Pediatrician Refers To Vaping As A 'Plague Upon The Teenage Landscape'

Dr. Jim Campbell, a pediatrician with two high school age children, referred to vaping as “a bit of a plague upon the teenage landscape” in an interview with 9NEWS.

“It’s really a bit of a plague upon the teenage landscape.”

Campbell added that the vape companies, by his account, “are not trying to help kids relax and have a good time,” they’re trying to cultivate nicotine addiction “because it’s very profitable.”

“These are companies that are not trying to help kids relax and have a good time. They are most interested in cultivating a generation of nicotine addicts because it’s very profitable.”

The sale of vaping products is regulated in places like the United States and the United Kingdom. Vaping products containing nicotine, like those Campbell is referencing, are illegal for minors to purchase. In some U.S. states, the legal age requirement for buying such products has been raised from 18 to 21.

By his account, the concentration of nicotine is “much higher” in vape pens than it is in traditional cigarettes, which reduces the time it takes for kids to become addicted.

“Unfortunately, because the drug concentration is so much higher in a vape pen, the time that kids will become addicted to it is shorter. We’ve had patients that seem to become addicted to it in less than 48 hours. The research would indicate that those kids that become addicted as adolescents are more likely to carry their addictive habits with them throughout their whole lives.”

While we couldn’t find a quote, 9NEWS reported that Dr. Campbell referred to the notion of vaping being safer than smoking conventional cigarettes as simply untrue.

Public Health England’s latest independent electronic cigarette review found no evidence to support the notion that e-cigarettes may lead to youth smoking and in the same review, also found substantial health benefit to smokers who switch to vaping. The review’s independent experts also found vaping e-cigs to likely be far less harmful – a conclusion also reached by other researchers, such as researchers with the New York University College of Global Public Health that found vaping to be safer than smoking.

Regardless of what the science says about vaping or does not say about it, Dr. Campbell says that there’s something that parents can do in response to the growing trend in vaping in schools across the U.S. and that’s talk to them. “You gotta talk to your kids about it,” he told 9NEWS.

“You gotta talk to your kids about it. The best approach to talking to your kids about this is not to have this accusatorial, high conflict conversation. It’s to gently open the door. You’re really trying to engage them in the conversation so they feel more at liberty to tell you about it. There’s so much coming at our kids in the current age that was not coming at parents my age when we were kids.”

While the legal age requirement to buy vaping products in the U.S. prohibits school age children from legally purchasing them, 9NEWS reported that “it’s pretty easy for underage kids to buy vaping products online.”