Latest / Millennial Mental Health Channel / Blue Raspberry Nicotine Dream

Transcript

Blue Raspberry Nicotine Dream · Millennial Mental Health Channel

0:00
Speaker 1: What do you think? How often are you seeing vaping
0:02
Speaker 1: in school? You're my boots on the ground for school.
0:05
Speaker 2: What do you think all the time?
0:09
Speaker 1: Welcome to MMHC, your go to mental health podcast.
0:13
Speaker 2: I'm Eddie Kreo, a licensed professional counselor.
0:15
Speaker 1: And I'm Justin Romano, a Board certified Child and Adolescent psychiatrist.
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Speaker 2: We created MMHC to give listeners evidence based information directly
0:23
Speaker 2: from professionals who work in mental health.
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Speaker 1: We're not influencers, we're not trying to sell you anything.
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Speaker 1: We just want to bring love, empathy, and understanding of
0:31
Speaker 1: mental health into this world.
0:33
Speaker 2: And we really think that learning about mental health should
0:35
Speaker 2: be fun, interesting, and most importantly honest.
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Speaker 1: So thanks for tuning in. This is a show by
0:41
Speaker 1: two millennials, but it is intended to be for everyone.
0:44
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoy the show. MMHC is a production
0:49
Speaker 1: of Speaker from iHeartMedia Me I Heartmr.
0:54
Speaker 2: Well.
0:54
Speaker 1: Hello, welcome back to Millennial Mental Health Channel. Eddie and
0:59
Speaker 1: I have taken a little break for the summer. We're
1:02
Speaker 1: trying to get a little bit more sultry, a little
1:04
Speaker 1: deeper on this podcast here today. So Eddie, give me
1:08
Speaker 1: your shout outs.
1:11
Speaker 2: I don't like how breathy. This is.
1:16
Speaker 1: What's the problem.
1:19
Speaker 2: Mike Corker just told me that she's gonna go see
1:22
Speaker 2: Boys to Men this weekend, and like this is just
1:25
Speaker 2: in line with that. Yeah, shout outs, yeah, I mean, yeah,
1:31
Speaker 2: we've had a little bit of a summer break, but
1:33
Speaker 2: we're excited to be back. The World Cup was a
1:36
Speaker 2: lot of fun. Mexico has the best Mexico team I've
1:39
Speaker 2: seen in probably my lifetime. I told Justin I have
1:43
Speaker 2: this TikTok Shop Mexico baseball jersey on it's straight polyester,
1:48
Speaker 2: so I am baking in this but still go Mexico.
1:51
Speaker 2: I mean that was that was a fun fun World Cup. Yeah,
1:54
Speaker 2: we're just we're excited to be back and get back
1:56
Speaker 2: to it. We've had a even though we haven't posted,
1:59
Speaker 2: just downloads have been coming. And then I was telling
2:00
Speaker 2: Jesson we had a couple of weeks and we had
2:02
Speaker 2: a good chunk of like about the same amount of
2:04
Speaker 2: downloads we have when a new episode releases, even though
2:07
Speaker 2: we hadn't released anything. So that's been a lot of fun.
2:09
Speaker 2: We appreciate you all listening and sticking around. We're probably
2:13
Speaker 2: back to our regularly scheduled schedule. So we're excited to
2:16
Speaker 2: turn that out for y'all and just I mean, honestly,
2:18
Speaker 2: we just enjoy hanging out together and then just recording
2:21
Speaker 2: it and posting it. So it's good for us. We
2:23
Speaker 2: hope it's good for you. But yeah, that's all I
2:26
Speaker 2: got for shout outs, you got anything.
2:28
Speaker 1: I got a shout out for France, not for the
2:31
Speaker 1: World Cup, but for they earlier this week just banned
2:35
Speaker 1: social media for anyone under fifteen, so they are the
2:38
Speaker 1: first European country to ban social media, following Australia's lead. So, hey,
2:45
Speaker 1: it's happening. It's going. If any Cheyenne listeners are listening
2:50
Speaker 1: to this, we're going to get a like a community
2:53
Speaker 1: discussion going in Cheyenne through the hospital. We're going to
2:57
Speaker 1: have it at the library. It's going to be in August.
2:59
Speaker 1: So yeah, if anyone's interested in that, keep your ears peeled.
3:04
Speaker 2: Because that's a phrase.
3:05
Speaker 1: That's a thing. Yeah, if you want to get involved
3:08
Speaker 1: in trying to be a part of this, the solution
3:11
Speaker 1: to what we think is a pretty solid technological addiction
3:15
Speaker 1: for an entire generation.
3:17
Speaker 2: Some small.
3:19
Speaker 1: It's no big deal.
3:20
Speaker 2: I was telling justin this summer, I've been working on
3:22
Speaker 2: some things for the school that I work at, one
3:25
Speaker 2: of which being a child childhood sexual abuse prevention lessons
3:31
Speaker 2: And actually a big part of it has to do
3:33
Speaker 2: with social media and how much that really plays into
3:36
Speaker 2: a child and a teen's of their upbringing and the
3:39
Speaker 2: decisions that happen and how they're impacted and unfortunately potentially
3:43
Speaker 2: taking advantage of. And so I mean, it's a big
3:45
Speaker 2: thing you think back to without it, I don't know.
3:49
Speaker 2: There's so many problems that are just new to us.
3:52
Speaker 2: They were not here fifteen years ago. When did let's see,
3:55
Speaker 2: I got a smartphone in twenty eleven, I remember that
3:58
Speaker 2: specifically right before I left, so fifteen years ago exactly that. Yeah,
4:02
Speaker 2: there's problems we did not have fifteen years ago that
4:04
Speaker 2: we're just now trying to figure out. So anyway, but
4:08
Speaker 2: we're not talking about social media today. We can, but
4:11
Speaker 2: we hope for today we want to talk about It's
4:14
Speaker 2: maybe we might lead into this a little bit. We
4:16
Speaker 2: might be the Summer of Substance You or the Substance
4:19
Speaker 2: You series this summer. We want to start it off
4:22
Speaker 2: with an episode about vaping. The idea and the inspiration
4:26
Speaker 2: for This episode actually came from another podcast. I don't
4:29
Speaker 2: know if you've ever listened to this justin Science Versus
4:32
Speaker 2: their host Wendy Zuckerman. They do a bunch of great episodes.
