If you’re a teenager then you know what vaping is. Whether your parents lecture you on it, your health teacher taught you about it or a guest speaker came in and spoke about it, we all know how dangerous it is. But in recent years it seems that vaping is teens’ newest trend and has become the most common in middle and high schoolers, even with warnings against it. 

One of the biggest reasons that teens vape is that they think it’s better than cigarettes. 

“They think it’s a safe alternative,” said Marcey Watkins, the HSA (Health Services Aid) at Liberty. Another reason is that their curious and don’t think it’s a big deal. Even with it being taught in schools that it’s bad, some students think that even trying it once won’t hurt them. 

“I wanted to try it and see what all the fuss is about,” said an anonymous student.  

The truth is that while vaping doesn’t have all the harmful contaminants that tobacco smoke does, it still has dangerous chemicals in them. The biggest being nicotine, which is highly addictive and harms the development of the brain in teens. To make things worse, a Juul has as much nicotine in it as a 20 pack of regular cigarettes. Vaping also exposes you and the people around you to cancer-causing chemicals and heavy metals among other things. 

With vaping being so recent, health professionals don’t really know the long-term effects it can have on the human body, but recently we might have a little more insight on what might happen. 

Last month, an 18-year-old Florida man named Chance Ammirata was treated for a collapsed lung due to a hole in his left lung that doctors say was caused by him inhaling something. Ammirata later said that he believed the hole in his lung was caused by him vaping and urges others to stop. Sadly, he’s not the only one. Recently, six people have died from vaping related illnesses and there are hundreds of more suspected cases across America. 

While it is likely that vaping one time won’t kill you, it can still get you addicted to nicotine, which long-term can kill you. The bottom line is that if people continue to vape, they might die. With vaping being so recent there isn’t a lot of research done on it and the long term effects aren’t known. But we can learn from what we know now, and that is if you vape your lungs might collapse, or you might get a mysterious illness caused by vaping. Take what has happened to other people and use it as a warning to stop vaping before it kills you.