**The column below represents the personal views of the student journalist.
I honestly never thought much about vaping until one random day at school. I walked into the bathroom between classes and saw a kid I know standing by the sink with a vape in his hand like it was a phone. A couple people were crowded around him, laughing and recording, and someone said, “That flavor is trash,” like they were talking about a snack, not something you breathe into your lungs. He took a hit and started coughing, but everyone just laughed. Nobody told him to stop. Nobody even looked worried. It was “normal”.
That’s what really stuck with me. Not the vape itself, but how comfortable everyone was with it. These are the same people I sit next to every day, talk about sports with, complain about school with, and stress about tests with. But at that moment, it felt like nobody cared what vaping was actually doing to us. Seeing how easy it is for kids at my school to get vapes and use them without any real consequences is what made me start believing that vaping shouldn’t just be “kind of regulated.” It should be illegal.
What I saw in that bathroom is exactly why I believe vaping should be illegal, not just “restricted” or “regulated.” Vaping has no real benefit for teenagers or even for most adults. It doesn’t help your health, it doesn’t help your future, and it definitely doesn’t help your wallet. All it really does is create addiction and make companies rich while students keep getting pulled into something they barely understand.
One of the biggest reasons I feel this way is because vaping is way too addictive. Most vapes contain nicotine, which is the same addictive chemical found in cigarettes. Vaping uses electronic nicotine delivery systems that heat liquid into an aerosol that people breathe in, according to Single Care. That aerosol still contains nicotine and other chemicals that can cause health problems, even though companies advertise vaping as a “safer” option than smoking. Just because something is safer than cigarettes does not mean it’s safe. It’s still something being put in your lungs that doesn’t belong there.
Another big issue is how popular vaping has become. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 1.6 million youth in the United States currently vape. That number alone shows this is not a small or rare problem. On top of that, research shows that young adults ages 18 to 25 have the highest vaping rate, with about 14.1% or 4.7 million people using vapes, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This means vaping is becoming normal at exactly the age when people are still developing habits that can follow them for the rest of their lives. The CDC also reports that the percentage of adults who use electronic cigarettes went down from 2019 to 2020, but then started increasing again from 2020 to 2023. Instead of disappearing, vaping is slowly growing back into everyday life.
Vaping is also a huge waste of money. A lot of students I know complain about being broke, but somehow always have money for pods, disposable vapes, or new flavors. When you add it up, it can be hundreds of dollars a year just to stay addicted to something that gives you nothing in return. According to Innokin, the typical price of a vape ranges from about $10-50. A disposable vape usually costs around $8-12. That is another reason vaping is a scam, especially when it’s allowed and taxed so heavily in the United States. The government and companies make a lot of money from vape sales, which makes it feel like young people’s health is not the real priority. If something is known to cause addiction and health risks, it should not be treated like just another product to profit from.
Vaping is such a problem because of how easy it is for teenagers to get it. Even though there are age limits, students still find ways to buy vapes online, through older friends, or from people who don’t care about age. On top of that, the colorful designs and sweet flavors are clearly made to attract younger users. When something looks like candy and smells like fruit or dessert, it becomes much easier for kids to ignore the dangers and focus on how “fun” it seems.
Some of my classmates argue that making vaping illegal would not solve anything because people would still do it illegally. While that might be true for some people, that does not mean we should keep something legal just because rules can be broken. Laws exist to protect people, especially minors. Making vaping illegal would make it harder to access, harder to sell, and less socially accepted at school.
Others say, “my body, my choice,” and that people have the right to destroy their own bodies if they want to. I understand that argument, but I think it becomes different when companies purposely target young people with flavors, colors, and marketing while knowing how addictive nicotine is. Teenagers are not always making fully informed decisions, especially when peer pressure and social media make vaping look normal and harmless.
Some people also believe vaping is not a big enough problem to make it illegal. But when over a million youth are already using it, and millions of young adults are vaping the most, it clearly is not small anymore. What I saw in the bathroom was not just one student making a bad choice. It was an entire group treating addiction like entertainment.