4:36
Speaker 2: There was this one they had it on vaping, like
4:37
Speaker 2: does it really cause cancer? That another one that I
4:40
Speaker 2: think they just reposted recently that was like narcissists Are
4:43
Speaker 2: they all? Are they all around us? They have one
4:46
Speaker 2: on like raw milk caffeine. There's a caffeine one that
4:49
Speaker 2: I listened to recently, which was good. I actually might
4:51
Speaker 2: have seen recently. What is The American Heart Association just
4:54
Speaker 2: came out and said those who drink up to five
4:57
Speaker 2: cups of coffee a day potential have lower risk of
5:01
Speaker 2: heart disease and obesity and diabetes. They did really want
5:06
Speaker 2: to make a specific though. It's not like energy drinks caffeine.
5:09
Speaker 2: It's like straight up coffee caffeine and drip coffee and
5:13
Speaker 2: stuff like that. But yeah, they have a lot of
5:15
Speaker 2: great episodes, but this is kind of where it came from.
5:17
Speaker 2: I was listening to the episode talked a lot about
5:20
Speaker 2: like does vaping cause cancer? I think in the end
5:23
Speaker 2: I did not get a definitive answer. There's a lot
5:25
Speaker 2: of good research and conversations with researchers, but we did
5:29
Speaker 2: not get a good answer. And I think one of
5:31
Speaker 2: the things that I enjoyed from it was one of
5:33
Speaker 2: the studies that they talked about where it said, like, yes,
5:36
Speaker 2: vaping causes cancer. They really made a point to say, well, yes,
5:40
Speaker 2: the study came with this conclusion, but they were also
5:44
Speaker 2: like gassing out rats in a lab. So is that
5:48
Speaker 2: really a good like real world example? No, not really
5:51
Speaker 2: So anyway, Yeah, great podcasts and okay's listened for a
5:54
Speaker 2: long time. I've been in and out of it over
5:56
Speaker 2: the last few years. Give it a listen Science Versus
5:58
Speaker 2: with Wendy Zuckerman. But it really got me to thinking,
6:02
Speaker 2: you and I work with teenagers a lot. That's our
6:04
Speaker 2: whole job. And I've noticed on the topic of vaping,
6:08
Speaker 2: they vape a ton, a shit ton, and I went
6:11
Speaker 2: back and looked, I'm like, we have not talked about
6:13
Speaker 2: vaping specifically, So we wanted to take a second to
6:16
Speaker 2: talk about vaping. How did we get here? Is what's
6:20
Speaker 2: the sitch on vaping currently in twenty twenty six, and
6:24
Speaker 2: we just want to do I guess a little bit
6:25
Speaker 2: of a deep dive. I had a good time just
6:27
Speaker 2: going into the history of it, licking on how we
6:29
Speaker 2: got to where we were to where we are now
6:31
Speaker 2: with vaping and and tobacco use and nicotine and cigarettes
6:34
Speaker 2: and cigars all that stuff. So that's what we're going
6:37
Speaker 2: to talk about. How did we get to this point,
6:39
Speaker 2: how did our teens get to this point? How are
6:41
Speaker 2: we going to fix it? But first, let's take a
6:45
Speaker 2: history lesson. Let's look at how cigarettes and tobacco started
6:49
Speaker 2: off in our.
6:49
Speaker 1: Country so long before Europeans arrived in America. And yeah,
6:55
Speaker 1: maybe changed the course of the world. Maybe Eddie put
6:58
Speaker 1: in the script ruined everything, But I didn't know. If
7:00
Speaker 1: I wanted to totally.
7:01
Speaker 2: Say that I did put a JK JK JK.
7:06
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe Native Americans grew and smoked tobacco for ceremonial, medicinal,
7:12
Speaker 1: and religious purposes. This was typically smoked in pipes or
7:15
Speaker 1: wrapped in corn husks, go huskers.
7:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, when the Europeans arrived, John Rolfe, who you may know,
7:23
Speaker 2: may not know, who was apparently and famously married to Pocahontas.
7:28
Speaker 2: I think in the movies is his name not John
7:30
Speaker 2: Smith Kevin and I talked about this hardon I already forgot.
7:33
Speaker 1: I think in the movies it is Smith.
7:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So he actually introduced a smoother Spanish strain
7:40
Speaker 2: of tobacco to Jamestown, Virginia in sixteen twelve. From here,
7:44
Speaker 2: tobacco quickly became the economic backbone of the American colleagues colonies,
7:48
Speaker 2: which unfortunately heavily drove the expansion of the Transatlantic slave trade.
7:54
Speaker 2: At the time, and for over two centuries, cigarettes were
7:57
Speaker 2: not the form of consumption. That's not how people would
8:01
Speaker 2: smoke tobacco. Typically they would use pipes, cigars, and they
8:04
Speaker 2: would use chewing tobacco. But then that all changed the
8:07
Speaker 2: Industrial Revolution. Previously cigarettes because he had to roll the
8:11
Speaker 2: by hand, little dooby, little spliff. You had to roll
8:14
Speaker 2: that by hand. That was a luxury, and at that
8:16
Speaker 2: time it was very time consuming. In eighteen eighty we
8:19
Speaker 2: had James Albert Bonsack. He invented a mechanical cigarette rolling
8:23
Speaker 2: machine that was capable of rolling over two hundred cigarettes
8:27
Speaker 2: in a minute, and thus we took off with the
8:29
Speaker 2: cigarette smoking.
8:31
Speaker 1: Then we entered the golden era of big tobacco nineteen
8:34
Speaker 1: fourteen to nineteen fifty. In World War One, and World
8:38
Speaker 1: War Two, cigarettes were included in soldiers' military rations, leading
8:42
Speaker 1: to a dependency in a huge number of young men.
