Transcription
Imagine if you, your siblings, parents, or relatives started vaping when they were 8 years old. Sadly, that's the reality for many across the US. According to the Daily Express on September 18, 2024, children as young as eight have been caught vaping, and 1 in 14 children have been caught vaping under the age of 11.
Today, I'm here to prove to you that the e-cigarette crisis needs to be stopped and a solution needs to be made. First, I'll be telling you the problems of e-cigarettes; second, I'll be telling you the causes of this vaping crisis; and third, I'll be giving you solutions for a smoke-free life. Let's start with the problems. I just gave you a tragic stat as well as a preview of what's coming next. The two biggest problems are that e-cigarettes are bad for the environment and they severely damage the human body.
Let's start with that they're bad for the environment. According to the Asian News Monitor on August 4, 2023, precious materials like aluminum, lithium, and stainless steel are all wasted because of vaping. These materials should be going to things like electric cars and kitchen necessities like a microwave, fridge, and aluminum foil. Instead, they're going to vapes. Also, electric cars require a lot of lithium to make the battery function. And soon, we might not have enough lithium because of these e-cigarettes that are taking precious materials.
Next is that e-cigarettes severely damage the human body. According to the Indian Express on June 11, 2025, nicotine raises your heartbeat and blood pressure, can cause you to have substances in your body that increase cancer risk, especially lung cancer; you can have lung inflammation from too much vaping; and oxidative stress can cause complications in your body at any moment. Aside from this, artificial sweeteners like sucralose inside of vapes can cause complications in your body, especially increased risk for cancer when compared to natural ones like stevia extract or monk fruit extract.
Now, we heard these harmful problems, especially on the environment and body. This brings me to my causes. The two biggest causes are that single-use vapes are so widely used and that people don't understand how harmful vapes really are.
Let's start with the common use of single-use vapes. Single-use vapes are more easily accessible and they're cheaper than reusable ones. According to the Sentinel on June 5, 2025, 16 to 24 is the age where vapes peak. 15.8% of people in the US in this age range vape. So what does cheap and affordable vapes have to do with this age range? Many in this age range try to keep vapes secretive from friends, family, or teachers and administrators. This causes them to get single-use vapes where they can go and hide or take a walk away from everyone else and just use these vapes and throw them away. So many people are using these single-use vapes, causing them to have such an impact on the environment like mentioned earlier. So many more resources are wasted when single-use vapes are being thrown away rather than a multi-use vape that's being thrown away once every couple of days, weeks, or months.
Second, is that people don't understand the risk of using vapes. According to the Hindustan Times on June 26, 2025, vaping can be just as harmful or more harmful than smoking. Even though people think of vaping as a safe alternative to smoking, they don't understand that it still has harms, like mentioned earlier. Teens who would never have vaped or smoked in the beginning are now vaping because they don't understand how harmful it is and they get hooked. This causes all these health risks on the body and so many people having these risks because of this addiction.
Now is the solutions. We heard the causes like single-use vapes being so common and that people really don't know how harmful vapes are, so solutions are needed. I'll start with broad solutions and then go to ones that are more personal.
The first broad solution is that countries can have a task force specifically to stop e-cigarette sales. According to the US Fed News Service on June 10, 2024, the US has already put a force like this in play. It is tasked only for e-cigarette sales and contraband to be stopped, and they're doing a good job. These sales are getting reduced but will never go to zero. If countries all over the world can use this same force, then so many can be stopped from having health problems and the environment can be way cleaner and can have more of necessary resources.
Second, this one just for the US, is to fix the loophole that they have currently going. According to the New York Times on March 8, 2022, there's a loophole where synthetic tobacco is able to be used instead of real tobacco and is legal. Since it is unregulated, you can't really put a ban on it. Now, my solution for the government is to learn more about it and find what exactly is being used so they can ban it so it becomes illegal. This will cause less of it to be used in vapes, making vapes more or less addictive.
Now, the personal solutions just for you:
1. Watch the docuseries, "A Big Vape the Rise and Fall of Juul" on Netflix. It will show you that a startup company made so people stopped smoking and use vapes a little bit healthier for some could have a safer alternative than smoking. Then, it became a whole campaign and it led to the vaping crisis among teens with so many getting addicted and using them. It'll show what really happened to teens and why so many are addicted to vapes.
2. Switch to long-term vapes. Like I mentioned earlier, single-use vapes are so much more harmful for the environment than multi-use vapes. I know telling you to quit is not going to work, so this is my solution for vapors. Getting a cartridge that can be refillable with natural sugars like stevia extract can help your body and with using multi-use vapes, the environment can be so much more healthy and can have resources that it needs and that can go to necessities instead of pleasures. Please, if you switch to this, you will not know how great your impact will be.
3. Tell your college friends to stop vaping. As hard as this may sound and how many people have told you this, they need to stop. The harm on their body and the environment is so bad and it's harming everyone.
Today I told you about all the problems and the causes and last the solutions from e-cigarettes. We know that all the things that come from it need to be stopped and I gave you solutions. If we can just stick to a couple, many, especially our younger generations, will not vape at 8 and live a smoke-free, vape-free life. Thank you!