New Milford Teens Say No to Vaping

Driving down Route 7 in New Milford, you may have noticed a large billboard urging our local teenagers to join the large majority of students enrolled at New Milford High School that do not use vaping products. 

Vaping presents a myriad of issues detrimental to general health, most notably that nicotine adversely affects adolescent brain development (which is not completed until age 25). It is highly addictive. Nicotine can harm the parts of the brain that control attention, learning, mood, and impulse control (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Smoking Cessation: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2020 [accessed 2022 April 4]). Nicotine damages the way that synapses, or connections, between brain cells are formed. In adolescence, synapses should be forming at a very fast rate, faster than they form in an adult. New synapses are formed when new memories are made or new skills are learned. Exposure to nicotine prevents this from happening properly.

Because of the cloud of vapor that is created by vapes, everyone in the vicinity of the vaper is also adversely affected in this way. This cloud is not harmless water vapor, as many vape users describe it. It is actually an aerosol of a variety of harmful chemicals, including nicotine, ultrafine particles that travel deep into the lungs, diacetyl (a chemical that is associated with serious lung disease), volatile organic compounds, cancer-causing chemicals, and heavy metals such as nickel, tin and lead. None of these chemicals belong in the lung tissue and are all associated with disease.

Vaping use has also been demonstrated to be associated with the development of mental health problems including depression (Lechner WV, Janssen T, Kahler CW, Audrain-McGovern J, Leventhal AM. Bi-directional associations of electronic and combustible cigarette use onset patterns with depressive symptoms in adolescents. Preventive Medicine 2017;96:73-78).

You may have noticed at your last cleaning that your dentist may have mentioned the dangers of vaping and wondered why your dentist would be so concerned about this topic. It has been shown that the incidence of dental cavities increases in vapers ("Association Between Vaping and Untreated Caries: A Cross-Sectional Study of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2017-2018 Data,). Patients that use e-cigarettes and vapes are more likely to have untreated dental cavities.

Because vaping is a relatively new phenomenon, many studies have not yet been completed. But, it has been firmly established that the risks of vaping outweigh any possible positive aspects of the practice.