8:46
Speaker 1: In the nineteen twenties, women were a target and a
8:49
Speaker 1: lot of campaigns titled torches of Freedom serving as a
8:53
Speaker 1: sign of liberation as well as a weight loss aid,
8:56
Speaker 1: which classic that we're still doing today. A lot of
8:59
Speaker 1: things are just mark it as weight loss aids towards women.
9:02
Speaker 1: In particular. By the forties and fifties, smoking was the
9:06
Speaker 1: it thing to do. Everyone was doing it. The peak
9:09
Speaker 1: of the tobacco industry in the United States, which was
9:13
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty four, about forty five percent of adults
9:16
Speaker 1: smoked versus eleven percent today, which is actually a fact
9:20
Speaker 1: that I threw into my ted X talk. It was
9:23
Speaker 1: like at the peak of smoking to kind of compare
9:25
Speaker 1: it to technology addiction that the ninety seven percent of
9:29
Speaker 1: teens have a smartphone. But we think about the smoking
9:33
Speaker 1: pandemics or epidemic as being like everyone was smoking, but
9:37
Speaker 1: even at its peak it was only forty five percent
9:38
Speaker 1: of American.
9:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's still crazy though. Think about that, like every
9:42
Speaker 2: half of almost half of people smoke cigarettes. Ye, that
9:46
Speaker 2: point of men in the military like that being included
9:51
Speaker 2: in like their rations. If you think about like old
9:53
Speaker 2: timey military pictures, how many of them are smoking cigarettes
9:57
Speaker 2: out on the field they're out doing their training. Like,
10:00
Speaker 2: didn't think about it until I saw that fact. So yeah,
10:03
Speaker 2: interesting stuff. Yeah, smoking was taking over, taking the nation
10:07
Speaker 2: by storm, but then after its peak, it all came
10:11
Speaker 2: crashing down, thank you to the lung and heart disease
10:15
Speaker 2: related incidents being studied and being studied and connected to
10:19
Speaker 2: the use of cigarettes. So in nineteen sixty four, this
10:22
Speaker 2: was pretty much the death blow to big tobacco and
10:27
Speaker 2: really uncovering that it wasn't this innocent corporation and this
10:31
Speaker 2: innocent entity anymore. At the time, Surgeon General Luther Terry
10:35
Speaker 2: released a landmark report stating unequivocally that cigarettes smoking causes
10:40
Speaker 2: lung cancer and chronic bronchitis. So pretty big deal. I
10:44
Speaker 2: think there's a kind of a famous like it were
10:47
Speaker 2: they like sitting up there giving testimony and that like
10:49
Speaker 2: that kind of just kind of shook the world from there.
10:51
Speaker 1: I love all those old clips of history of where
10:55
Speaker 1: it's like four out of five doctors say that they
10:59
Speaker 1: smoke camel, and it's like it was a weird time
11:03
Speaker 1: where when that report came out in nineteen sixty four,
11:06
Speaker 1: there was still a ton of pushback from the tobacco
11:08
Speaker 1: industry to try and minimalize the damage and say like, hey,
11:12
Speaker 1: look some doctors are still smoking. Hey look, we're gonna
11:15
Speaker 1: add filters to our cigarettes to make them safe. Like
11:18
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the NFL's attempts to make you
11:23
Speaker 1: think that helmets are safer these days, when really people
11:27
Speaker 1: are still getting concussions about the exact same rate, if
11:29
Speaker 1: not more. The marketing of all of this, but really
11:34
Speaker 1: it's still not good. Plus, smoking rates in the United
11:37
Speaker 1: States have gone down significantly since that peak in nineteen
11:41
Speaker 1: fifty four, and they have tried to really push cigarettes
11:44
Speaker 1: on the third world in third world countries to try
11:47
Speaker 1: and keep their profits up and sell as much tobacco
11:50
Speaker 1: as possible. So they're always just trying to make as
11:53
Speaker 1: much money as possible by ruining the health of everyone
11:56
Speaker 1: in the world.
11:58
Speaker 2: Well, I think when we were in Portugal, didn't we
12:00
Speaker 2: see like in the duty free store they were selling
12:02
Speaker 2: cigarettes and they had is it in Europe where they
12:05
Speaker 2: have like pictures of people with like lung disease and
12:08
Speaker 2: like holes in their neck like on the on the
12:10
Speaker 2: cartons of cigarettes. It's crazy. They're trying to do it
12:14
Speaker 2: in other countries and just fuck other people over.
12:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, big tobacco. Yeah, it's actually most of the world.
12:20
Speaker 1: When I was in Argentina, they had all those pictures
12:22
Speaker 1: on there too.
12:23
Speaker 2: M Yeah.
12:25
Speaker 1: And now we get to today with our history lesson
12:29
Speaker 1: where anecdotally and numbers wise, not many people smoke cigarettes anymore.
12:34
Speaker 1: At least it's gone down significantly. What did we say,
12:36
Speaker 1: eleven percent of the United States population today. This is
12:40
Speaker 1: where vaping comes into play. And according to the data
12:43
Speaker 1: released by the FDA and the CDC, about one point
12:46
Speaker 1: four to four million middle and high schoolers, so about
12:50
Speaker 1: five point two percent of all US students report that
12:53
Speaker 1: they are currently, meaning at least once in the last
12:56
Speaker 1: thirty days, using a vape.
12:58
Speaker 2: Out of that number, twenty seven point five reported to
13:01
Speaker 2: vaping every day, and then forty one point two percent
13:04
Speaker 2: of youth vapors are heavy users, meaning that they've used
13:08
Speaker 2: on at least twenty of the last thirty days, so
13:11
Speaker 2: two thirds of the month they're they're using a vape.
