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CNN (CNN) – The CDC, the FDA, the White House and litigators want young people to stop using electronic cigarettes in the middle of a mysterious
epidemic of hundreds of pulmonary diseases related to vaping.
But what do the vapers think?
CNN traveled to Washington Square Park, New York, to meet with youth who had or had the habit of breaking free from their desire to understand their experiences, thoughts, and reactions to recent health warnings .
The conversations – all with students aged 18 to 21 – examine how drug addicts handle interlinked public health crises: one in the other: a
youth vaping epidemic
and the
epidemic of serious lung diseases.
Here are their stories.
"I was nonstop Juuling up a storm"
Sydney Kinsey, a 21-year-old student from New York University, began smoking during her stay abroad in London. His habit has intensified during a semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina. So, to quit her addiction to nicotine, she had a Juul in June. A Juul is an electronic cigarette device, slightly smaller than a pen, that uses pods filled with nicotine in liquid form.
Initially, she liked the fact that it was convenient and kept her from smelling cigarette smoke. But she started to feel worse about her use recently.
"I could say that it made me feel less good in the body, in my head, I was getting a lot more anxious, but my joints and my lungs were also hurting me," she said. "I used it a lot more than I'd ever used (cigarettes) .Instead of going out and smoking like a cigarette a day, I was like a nonstop for Juuling up." A storm, which is not fun. "
Juuling was expensive, she said, and she began to see
news about the dead
of disease related to the vape and reading on
Doubtful business practices of Juul.
So she stopped last week, throwing her juul into a garbage can of the city so she does not change her mind. She said that she misses it.
"It's like my phone.It's the same quality of dependence as my phone, as I'm just waiting to have it in my pocket, and I miss it." to have in a pocket to do something, "she said.
& # 39; You can feel that it hurts the lungs & # 39;
Investigators do not know exactly what causes these vaping-related lung diseases. But US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that all reported cases of use of electronic cigarettes and some have reported a
history of THC vaping,
the psychoactive compound in marijuana.
This is not a surprise for Laura Kesnig, 21 years old.
She started vaping THC cartridges on the black market while she was attending New School in New York, and she knew that these were not good for her.
"You buy them illegally, so who knows what's in there," she said. "It's funny because when you hit him, you can feel it hurts your lungs. It does not feel like hitting a joint or anything, it hurts you.
"But we just said for so long that it's okay, it's going to go, it's grass, it can not hurt you." And then it all comes out and it's like, we knew it from the beginning. "
Kesnig said that she had started smoking marijuana at about 15 years old but that she had been steaming THC because of its ease.
"These were so easy," she says. "You have nothing to do, you just buy it and then you hit it, and it's so easy."
The ease of vaping, compared to brightening a joint, made her more dependent, and she could feel her concentration diminish by dint of using it so often. She finished her last round of THC last week and started smoking "the old-fashioned good old thing," she said.
"(I feel) really better, honestly better," she said.
& # 39; I know it's bad & # 39;
Brooklyn Johnson's whole family smokes cigarettes, but tobacco has never been so appealing to her.
Instead, the 20 year old student from New York University bought a Juul this summer on a whim and now vape about a pod a week.
"I had just the idea behind my head for about two years, and then this summer, I was like, no matter who, I will do it," he said. she declared. "It was not really a big deal, I suppose, I was just like, I know it's bad, I probably should not, and then I gave it up."
She was nonchalant about the vaping, saying it was just something to do.
"(That's) something to have in my hand and to do.There is a rush in the head, but it's more an activity than a way that makes me feel", she said. "If I watch TV, I'll be Juuling."
After reading news about pulmonary diseases related to vaping, she said that she had thought that she should probably stop smoking.
"I still do not have, I do not know," she says. "It sounds morbid, but I think it's more likely that I will die than by Juuling."
& # 39; I'm pretty in & # 39;
Juul Labs says his product "has always been designed to be a viable alternative for the one billion adult smokers currently in the world."
Yet Ethan Uno first tried a friend's Juul at a party at the age of 17, and he became addicted after just one night.
"Toward the end of the night, I loved what I felt, nicotine is high," he said. "I received one the next day and I went there nicely."
Uno, a 20-year-old from San Diego, California, knew that it was not good for him. But it was so accessible.
"You can literally do it at any time of the day, for example when you do your homework – it was so easy in that sense," he said.
It was constantly sprayed for about six months, but only then sporadically. He has not touched nicotine for more than a year, he said, a decision that he took in part because he feared that it would hurt his health.
"I kind of figured it would happen, just the fact that it's an inexperienced experience, and that's a bit of what I've subconsciously pushed back," he said. .
Medical cases of pulmonary disease related to vaping are personal. He added that a friend's younger brother had been hospitalized for a lung problem probably caused by a vaping.
'Like eating a cookie & # 39;
With a purple NYU thong around the neck – a revealing sign of a freshman in his first weeks of class – Olive was walking around the university with a Juul in her arms.
"I just like that," said the 18-year-old about vaping. "It's like you like to eat a biscuit. I just enjoy it."
