By In the year 2000, over two in 10 young adults aged 18-24 smoked cigarettes.
Since 2022, the percentage of young adults smoking cigarettes has dropped from 22.7% to 4.9%, while one in 10 young adults now smoke e-cigarettes or vapes.
Statistically, the desire to eliminate a new generation of smokers was on its way to success before the 2006 introduction of vapor devices to the United States market.
Exploding in growth by 2018 and currently holding the title of a 21 billion dollar market, e-cigarette retailers have triumphed in their marketed innovations to continue generational smoking.
Approaches to improve public health by ending the use of vaping from campaigns like the Truth Initiative take two approaches: a priority of providing education, prevention and resources for quitting and support for federal legislation that includes tobacco control.
Carcinogens like formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, commonly found in vapor devices, are scientifically proven to damage the human body through respiratory issues and long-term conditions like lung and heart disease.
However, commonly employed anti-vaping campaigns are ineffective at their goal of eliminating generational smokers.
Anti-vaping ads are often seen in a narrative format, portraying a centralized main character as desperate, isolated and damaging to their loved ones around them.
A 2020 anti-vaping advertisement by The Real Cost, titled “Nicotine Addiction isn’t Pretty,” features a girl on her sports team leaving behind her friend and teammates to find her vape. The words, “What drug is so addictive you’d choose it over those who count on you?” are featured on the screen over her friend’s face. Photo credit: The Real Cost
Phrases including “nicotine alters your brain,” “nicotine = brain poison,” and “what drug is so addictive you’d choose it over those who count on you” equate the use of vapor devices as a moral bad entering your life, altering your brain to cause you to damage your loved ones.
Smoking nicotine is not a moral issue that will inevitably isolate people; it is a health risk that damages the body and can lead to death.
Kelly Tenny, a professor of Health Sciences at Long Beach State, argues that the “bad vs. good” narrative used in anti-vaping campaigns is ineffective in achieving their goals.
Before her status as CSULB lecturer, Tenny formerly taught health science within Long Beach Unified School District as a middle school teacher and oversaw the health curriculum taught in LBUSD.
Discussing her time at LBUSD, Tenny said she witnessed the rise of e-cigarettes and an education pivot within her field from teaching anti-tobacco to anti-vaping.
She discusses how, in health education, attaching a moral basis to a drug is ineffective in deterring the mass populace.
“In health education, we are considered a skill-based educational model, which means studies show that it does not matter if it is unhealthy,” Tenny said.
Tenny illustrated her point with an example: it is widely known that people need at least 7 hours of sleep per night, yet some do not, despite understanding the negative impact on their health.
It is not about whether studies support it as unhealthy – it’s about coupling that with an educational skill set model that teaches how to prepare oneself to make beneficial choices for their health.
“Addiction is really a coping mechanism,” Tenny said. “The root, in my mind, is how do we help people cope better with their programs. The truth is either they still need it as a coping mechanism, or even if they quit, they will go to some other habit.”
In the case of vaping, people use the practice as a coping skill, whether it be stress or boredom.
Part of the reason that anti-vaping campaigns so often take this narrative format is because of a lack of generational research proving the ramifications of vapor devices. However, e-cigs and vapes have only seen an introduction within the last 10-15 years.
More than enough research proves that vapor devices contain carcinogenic material to predict a detrimental result.
There are questions of what long-term results will arise from atomizing combinations of carcinogenic chemicals from an unregulated market sustained 90% of the time by foreign imports.
There may not be a generation displaying the effects of long-term vape use. However, there is proof from the failures of other drug campaigns like D.A.R.E. that the moral approach does not work.
For their goal of defeating generational smoking, there’s still time to reach their demographic properly.