13:14
Speaker 2: I remember seeing a documentary I think on Netflix. I
13:18
Speaker 2: think it was specific to vaping where this girl she
13:21
Speaker 2: was being interviewed, she was one of the high school students,
13:23
Speaker 2: and she would talk about how much she would just
13:24
Speaker 2: like crave it during the school need to take a
13:28
Speaker 2: hit of the vape. And this was like within the
13:32
Speaker 2: last ten years. I saw this, this documentary, So it's
13:35
Speaker 2: it's like it's been an issue for a good chunk
13:37
Speaker 2: of time. And I remember. The thing that sticks with
13:39
Speaker 2: me so much is how much she says there were
13:41
Speaker 2: some nights she would get excited to go to sleep
13:44
Speaker 2: because she knew the next day the first hit of
13:46
Speaker 2: her vape was going to be the best one. We
13:50
Speaker 2: hit the best, hit the hardest, and then she would
13:52
Speaker 2: essentially spend the rest of the day chasing that same high,
13:56
Speaker 2: chasing the forbidden dragon, because she's not going to get
13:58
Speaker 2: it again. She's not gonna get high again until she
14:00
Speaker 2: has a big chunk of time without it. So it's
14:03
Speaker 2: just crazy. It's crazy how much nicotine is such an
14:06
Speaker 2: addictive substance, and a lot of kids and even adults
14:10
Speaker 2: like play it off as not being a big deal,
14:13
Speaker 2: but nicotine is bad. It's super addictive, especially to our kids.
14:16
Speaker 2: And once you get our kids hooked, like it's really
14:19
Speaker 2: hard to get them off.
14:20
Speaker 1: I remember learning in residency that nicotine is one of
14:22
Speaker 1: our most addictive substances and it's the legal one.
14:26
Speaker 2: Right.
14:27
Speaker 1: Why is that one the one that we're like, you
14:29
Speaker 1: know what, it causes cancer. It's terrible for people, It's
14:32
Speaker 1: highly addictive. But you know, we'll keep on letting our
14:35
Speaker 1: corporations make us billions of dollars off of it and
14:40
Speaker 1: getting a little anti corporations here today.
14:44
Speaker 2: I think we always do. Yeah, that's kind of us.
14:47
Speaker 2: This is on down with the man. Who am I kidding? Here?
14:53
Speaker 2: We've done the long history lesson, but now let's do
14:55
Speaker 2: more more recent history on vapes.
14:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, where did vapes come from?
15:00
Speaker 2: So?
15:00
Speaker 1: There was a Chinese pharmacist named Han Leik who was
15:04
Speaker 1: also a heavy smoker and whose father died of lung cancer.
15:08
Speaker 1: He invented the modern electronic cigarette, utilizing a heating element
15:13
Speaker 1: to vaporize liquid nicotine in two thousand and three. There
15:16
Speaker 1: were apparently attempts at this and as far back as
15:20
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven in nineteen sixty three to create smokeless
15:24
Speaker 1: or non tobacco cigarettes, but they failed to catch on
15:27
Speaker 1: in that time.
15:29
Speaker 2: From the mid twenty to twenty fifteen, we saw the
15:31
Speaker 2: introduction of devices aimed at helping adults quit smoking. So
15:35
Speaker 2: I think I was thinking back to this of like, yeah,
15:37
Speaker 2: there'd be like someone would have like a cigarette looking
15:40
Speaker 2: device and it would like turn red as they like
15:43
Speaker 2: inhaled smoking it in. But it was just like water
15:45
Speaker 2: vapor or it would have like maybe a little bit.
15:48
Speaker 2: It was just not the same. It wasn't it at
15:49
Speaker 2: least wasn't cigarettes, right. But here's where things kind of
15:52
Speaker 2: took a pretty big shift. There was a subculture. I
15:57
Speaker 2: don't know if these words are going to mean anything
15:59
Speaker 2: to you justin and hopefully to some of our listeners,
16:01
Speaker 2: it does mods and tanks. Does that sound at all
16:05
Speaker 2: familiar to you? Yes. Basically what it was is people
16:09
Speaker 2: had these like big devices where these it just vaping
16:14
Speaker 2: became a cultural phenomenon where people would have these these mods,
16:19
Speaker 2: these tanks, and they'd be able to create like huge
16:23
Speaker 2: clouds of smoke and then they would like do the
16:26
Speaker 2: designs with it, or they they'd blow oh sor they
16:28
Speaker 2: do these crazy ass like cool things, right, and they'd
16:31
Speaker 2: post videos of them blowing these huge clouds of smoke.
16:34
Speaker 2: Think of the term like vape god like as a joke, right,
16:37
Speaker 2: Like people were like, you know, blow these big. I
16:39
Speaker 2: remember there's times where if I'm driving behind a car
16:42
Speaker 2: and someone lets out like a huge, like like puff
16:45
Speaker 2: of smoke, it's always like, ah, we get it. You vape.
16:48
Speaker 2: Like it just turned into this huge thing where people
16:50
Speaker 2: like everybody was not everybody would. People liked to vape
16:53
Speaker 2: and look cool and and and do the the huge
16:56
Speaker 2: puffs of smoke. And I think it was less about
16:59
Speaker 2: the nicked use and the use of the device and
17:02
Speaker 2: more of just like the cultural thing. But I don't
17:04
Speaker 2: think that helped in any way because it made it
17:06
Speaker 2: seem cool. And then technology changed in twenty fifteen, this
17:09
Speaker 2: is when we saw the introduction of the jewel. Everybody
17:12
Speaker 2: knows what a jewel is at this point, at least
17:13
Speaker 2: some kind of at least millennial adults, probably Gen X,
17:16
Speaker 2: some gen Zers. This is where we started to see
17:19
Speaker 2: the introduction of nicotine salts, so basically making the vapor
17:23
Speaker 2: incredibly smooth and easy to inhale without throat irritation. It's
17:27
Speaker 2: a very big deal because before get a real scratchy
17:30
Speaker 2: throat to be uncomfortable, it hurt. It's not very fun.
17:33
Speaker 2: You don't want to do it with these nicotine salts
17:35
Speaker 2: changed everything, made it a lot smoother experience, a lot easier,
17:38
Speaker 2: a lot better. And then it was wrapped into a sleek,
17:42
Speaker 2: high tech USB drive esthetics. So they looked fucking cool,
17:46
Speaker 2: these cool little like USB drives that were easy to hide.
