Utah’s kids, nicotine, and marijuana
E-cigarettes are touted as a safe way to stop smoking. Maybe or maybe not, but they certainly are a lucrative way of hooking people, especially young people, on nicotine and an easy way for Utah’s illegal drug suppliers to dispense THC extract, marijuana’s psychedelic ingredient.
The American Medical Association’s Pediatrics journal reports that e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking tobacco and marijuana for teens and young adults. Either outcome is bad news.
Nicotine is an addictive drug. According to the federal government’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Most smokers use tobacco regularly because they are addicted to nicotine. The majority of smokers would like to stop smoking, and each year about half try to quit permanently. Yet, only about 6 percent of smokers are able to quit in a given year.”
E-cigarettes’ claim to fame is providing the nicotine that its addicts crave without tobacco’s carcinogens. Yet a number of studies have cast a shadow over this claim. While some studies have endorsed e-cigarettes as helping smokers quit, others say they might actually have the opposite effect.
The U.S. Surgeon General reports that nicotine is especially damaging to teens and young adults, affecting mood, stress levels, anxiety, irritability, and concentration. A single Juul cartridge, the top-selling e-cigarette and a teen favorite, contains as much nicotine as an entire pack of cigarettes.
Turn now to marijuana, which I’ve called “risky medicine.” My column on the subject documented medical professionals’ extensive research on marijuana’s negative effects. States that have legalized recreational marijuana are in effect running a widespread clinical trial on a drug with serious known side effects, especially for young people.
Now marijuana advocates have yet another reason for concern: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 1,479 vaping-related lung injuries and 33 deaths as of Oct. 17. Most of these lung injury patients reported that they had vaped an e-cigarette containing THC.
The Utah Department of Health reported 83 cases of vaping-related lung disease and one death as of Oct. 15. Over 90 percent of these patients said they had vaped THC, which is illegal in Utah.
The widespread adoption of e-cigarettes has provided illegal drug suppliers a ready platform to use THC extract. Pinpointing the problem’s source is difficult: Drug suppliers don’t submit to inspections by medical authorities, but the problem is clearly THC-related.
Marketing bots making automated social media posts glamorized flavored e-cigarettes, resulting in an explosion of teen use. Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said that bot marketing “fights regulators and it misleads kids about the products.”
Utah’s controversial legalization of medical marijuana put THC on teen radar screens. If marijuana is legal medicine, why not use it?
The result: Far too many Utah teens and young adults are hooked on nicotine and using marijuana.
In a long-overdue move, the Utah Department of Health issued a rule restricting the sale of flavored e-cigarettes to licensed retail tobacco businesses. We need nationwide restrictions on marketing e-cigarettes to young people, analogous to those imposed on tobacco companies.
A hopeful sign is mounting pushback against legalizing recreational marijuana. Last year, marijuana advocates forecast that New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Minnesota would legalize the drug in 2019. None did. Suburban lawmakers in these states representing parents who’ve seen marijuana’s ill effects on their children proved to be the deciding factor.
Utah’s teens don’t need e-cigarette nicotine or THC. If this corrosive tide is to be stemmed, it’s time for parents and other responsible citizens to make their voices heard over the drumbeat of commercial interests that stand to profit by their sale.
It’s time to stop glamorizing e-cigarettes and treat them as the drug dispensers they are.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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