Vaping Underage

Vaping Underage

Nick Mercer, Staff Writer

Vaping as an underage adolescent is not only highly terrible for you, but also illegal. Vaping is an electric cigarette concept, it’s powered by electricity and has the same or even more nicotine content than actual cigarettes. 

Why does it affect my brain if it’s supposed to be “healthy”? The brain stops developing around the age of 21, the brain is extremely sensitive around those times they are developing, not to mention alcohol will also affect the development of your brain. Hypothetically, if you vaped as an adolescent, your current developing myelin sheath will not only shrink, but it also will stunt the process and development of the myelin sheath, if you vaped consistently then your brain will finish developing and including healing will end up being healthy and normal around the age of 28-30, that’s a 7-year difference of when the brain stops developing. Including that, your scores will also go down as a whole, and your current intellectual ability as an adolescent who vapes will not be able to catch up or even ever be up to par with an average adolescent who doesn’t smoke, your level may be at a 7th-grade level and you would be in the 9th grade

What other than teachers are stopping me from vaping? According to every single state in the US, you must be 21 to smoke, including E-cigarettes, cigarettes, etc… you are eligible to go to prison or juvenile hall if you smoke below the age of 21! The juvenile hall is just a prison for children to change their ways. But also if you are still old enough to go to prison if you are caught smoking below the age of 21 if you are at least 18. You must be at least 12 years old to go to juvenile hall, if you are ever caught below the age of 11, you don’t go anywhere, your guardian takes the entirety of the blame, and your guardian(s) will go, and serve the crime that you committed in jail or as a hefty fine.

Why is it even worse for you? Vaping causes Popcorn Lung also known as bronchiolitis obliterans, a symptom in the Lungs where the scar tissues in the lung clump up and form one large clump through a chemical called diacetyl which is commonly found inside of chemical solution of vapes. Why is it called popcorn lung? It is named popcorn lung because, in a microwave popcorn factory, the workers were breathing diacetyl which was a part of the flavoring of the popcorn.

 

In conclusion, Vaping as an adolescent can affect you in many ways at once, especially being a child and in school, you already have enough to worry about, and then vaping? Vaping can take effect at all angles as a child… So at least wait some time before you make the decision to vape.