17:50
Speaker 2: Put it in your pocket, boom left, pocket phone, right,
17:54
Speaker 2: pocket keys and vape like just easy to carry around.
17:57
Speaker 2: It turned into a whole thing. I remember hearing of
17:59
Speaker 2: student and teens kind of when I first got into
18:02
Speaker 2: the field after graduation, just charging their their jewel with
18:06
Speaker 2: their chromebook at school. I could tell the difference. It
18:09
Speaker 2: looked like a fucking looked like the same thing. So
18:13
Speaker 2: that's really where I think, if we want to look
18:15
Speaker 2: at like modern like the problem, this is kind of
18:19
Speaker 2: where it all started. Jewel is really once jewel took
18:22
Speaker 2: with the industry over, that's really where I think we
18:25
Speaker 2: could say teens got real wrapped up into it.
18:29
Speaker 1: Eddie, do you think they're cool?
18:31
Speaker 3: Because they looked so fucking cool, dude, like, uh, not
18:37
Speaker 3: cool enough to do it, but like there was something
18:40
Speaker 3: about the kids walking around like in school or like
18:44
Speaker 3: after graduate, like just little a little quick puff whatever.
18:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was pretty. It was a sleek it was
18:51
Speaker 2: a sleek experience. They were definitely selling the experience. Let
18:54
Speaker 2: me tell you.
18:55
Speaker 1: In the day, back in the eighties and nineties, people
18:59
Speaker 1: used to have too cigarettes in the bathrooms which smelled terrible, right,
19:03
Speaker 1: so it was easy to spot. It's so easy to smoke,
19:07
Speaker 1: and these days with vaping, it's so easy to just
19:09
Speaker 1: take a quick hit of something and be completely undetectable.
19:13
Speaker 1: So it's so much easier to do and not ever
19:16
Speaker 1: be found out. So that's one of the biggest reasons
19:18
Speaker 1: why it's certainly cool obviously, but and it's convenient. It's
19:24
Speaker 1: there all the time, you don't have to light anything,
19:27
Speaker 1: it's just it's battery powered. So what has added to
19:31
Speaker 1: the craze of vapes is this idea that it's also harmless,
19:34
Speaker 1: the societal idea that oh, it's way better than smoking
19:38
Speaker 1: and it's almost harmless and safe to consume. And the
19:42
Speaker 1: truth is that the amount of nicotine in these vapes
19:45
Speaker 1: is super addictive. They're very high nicotine content, which is
19:50
Speaker 1: basically going to make tines get addicted to it very quickly.
19:54
Speaker 1: So the cycle of vaping to cope while nicotine can
19:59
Speaker 1: spike anxiety. It's like a common occurrence. So you get
20:02
Speaker 1: a little bit of that withdraw you feel a little
20:04
Speaker 1: bit of anxiety, you hit your vape. Plus, we already
20:06
Speaker 1: live in a very anxious society and anxious generation. Shout
20:11
Speaker 1: out Jonathan Hyde. Yeah, and so they are constantly looking
20:15
Speaker 1: to quell that anxiety, and a lot of them do
20:18
Speaker 1: so with vapes.
20:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's crazy too because a lot of the
20:21
Speaker 2: kids are not realizing I'm anxious because I'm coming down
20:25
Speaker 2: from this nicotine. I just used like it's it's hard,
20:28
Speaker 2: my god. Yeah. Well, and I talked about it a
20:39
Speaker 2: little earlier. Right, the debate of whether or not vapes
20:41
Speaker 2: cause cancer, it's still up there. We don't have a
20:43
Speaker 2: definitive answer, but we do know that long term injuries
20:47
Speaker 2: and long term issues do happen from chronic vapues. It's
20:50
Speaker 2: like impacts to your lungs, impacts to even like your
20:55
Speaker 2: like mouth and throat, just everything that goes along with vapi,
20:58
Speaker 2: and it is potential to get packed it because of
21:01
Speaker 2: the continued and chronic use. So we got to think
21:04
Speaker 2: about it like this. These were made for adults. You
21:07
Speaker 2: could not and cannot buy these things until you are
21:10
Speaker 2: eighteen plus. I think in some places it may have
21:12
Speaker 2: moved to twenty one one.
21:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, just realized this.
21:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, but for a while I think it was it
21:18
Speaker 2: was eighteen. It was like cigarettes, right, like you just
21:20
Speaker 2: buy like any like like a cigarette. But the problem is,
21:24
Speaker 2: like any big corporation again, down with the man. They
21:27
Speaker 2: may know that their product is only for a specific
21:30
Speaker 2: age group, but they still kind of do their best
21:33
Speaker 2: to market towards maybe people that aren't supposed to use this.
21:37
Speaker 2: So what do companies do for teens? The flavors shit
21:41
Speaker 2: like watermelon, blue raz cotton candy sounds tasty, it's appealing
21:46
Speaker 2: to young users. Sounds like candy, even if they're not
21:49
Speaker 2: old enough to partake. It still sounds super cool. In
21:53
Speaker 2: the research for this, what I found and realized Jewel
21:56
Speaker 2: at one point did get barred from selling flavored products.
21:59
Speaker 2: I think at this point they only sell like mental
22:02
Speaker 2: flavor or whatever, mint flavor, whatever, just like they're one thing.
22:05
Speaker 2: But other companies like elf bar and geek bar could
22:08
Speaker 2: continue to sell flavored products because regulations did not include
22:12
Speaker 2: single use disposable products. That's how they got around it.
22:16
Speaker 2: I was thinking about, like how can these other companies
22:19
Speaker 2: sell fucking watermelon, mango wowie, whatever, Maui wowie and not
22:25
Speaker 2: get in trouble, but Jewels not able to. It's because
22:27
Speaker 2: of that. They're marketed as it's single use. You buy
22:30
Speaker 2: it once, it lasts for this amount of time. There's
22:33
Speaker 2: no recharging anymore. You just throw it away, which is
22:35
Speaker 2: probably not great for the environment, but they that's what
22:38
Speaker 2: they did. They got around it in that way, so
22:40
Speaker 2: they're still able to sell the flavored products. And then
22:43
Speaker 2: their marketing is geared towards the youths, so they have
22:47
Speaker 2: things like booths at music festivals. They use influencers that
22:50
Speaker 2: kids think are cool to market their stuff on social media.
