping. At its May meeting, the PHHS Advisory Committee recommended that the PHHS Board both learn about youth vaping and adopt a local ordinance to raise the sale of all commercial tobacco products to 21 (also known as T21 or Tobacco 21). At the next PHHS Board meeting we will host a presentation from the American Lung Association on e-cigarette use and promising practices to decrease rates of youth vaping, including T21. The decision of whether to adopt a Tobacco 21 ordinance within Cook County will be addressed at a board meeting in the late summer or early fall. To date, 34 Minnesota cities and counties have passed policies increasing the legal age to purchase commercial tobacco to 21. Research predicts that Tobacco 21 ordinances lower the rate that teens start to use commercial tobacco products by 25 percent, in part by helping reduce access to tobacco products within middle and high schools. (Most teens report getting e-cigarettes from their friends.)
This summer, PHHS will host a community panel discussion on youth vaping and possible solutions. (More information on this event will be made public as details are confirmed.) Cook County PHHS’s Community Health Improvement Plan prioritizes substance abuse prevention and support for recovery as areas of focus, based on current needs and gaps in services identified in the recent Community Health Assessment process. Based on this information, PHHS plans to create a coalition of individuals and organizations who are committed to addressing issues related to substance use in the community in order to create a sustained and comprehensive response preventing and treating addiction in both youth and adults.
Learn more about local youth e-cigarette use, tobacco policies, and the PHHS department at the June 18 PHHS board meeting at 8:30 a.m. in the Cook County Commissioners Room. Follow us on Facebook @ CookCountyPHHS.
County Connections is a column on timely topics and service information from your Cook County government. Cook County— Supporting Community Through Quality Public Service
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