Island teens hear about consequences of vaping

Health Canada is visiting P.E.I. high schools this weekto try to combat what officials say isa concerning trend among teens in this country more are vaping, orinhaling nicotine through e-cigarettes.

"The myth with teenagers is that it's a healthy option,"said KamelMesallati with Health Canada.

"Most of the teenagers think it's water vapour or it has no harmful chemicals. We're here to make them understand the fact it has harmful chemicals."

Health Canada isusingan interactive maze to drive home the message. Itwas set up at Westisle Composite High Schoolin Elmsdale on Thursday.

'Way worse than I thought'

Students mustcomplete a series of activities to get through the maze, all aimed at illustrating the consequences of vaping.

"I did learn that nicotine is way worse than I thought, and it can become an addiction," said Crystal Clements, a Grade 12 student at Westisle."A lot of people think that you can't get an addiction but you really can."

The presentation also highlights the fact the nicotine inhaled through vapingcan cause lung damageand alter teens' brain development.

"Like, I never really knew much about the consequences of vaping before this," said Grade 11 student Leandra Jeffrey.

"I think that cigarettes are kind of considered more bad than vaping, because you have tobacco in it and everything, where vaping you don't hear all that," added Grade 10 student Shailynn Richards."You don't hear about all the chemicals, and it's a new thing."

New generation of nicotine users

Health Canada's Mesallatisaid while the intent of e-cigarettes may have originally been to provide smokers with a healthier alternative, most of the Island students he has spoken towho are vapingdid notsmoke before.

Students CBCNews spoke to saidthey are seeing the same thing.

"This yearvaping's kind of gone wild basically. It's become a lot more popular," said Richards.

"People just think cigarettes stink now, where vaping, they have the flavoursand they think it just smells better," added Jeffrey.

"It kind of became a trend on social mediaand people just want to try, and fit in."

'You find it from other students'

It is illegal in Canada for anyone under 19 to purchase vaping products like e-cigarettes and nicotine juice.

But students saidit isnot difficultfor young people to gettheir hands on those products.

"You see on Instagram or Snapchat, that someone has a vape for sale.So you find it from other students, or siblings over 19 maybe would [sell it]," said Richards.

Westisle's vice-principal Brian Gardsaid staff do catch students vaping and in possession ofvaping products at school.

Gard saidit is school policy toconfiscate the productsand that it "usually leads to a suspension." He saidhe ishoping Health Canada's presentation will drivehome that the health consequences are much greater than that.

"We want to see studentsmake smart choices, and healthy choices, and [vaping] is not one of them."

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