22:53
Speaker 2: They have brightly colored products that are easy to see
22:56
Speaker 2: in areas like convenience store. And then the cost I
23:00
Speaker 2: starting around fifteen dollars, which is pretty affordable for teenagers.
23:03
Speaker 2: I want, I want to mention this. I was thinking
23:06
Speaker 2: back to the bright colors and like what the parafernilia
23:09
Speaker 2: looks like. At my school, our DNA students shout out
23:12
Speaker 2: and she's awesome. She keeps like a like a paraphernalia
23:18
Speaker 2: drawer or like box with all the things. There's funny
23:22
Speaker 2: shit in there, and I went back and looked at it,
23:25
Speaker 2: and a lot of the geek bars and the elf bars,
23:27
Speaker 2: they're colorful. They're bright pink, blight, bright yellow, a nice
23:31
Speaker 2: baby blue. That's that's enticing to kids. They look cool.
23:36
Speaker 2: You can get ones that match your outfits. That sounds
23:38
Speaker 2: dumb as I say it, but I kid you not.
23:41
Speaker 2: That's definitely what kids are doing when they have like
23:43
Speaker 2: all these things, Like they'll have a bunch of them.
23:45
Speaker 2: So it's the companies know better, and because they know better,
23:49
Speaker 2: they choose to make the wrong decisions in terms of
23:52
Speaker 2: marketing towards teenagers. So they're intrigued with their product.
23:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're making a lot of money doing it, right, Like,
23:58
Speaker 1: if they're making money on it, they're not going to
23:59
Speaker 1: stop just because it's bad for kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Eddie,
24:04
Speaker 1: we're getting to the discussion questions, have you ever used tobacco,
24:09
Speaker 1: nicotine vapes?
24:12
Speaker 2: I could confidently say never. I I don't know if
24:15
Speaker 2: I had ever been tempted to. I don't know if
24:18
Speaker 2: I've ever even smoked a cigarette, if I knel about it,
24:21
Speaker 2: maybe as like an adult, a little intoxicated, a little
24:25
Speaker 2: puff here and there, But like nothing that I remember.
24:29
Speaker 2: I think maybe I've tried a vape once, maybe even twice,
24:33
Speaker 2: but even twice would be really pushing it. I've never
24:36
Speaker 2: really been enticed to use or like intrigued enough. I
24:40
Speaker 2: think for me, cigarettes like really got shut down early on.
24:44
Speaker 2: It's just like nasty. I don't really like. I never
24:47
Speaker 2: liked the smell. I remember one time I was waiting
24:50
Speaker 2: at the bus stop and I was sitting like semi
24:52
Speaker 2: close to somebody who was smoking a cigarette. Didn't think
24:55
Speaker 2: anything of it because you know, I'm outside whatever. The
24:58
Speaker 2: bus got there, I got up to get on the
25:00
Speaker 2: the person did not, so I got on the bus
25:02
Speaker 2: and I go and sit down, and the busters like,
25:04
Speaker 2: oh who's smoking it? Who's smoking a cigarette? That's nasty?
25:07
Speaker 2: And I look around. I'm like, oh shit, I just
25:09
Speaker 2: got all this like cigarette smoke on me, and now
25:11
Speaker 2: I smell nasty and like that's no, thank you. So
25:15
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think I was never intrigued by
25:17
Speaker 2: it very much. But what about you.
25:20
Speaker 1: You know, I have my my dad and I we
25:25
Speaker 1: would go on vacation when I was younger to Mexico
25:28
Speaker 1: and there'd always be people selling like kohebas and different
25:32
Speaker 1: Cuban cigars on the beach, and it was always like
25:35
Speaker 1: fun to try and haggle down and get a good
25:38
Speaker 1: price on a box of cigars and on vacation. So
25:41
Speaker 1: I'd smoke a cigar with my dad when I was
25:43
Speaker 1: in my early teenage years, and then over time, the
25:46
Speaker 1: more I did it, I'm like, this is disgusting and
25:48
Speaker 1: it tastes terrible and I can't even like finish a
25:51
Speaker 1: half of one because it's just too much. My buddies
25:54
Speaker 1: growing up did smoke cigarettes, and so every once in
25:58
Speaker 1: a while that would partake and smoking with them, and
26:02
Speaker 1: then I would admit that I did. Used to have
26:04
Speaker 1: a blue vape, the blue brand.
26:07
Speaker 2: B l U.
26:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that I was like right in the beginning
26:13
Speaker 1: or like right out of med school early residency. Yeah, yeah,
26:17
Speaker 1: you know. I would use it mostly on like long
26:21
Speaker 1: car rides, you know, just kind of like sit there
26:23
Speaker 1: and I needed to stay awake in the middle of
26:25
Speaker 1: the night because I would drive between Omaha and Colorado
26:28
Speaker 1: to go home and see my folks, and like, you know,
26:31
Speaker 1: just kind of sit there and every once in a
26:32
Speaker 1: while just take this little puff of this little cigarette.
26:35
Speaker 1: So I did it, and then yeah, the longer time
26:39
Speaker 1: went on, the more I was just like, you know what,
26:42
Speaker 1: I just yeah, I don't know if my my brain
26:45
Speaker 1: finally matured to a point where it was just like
26:47
Speaker 1: this isn't really worth it and you're not really getting
26:49
Speaker 1: much out of this and it's terrible for you. So
26:52
Speaker 1: oh and I also used to I also used to
26:55
Speaker 1: hookah with my friends. But do you.
