Young adults who are more familiar with e-cigarette marketing practices are more likely to have attitudes against vaping than those unaware of the industry’s marketing, according to a study led by Drexel University public health researchers published this month in the journal Tobacco Control.
Expanding on ways cigarettes were marketed in the 1970s, such as using models and hosting smoking events, e-cigarette marketing includes more modern tactics, like paying social media influencers to promote vaping. The findings, from researchers at Drexel’s Dornsife School of Public Health and The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, suggest that efforts to educate young people about e-cigarette marketing tactics can help reduce the number of new vape users.
The researchers surveyed 1,329 young adults, 18–30, who never used tobacco products—but were deemed “susceptible to vaping,” from their responses to screening questions—about their awareness of the e-cigarette industry’s marketing practices and their level of agreement with anti-e-cigarette attitude statements, such as “taking a stand against vaping is important to me.”
I started vaping to stop smoking too. It feels like I can physically breathe easier, I don’t smell like cigarettes, and it’s easier to only have one puff from a vape vs only having one put from a cigarette.
Oddly enough, 99% of the pushback that I’ve heard from people in real life came from cigarette smokers. Jokes on them though, it’s helping to keep me away from cigarettes out of spite at this point.
Some people heard about the popcorn lung fiasco caused by black market cannabis pods, and decided to make it their life goal to mention it to anyone that they see vaping. It’s as if they feel like they just magically KNOW that all vapes will cause it, no exceptions.
To get fewer young people to stop vaping, they’re going to have to do a lot. Helping with the rampant mental health issues would be a good start. Nothing keeps an addiction going like continuous pain and internal struggles. Adults struggle with it too, yet a lot of people just assume young people are going to magically pull coping mechanisms from their rear.