GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Vaping among kids has increased over the last year. The Food and Drug Administration reported on Thursday that 2,550,000 middle school and high school students in the U.S. are currently using e-cigarettes.
Dorian Fuhrman is a co-founder of Parents Against Vaping e-cigarettes, a grassroots organization dedicated to educating schools, parents, and kids on the dangers of vaping.
She said what's happening right now is an “epidemic.”
“This year, there is a 500,000 child increase over last year,” Fuhrman said during a Zoom interview with FOX 17. “So, last year the numbers were almost 2.1 million kids were vaping. This year, it’s over 2.5, 2.55 million to be exact.”
Fuhrman said one of the worst outcomes of vaping is addiction. It’s something she witnessed firsthand in her own family.
“My oldest son was vaping and it was extremely hard for him to stop. He actually has stopped. He’s in college now. But, he’s told me it took like 10 or 15 times for him to be able to stop,” Fuhrman said about her son Phillip, who began vaping at 14 years old. “He was very open about it and we’ve talked about it, you know, in the media. He really said kids need their parents. Kids cannot do it alone.”
She said he’s been free of e-cigarettes for over a year now, but it was “incredibly heartbreaking” to watch him struggle. They both now speak out publicly about his journey.
“Addiction is scary,” Fuhrman said. “They’re spending so much money on these products because they can’t stop. There’s no portion control. They’re sleeping with them under their pillows sometimes, you know, and vaping 24-7. So, I really think that parents need to be aware.”
She said talking to kids about the dangers of vaping is one of the best defenses to making sure they don’t get into it.
“We have seen kids in rehab. I mean, we’ve seen kids having lung replacement because they’ve had serious reactions,” Fuhrman said. “I’m talking about regular old e-cigarettes. There have been kids who’ve had their lungs replaced. We had a family — horrible story — the child had asthma. He was so addicted. After two asthma attacks he still couldn’t stop. He passed away from his third asthma attack.”
Fuhrman added that Juul and copycat brands are to blame for much of epidemic. She said they created a “youth vaping epidemic” after they made flavored ones and produced ads that targeted children.
“Now you have brands like this,” Fuhrman said. “I mean, if you were a parent you would see this and think it was a crayon. But these are flavored-vaping products. These are the new disposable e-cigarette products.”
Fuhrman held up red and blue ones in her hands during the interview, showing how simple they look.
Specifically, the FDA/CDC reported stated that of the kids who took the survey and stated that they used e-cigarettes, 84.9 used flavored e-cigarettes. And from that number, the reported flavor types were: 69.1 percent were fruit-flavored; 38.3 were candy/dessert/sweets flavored; and 29.4 percent were mint-flavored.
She said all of them are dangerous.
“Ultimately, we want all flavored e-cigarette products banned. In 2009, the federal government ended the sale of all flavored cigarettes, except for menthol. And now they’ve started the rule-making process to end the sale of menthol cigarettes because they know that flavors addict kids,” Fuhrman said. “Now, these products came out. They come in hundreds of flavors. As I’ve said before, the kids don’t perceive harm. We really feel that as long as these products are sold only in tobacco flavor and all the sweet, fruity, mentholated flavors are taken off the market, you know, kids have a chance.”