26:57
Speaker 2: Ever I'm not even I'm not even thinking of I've
27:01
Speaker 2: done hukah before, for sure. I actually wanted to add
27:04
Speaker 2: I totally didn't even consider cigars in this because cigars
27:08
Speaker 2: to me seem like not because there's no like nicotine, right,
27:11
Speaker 2: it's and you're kind of it's different. And so I
27:14
Speaker 2: have my my good friend Carson. He likes cigars for
27:17
Speaker 2: you know, when I was living with them, and I'd
27:19
Speaker 2: partake with him a little bit, but I definitely was
27:21
Speaker 2: never able to finish even half, just because I was
27:23
Speaker 2: always like just the mouth feel and like I just
27:26
Speaker 2: didn't feel a great Yeah. I totally forgot Yeah, hohokah,
27:29
Speaker 2: I've done that before. Yeah.
27:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so you've done a little bit. Yeah, I'm
27:34
Speaker 1: a hip right, So yeah, I could blame my friends
27:38
Speaker 1: for all this stuff because they were the kind of
27:40
Speaker 1: the ones that got me into it, So you know,
27:42
Speaker 1: I was blaming it on them, my high school buddies.
27:45
Speaker 1: So what do you think, how often are you seeing
27:48
Speaker 1: vaping in school? You're here my boots on the ground
27:51
Speaker 1: for school. What do you think all the time?
27:53
Speaker 2: We got kids busted all the time. Man, Like, there's
27:57
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, this might just be a us problem.
28:01
Speaker 2: But for whatever reason, kids love to hang out in
28:04
Speaker 2: the bathroom and they'll just do shit and then they
28:07
Speaker 2: end up hitting vapes and kids you find out that
28:11
Speaker 2: this so and so is the supplier, and they'll sell
28:13
Speaker 2: the vapes, and it's just it's pretty damn common. And
28:17
Speaker 2: I think even the numbers we shared, obviously this is
28:20
Speaker 2: like a bigger, better snapshot of like overall. But I'd
28:24
Speaker 2: be willing to bet, like I work in a upper
28:27
Speaker 2: middle class maybe even higher school district, it's probably fairly common.
28:32
Speaker 2: A lot of these kids have disposed boy income that
28:34
Speaker 2: they just wi will spend, So it's it's up there
28:37
Speaker 2: for sure. In use.
28:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, in my clinic, it's probably the number
28:42
Speaker 1: one substance that I have that I talk about with kids.
28:46
Speaker 1: So I mean, I've got kids buying them in bulk,
28:49
Speaker 1: selling them in school. I've got kids down to like
28:52
Speaker 1: twelve years old getting busted for vapes in school. Like
28:56
Speaker 1: it's wild, how young, Like I don't remember kids smoking
29:01
Speaker 1: cigarettes that young. I know it did happen a little bit,
29:04
Speaker 1: but like vaping at eleven or twelve years old, you know,
29:08
Speaker 1: kids stealing their parents' vapes, Like it's it's constant. I
29:13
Speaker 1: hear about it all the time. And kids are constantly
29:16
Speaker 1: getting in trouble for this too. But think about all
29:18
Speaker 1: the times that they don't get in trouble for it, yeah,
29:21
Speaker 1: and get away with it scott free that we don't
29:23
Speaker 1: hear about.
29:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was wondering, like in like a doctor's office,
29:27
Speaker 2: like how much does it come off? I'm almost so curious.
29:28
Speaker 2: I don't know how much you like review it, But
29:31
Speaker 2: I'm sure they fill out you know, questionnaires and stuff,
29:33
Speaker 2: and they'll they'll be the part about tobacco and nicotine products.
29:37
Speaker 2: I was questioning how how truthful kids are going to
29:39
Speaker 2: be in there. But I'll say, like as the as
29:41
Speaker 2: the drug and alcohol prevention coordinator from my school in
29:44
Speaker 2: the in the district, I think kids are pretty upfront
29:47
Speaker 2: about it. I think they see vaping as not a
29:51
Speaker 2: huge addictive it's not. It's not cocaine, it's not meth.
29:56
Speaker 2: It's not. Yeah, you're right, it's not. But you're fifteen.
30:01
Speaker 2: I don't want you having an addicted brain at fifteen,
30:04
Speaker 2: So I would. I would imagine they're pretty up front
30:07
Speaker 2: with you and with the questionnaires and stuff that they
30:09
Speaker 2: that they fill out.
30:10
Speaker 1: It seems like it. It seems like a lot of
30:12
Speaker 1: them are surprisingly open about it. Yeah. I literally went
30:16
Speaker 1: and grabbed a patient the other day, or I know,
30:18
Speaker 1: so I gotta change my verbiage here. I got a
30:21
Speaker 1: patient the other day out of the lobby and he's like, uh,
30:25
Speaker 1: someone stashed a vape underneath the underneath my chair. And
30:30
Speaker 1: I was like, for real, So I went out there.
30:32
Speaker 1: There was a vape in a pediatric clinic lobby, just
30:37
Speaker 1: stuffed under a chair. I couldn't believe it. Damn.
30:41
Speaker 2: Okay. I don't know why this made me think about this.
30:43
Speaker 2: Are you rocking the white quote at clinic? Are you rocking? Oh? Okay, okay,
30:48
Speaker 2: I was thinking, I just picture you putting it in
30:50
Speaker 2: your your pocket.
30:52
Speaker 1: My bape pocket. I've just got like five of them
30:55
Speaker 1: in there. Psychiatrist I don't like to do the white
31:01
Speaker 1: coat because that's really where you get the white coat
31:04
Speaker 1: syndrome where people kind of freak out and yeah, outpatient psychiatry.
31:08
Speaker 1: We're like, no, just I I've actually been loosening up
31:12
Speaker 1: my wardrobe and less just like a little bit more casual.
31:15
Speaker 1: Added the gold chain.
31:17
Speaker 2: So, oh fuck, I haven't told you this. I've been
31:21
Speaker 2: watching the Sopranos recently.
31:25
Speaker 1: I was just about to say, I look like a
31:26
Speaker 1: Guido dude.
