6 Things I Wish I Knew About Vaping When I Was Younger

I was only 13-years-old when someone offered me a Juul for the first time while hanging out with a group of friends. It was sleek, tiny and looked like a flash drive more than anything.

“It tastes like mango, you’re going to love it,” I remember them saying.

I had never smoked anything before, and I took a deep puff and instantly coughed it out. I thought I had burned my throat. A few seconds later, I got really dizzy, and felt the headrush as the nicotine hit my brain. Of course, I didn’t know it was nicotine at the time and my friends started laughing.

“That was weak, try it again!” they goaded.

And I did. I coughed again but this time I noticed the mango flavor and felt the headrush come back. I tried it again and again as my friend’s Juul made its way around the circle as we continued talking, enjoying the buzz and the fun conversations. That night, I remember lying in bed and wishing I had my own.

Soon enough, I did have my own—and I was vaping whenever I could, even when my friends weren’t around. I was already months into vaping and severely addicted when I first found out it had nicotine in it. It sounds so stupid today, but when e-cigarettes first took off, we really knew nothing about them. What we did know was that they tasted good, the headrush was fun and seemingly everyone was doing it—so how bad could it be?

The answer: really bad. After about a year, most of my classmates who vaped realized that they couldn’t quit, and they needed the nicotine just to function in life. This resulted in people I knew getting kicked off sports teams, getting suspended, getting in fights with their parents and failing in school. It created huge distrust and conflict between students and teachers, as well as parents and their kids—all of them caught in the fray of vaping hide and seek.

Five years later, I have struggled to quit, and like me, many of my friends and peers are also still struggling with their own nicotine addiction. Some have even started using cigarettes. While I’m incredibly proud of the progress I’ve made, I still get nicotine cravings to this day. Nicotine rewires your brain, and I’m still struggling with that daily—along with millions of other young people just like me who got hooked by Juul and the vaping/tobacco industry.

While I can’t go back and change the past, I do know that there’s probably a lot of young people like me who still might have questions about vaping. So with that, here’s everything I wish my 13-year-old self knew about e-cigarettes.

1) Nicotine addiction is a battle

It wasn’t until years later that I learned that nicotine is literally one of the most addictive drugs that exists. Juul seemed safe at the time, and little did I know that one pod had the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. For me to quit, it took countless attempts as I dealt with the severe mental health struggles, battling within myself the part of me that was extremely addicted and the part of me that wanted to have a happy, healthy future. It’s a battle I continue to fight to this day.

2) Flavors are a trap

From mango, to mint/menthol, to cotton candy, to blue raspberry, and s’mores, there were endless options of flavors that were highly appealing to kids. Looking back, it’s so obvious how the e-cigarette industry baited us into nicotine addiction with flavors that masked the harshness of vaping. And those flavors remain everywhere—menthol Juul pods are more popular than ever, and there are still tons of flavors, especially in disposable e-cigs like Puff Bar. It frustrates me that the tobacco industry has been given a pass to addict an entire generation, yet again.

3) The e-cigarette and tobacco industry exploited a whole generation for massive profit

Billionaires and millionaires were made off of youth vaping. For example, when Altria (seller of Marlboro, the most popular brand of cigarettes among kids) bought Juul (the most popular e-cigarette brand among kids) for $12.8 billion, Altria paid Juul employees an extra $2 billion in bonuses as the company continued to thrive while fueling the youth e-cigarette epidemic.

4) Vaping lost it’s cool

When vaping first took off, it was brand new, it looked cool, and it seemed like everyone—from teens to celebrities—was doing it. But now our generation has a much better perspective of how harmful and manipulative these products and companies are. Most of my peers swept up in the youth e-cigarette epidemic are trying to quit and help their friends quit nicotine for good.

5) Nicotine isn’t the only bad thing in e-cigarettes

Along with nicotine comes other nasty chemicals in e-cigarettes. The e-cigarette industry has been given free rein to flood the market with thousands of products and fakes, so you never know what you are inhaling. That became more and more apparent as news stories continue to pile up about e-cigarettes hurting kids’ lungs and bodies. E-cigarettes can produce ultrafine particles, volatile organic compounds and heavy metals from battery and heating device decomposition—and nicotine addiction just makes you inhale more and more and more of those chemicals.

6) There’s still so much we don’t know

E-cigarettes are brand-new and the short-term harm is obvious. But we still don’t know all the ways e-cigarettes can harm the body, and who knows how harmful e-cigarettes will turn out to be decades from now? Not to mention, it’s critically important to protect lung health in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects of vaping and e-cigarette use will be studied and revealed in the years to come, but one thing is certain: e-cigarettes are not safe and are especially dangerous to kids.

These are just a few things I wish I could go back and tell my 13-year-old self, and I’m sure there’s plenty more I could say too. My life and health has improved dramatically since I’ve taken the steps to finally quit.