She said that she had been taking clothes at friends' homes in Washington State and that she had been panting for two months now. But she read the news about her health risks, so she announced her intention to leave "soon". It's a loose plan, she admitted.
"It makes me panic that we do not know the long-term effects of vaping as we do with cigarettes, but I do not know it, it's scary," she said.
Olive refused to give her last name, claiming that her mother, an emergency doctor, would not be happy with her. That was another reason she wanted to stop.
"So, I feel really guilty too, I feel bad," she said. "If my mother knew it, she would be furious."
"It sounds like fear"
Stephen Cambor, 20, started vaping for the first time around the age of 14, in his eighth or ninth year, and he remembered his first time because it "put me on my ass", did he declare.
"I thought, 'Oh, I can have a super surprise for 10 seconds, then come back to class,'" he said. "Like a buzzing of the head very loud to the point where all your blood has the impression to vibrate."
Now 20 years old, a student at New York University, he uses every day a little less than a Stig, a disposable electronic cigarette.
He said that he "thought" to stop because he had noticed that vaping made it very difficult to treat diseases, such as colds. But he is not convinced that the regular use of the electronic cigarette is at the origin of this epidemic of serious lung diseases.
"That's why I'm thinking of" quitting instead of saying I'm quitting, because that sounds a lot like fear, "he said. "Just because none of the news articles really gives details of how these kids died and what was different from their case compared to the millions of other people who knew what was wrong." They were doing. "
"I will not buy cigarettes for $ 18"
Andrea DeLeon, 20, has made a habit of dressing up on the streets of New York.
"I literally found a Juul in the street," she said. "I picked it up and took it home, I tidied it, and I thought, well, it'll be cheaper because I got it for free and I will not buy cigarettes for about $ 18. "
She had smoked an occasional cigarette before coming to New York. Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, DeLeon grew up in a place where smoking was ubiquitous. She started smoking at the age of 18.
"As in all the bars where you go, people will smoke outside," she said. "It's part of the culture."
The habit became more common when she entered college in New York, in a very stressful environment and surrounded by smokers. After finding Juul on the floor, she evaporated for about a year, smoking about one pod every two to three days, she said.
But she says that she started reading articles about Juul's health effects and that she became addicted to nicotine. She knew that she had to quit, so she gave Juul to her friend.
Instead, she started rolling her own tobacco cigarettes to quench her thirst, and she recently quit smoking. She is in her third week without nicotine.
"It feels good to get to a point where I can say no to someone and not just tell myself" Okay, I'm just going to smoke. "It's good," said DeLeon. "I do not need a cigarette to talk to my friend, I can just tell my friend, let's go outside so that I can hear better."
"It's a bit myopic"
Zane Kerr, 21, started smoking cigarettes in high school in Raleigh, North Carolina, but began emptying his second year at NYU. It was practical.
"When I used the e-vape, it was so much easier that I could carry it with me," he said. "I would do it all the time, I would do it in the bathrooms here, between classes, whatever, like all the time."
In general, he comes and goes between vaping and smoking. But he has not used his vape since about June; He is more interested in rolling his own cigarettes with loose tobacco.
"I still have a nicotine addiction, so I'm going to get it in one way or another – it's mostly what's economical for me," he said. he declared.
Kerr said that he knew that smoking had long-term effects – his grandfather died young after spending years smoking cigarettes.
"To be quite honest with you, I do not know how much I really care about my health at the moment." It's a bit short-sighted, but that's what it's like. I am just young, I do not care, which is nice. "
"Gummy bear" or something & # 39;
Kayla Nelson now steals Juul mint, but she has started to taste a different taste.
"Like a gelatin bear or something," she says. "(That was) pretty good."
The 20-year-old girl from Tampa, Florida, smoked cigarettes in high school, but she knew it was not sustainable and she did not like the smell or the taste. So, at NYU University, she had a vape in Suorin and later she had a Juul. She now vape about one or two pods a week.
She said that she "probably would not have" started to run out of steam if she had not had that bear gelatin flavor.
The Trump administration decides to ban flavored electronic cigarettes
logic.
"I wish they would not do it, but I understand why, because minor children should not smoke so soon," she said.
"It looks horrible to tell me all that"
"Sam," a student from New York University who refused to give his real name, started smoking when he was in the army in Singapore, and he began to run out of steam to reduce smoking.
"(That's) pretty much identical to me as a cigarette, except that it does not come with odor or stigma," he said. "Now, obviously, that has changed to the point where there is now a stigma against it, too."
He said that he's out of cigarettes now. He knows that vaping is not ideal, but he can not leave it completely. he had tried so coldly turkey last year, but the lack of nicotine gave him headaches and made him irritable.
"You certainly feel it in your throat, you feel the physiological need, in my opinion," he said.
He now uses a lush Ice Stig, a disposable e-cigarette. While he was playing skillfully with the Stig between his fingers, Sam listed a series of reasons why he continued to vape.
The college is stressful. This is the lesser of the two evils. He is at a transient moment in his life. It's more affordable.
Then he stopped talking while listening to his own words.
"It sounds horrible to tell me all that, okay, as if I was vocalising it," he said.
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