It should be of no surprise to anyone that the RE@L blog team demonstrates vigilance when it comes to sourcing important articles about teen nicotine and vaping. After all, friends of RE@L are savvy about RE@L’s commitment to play a large part in taking down teen nicotine with its newest classroom product, 1Up On Vaping™.
In this last blog post of 2021, the BlogTeam is providing a collection of recent articles about teen tobacco use via vaping. We call this blogpost:
Schools today are faced with complicated challenges. As a result, teen vaping at epidemic levels has largely continued unnoticed. With uncertainties surrounding a pandemic and vaccinations and whether students and staff should mask or not, and school funding, and curriculum controversies in many content areas, it’s no wonder teen vaping in our schools is occurring as it is — surreptitiously as a thief in the day and night stealing our good health — and possibly forever!
The challenge for all of us is: it’s still there; and with an acknowledged uptick in student stress and mental health, it’s likely that vaping of nicotine and other substances are on the rise with America’s teens. You don’t think it’s true? Try this article: Many Young People Turn To Nicotine To Deal With Stress, Anxiety, and Depression But Don’t Know It May Be Making Them Feel Worse.
Research on vaping continues at a strong and methodical pace. You may wish to read RE@L’s previous blog, Chemicals! Chemicals!, which outlines the many identifiable chemicals found in nicotine vapes, but concurrently acknowledges there are thousands of chemicals that remain unidentified.
On December 10, Channel 3, WBTV from Charlotte, NC provided a summary of the new craze: vaping melatonin to promote sleep. Seems obvious doesn’t it? But doctors are waving the cautionary yellow flags and even the more terminal red flags over this new vaping practice.
In his November 21, 2021 blog post, Dr. Stanton Glantz cites new research about vaping and how it disrupts mitochondria and promotes inflammation independent of the effects of past smoking.
And, of course, there appears to be very few ways OUT of the vaping habit once it starts with pod-based devices like the JUUL. As a matter of fact, this October 29, 2021 article from truthinitiative.org summarizes how devices like the JUUL are tied to a greater dependence on e-cigarettes.
While the research continues and the findings are summarized in various ways through myriad channels, anti-tobacco, anti-vaping activism may at an all-time high.
Redwood City in California, for instance, has banned the sale of flavored tobacco products.
Read about it here in the Patch, from Redwood City – Woodside, California.
Not to be outdone, this November 3, 2021 article from the Minneapolis StarTribune outlines the 
dramatic new tobacco restrictions passed by the city of St. Paul, Minnesota. In a subsequent opinion from the same paper, the editorial board publicly acknowledges the bold and necessary leadership from St. Paul city leaders.
At RE@L, we applaud the work by both researchers and activists who are shining a light on 
these topics. We are intrigued by the many non-profit organizations — many in each state — that have set their sights to take down teen nicotine. One of those organizations is the Tobacco Free Alliance of Minnesota. Read about their unique activities here, on the Minnesota Department of Health website.
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As we bring a close to the year 2021, we at RE@L salute those researchers and those active organizations who are committed — like we are at RE@L — to Take Down Teen Nicotine. We are friends in their work with our research-based, anti-tobacco, anti-vaping curriculum, 1Up On Vaping™.
Developed with middle school learners in mind, 1Up On Vaping™ is a solid, teacher and student-tested curriculum which is engaging. The student becomes the main character in a three chapter graphic arts story where they learn about nicotine and vaping and refusal skills. Several games supplement the learning. Click the banner below for more information about RE@L’s 1 Up On Vaping™.
*Some images in this blog were provided courtesy of pixy.org