31:28
Speaker 2: I need a gold chain, a fucking wrist bracelet. I
31:32
Speaker 2: need a pinky ring so I could be like Paulie,
31:34
Speaker 2: I need a try. Oh it's a good ass show.
31:37
Speaker 2: It's super racist, old school racist, but it is a
31:41
Speaker 2: good show.
31:43
Speaker 1: The old school racist is early two thousands racists.
31:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they keep bringing up in the show, like
31:51
Speaker 2: in my house, just the nineteen fifties. I'm like, oh, yep,
31:53
Speaker 2: I can see that. Yeah, Tony's Tony's old school, he's
31:57
Speaker 2: old head monster. Like the gold chain nice, and you
32:01
Speaker 2: just got to get like the tuck in your your
32:04
Speaker 2: your pants pretty high, you get you get some suspenders. Yeah,
32:08
Speaker 2: they knew how to dress back then.
32:10
Speaker 1: They did mobsters. Yeah, so that's what I'm basing my
32:15
Speaker 1: look on these days, what a recommendations do we have
32:21
Speaker 1: for parents for kids for all this stuff, and doing
32:24
Speaker 1: the research on this episode, I was actually surprised that
32:28
Speaker 1: there's not a ton of generalized recommendations for smoking for kids.
32:34
Speaker 1: That there are no FDA approved medicines for nicotine cessation
32:39
Speaker 1: in kids. Anything that you use is all off label. Occasionally,
32:43
Speaker 1: if I've got someone who's like straight up addicted to
32:46
Speaker 1: vaping that you're using the high concentrates, using it every day,
32:49
Speaker 1: I'll use a little bit of nicotine replacement which needs
32:52
Speaker 1: a prescription, like nicotine patches, nicotine gum. The USPSTF, which
32:58
Speaker 1: I believe states for United States Preventative Services Task Force
33:02
Speaker 1: nailed it said that there's insufficient evidence that therapy works
33:08
Speaker 1: for smoking cessation. I thought that was kind of fascinating,
33:11
Speaker 1: so like therapy doesn't even really help that much, or
33:14
Speaker 1: like there's insufficient evidence to say that it actually helps.
33:18
Speaker 1: So I was, you know, some of the new recommendations
33:22
Speaker 1: are there's text lines and support like quit lines that
33:26
Speaker 1: you can text these days, which can be useful for kids.
33:30
Speaker 1: I am always trying to recommend that my vapors step
33:34
Speaker 1: down their nicotine concentration. So instead of four percent, they
33:37
Speaker 1: dropped to three, they go to two, they go to one.
33:39
Speaker 1: But then it seems like every time I talk to them,
33:41
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, I got down to one. Then I
33:43
Speaker 1: started really craving the four again. So I got I
33:47
Speaker 1: bought another vape and went back to the fore And
33:50
Speaker 1: what a feeling, Right, If you've been puffing on the
33:52
Speaker 1: one percent and you go back up to the four
33:55
Speaker 1: it's it's euphorious. So I don't, man, it's just that
33:58
Speaker 1: addictive nature of the Nike teen is so brutal, and I'm
34:02
Speaker 1: always trying to educate kids. I remember learning in the
34:06
Speaker 1: past that trying to frame it as nicotine companies taking
34:11
Speaker 1: advantage of you can be really helpful and say like
34:13
Speaker 1: they want to get your money. They're trying to make
34:16
Speaker 1: their products as addictive as possible to screw you over.
34:19
Speaker 1: If you spend this amount of money every week on
34:22
Speaker 1: vapes for the rest of your life, you're going to
34:24
Speaker 1: be giving them hundreds of thousands of dollars throughout your life. Like,
34:28
Speaker 1: try and show them some of the numbers and facts
34:31
Speaker 1: and say like, hey, if you want to stop this,
34:34
Speaker 1: you it's got to be it's got to come from you,
34:36
Speaker 1: because if you tell kids stop smoking, that's not gonna work.
34:40
Speaker 2: No, No, that's a good point. I think I'm curious
34:44
Speaker 2: about the inefficient evidence to therapy because I want, Yeah, well,
34:49
Speaker 2: there's definitely evidence in terms of like other substance use
34:52
Speaker 2: right and and therapy being helpful. But I wonder, I
34:55
Speaker 2: wonder what it is about nicotine. I wonder if it's
34:57
Speaker 2: the cultural piece of it. I wonder if it's the
35:02
Speaker 2: scene as not as dangerous. I don't know. I don't know.
35:04
Speaker 1: Maybe there's just not enough studies too to say that.
35:06
Speaker 1: Maybe there are some out there that shows, but just
35:09
Speaker 1: not enough to say definitively.
35:11
Speaker 2: I mean, the big thing, stop vaping, please maybe think
35:17
Speaker 2: about it. Stop giving the companies your money. I like
35:20
Speaker 2: your reframe on that. I think that's good.
35:23
Speaker 1: Just in my own experience too, that I've noticed that
35:25
Speaker 1: people with ADHD tend to crave that nicotine. It's a
35:30
Speaker 1: little bit of a stimulant, gets your brain moving, helps
35:33
Speaker 1: you focus a little bit so and plus people with ADHD.
35:38
Speaker 1: I just read a good book on ADHD called ADHD
35:40
Speaker 1: two point zero. It said that people with ADHD are
35:43
Speaker 1: five to ten times more likely to have an addiction
35:46
Speaker 1: in their lives, so nicotine is just especially targeted at
35:51
Speaker 1: those kids with ADHD.
35:52
Speaker 2: It seems well Again. Shout out to Science Versus and
35:56
Speaker 2: Wendy Zuckerman for the inspiration for the episode. Thank you
35:59
Speaker 2: mind our friend for being here. We'll wrap this up.
36:01
Speaker 2: Thank you all for sticking with us on our quick
36:03
Speaker 2: summer break. We are back. You know where to find
36:06
Speaker 2: us Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts on
36:09
Speaker 2: social media at Millennial I may see and millennialimasee dot com.
36:14
Speaker 2: Put the vape down, go do something else, and remember
36:18
Speaker 2: take are all mentals.
36:19
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36:22
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