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SALT LAKE CITY — Cool, or corrupting? The popularity of e-cigarettes is rapidly expanding, especially with teens, and marketing efforts appear to only be ramping up. It's raising concerns from lawmakers, school districts, public health officials and parents.
"They're extremely popular at every school," said one high school-aged teen from Davis County, who asked not to be identified because of family differences. "It's like everywhere I go I'm always hearing about them inside the school and I know a lot of people, too, who smoke them inside the school."
The teen said he was first introduced to electronic cigarettes years ago, and he's been on-and-off with the devices ever since. His favorite flavor is "mango."
"If I have my e-cigarette that day, I'm probably going to puff on it all day because I can," he said, noting the device isn't easily spotted or detected because it is odorless.
Though the teen said he was not addicted, he acknowledged the inherent risk.
"Definitely it's addicting," he said. "There's nicotine in these e-cigs and that's what people are addicted to in cigarettes.
It's one of our bigger concerns. We want to make sure the kids understand they're not safe.
–Dave Burt, Weber School District
The numbers show the teen isn't anywhere close to alone.
Statewide survey numbers compiled by the Utah Department of Health's Tobacco and Prevention Control Program this year showed 5.9 percent of 8th, 10th and 12th graders regularly use e-cigarettes. That's more than the 4.6 percent who reported using hookah and 3.8 percent who acknowledged smoking cigarettes.
However, some areas saw much higher percentages of teens using e-cigarettes.
- 19.9 percent of teens surveyed in the Weber-Morgan health district reported using e-cigarettes multiple times in a 30-day period.
- 30 percent of Weber-Morgan teens polled said they had "experimented" with e-cigarettes in a 90-day period.
"That was alarming to us, so we decided we wanted to do something about it," said Weber School District student services coordinator Dave Burt. The Weber School District is in its first year of a tough new policy against electronic cigarettes, he said.
Burt said e-cigarettes are banned like tobacco products in Weber schools. Not only can violating teens potentially be suspended - their cases can get turned over to the juvenile courts as a violation under the Utah Indoor Clean Air Act.
"Right now it's one of our bigger concerns," Burt said. "We want to make sure that the kids understand they're not safe."
Related:
Study: Children's use of e-cigarettes increasing
Children – like adults – are increasingly trying electronic cigarettes, according to the first large national study to gauge use by middle and high school students.State Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, said he planned to introduce legislation that would place limits on marketing - including no internet sales.
Ray said he also wanted to institute a licensing and compliance process, and he wanted all age requirements to be the same as traditional smokes.
"Let's treat it like we would any other tobacco product and just kind of have a level playing field when it comes to those products," Ray said.
Coming up Friday in part two of KSL NewsRadio's look at e-cigarettes, it's a look at the pro-"vaping" perspective, as well as concerns over illegal drug abuse involving the devices. It airs Friday at 7:45 a.m. and 5:45 p.m. on KSL NewsRadio.
