I guarantee all, or at least some of the people that have held an e-cigarette in this school saw the title of this article and scrolled past.  Those of you who are still reading this most likely already understand the consequences that come as a result of using these deadly devices. However, the purpose of this article is not to lecture about the effects and what e-cigarettes actually contain.  It is merely to inform what is being done to cease this fatal and pernicious act that has become a major predicament in today’s society.  

Since the drastic increase of youth nicotine use in 2018, and the news of the first e-cigarette related death just released in Illinois last week, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken several precautions to reduce the amount of the new generation’s addicts.  Juul labs (an electronic cigarette company) has confirmed that stores will temporarily stop selling certain e-cigarettes in order to decrease the number of teen addicts, along with plans to improve the age-verification system of online sales. Scott Gottlieb (commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration) said, “I’ll tell you this.  If the youth use continues to rise, and we see significant increases in use in 2019, on top of what we found in 2018, I believe this entire category will face an existential threat.” With this, the FDA is contemplating whether e-cigarettes should be sold at all.  

Though many, if not all, e-cigarette companies say they aren’t aiming their advertisements towards minors, their commercials say different with the actors/actresses who seem to be under the age of 21.  Because of this, many addicted teens today have a harder time resisting the urge for e-cigarettes and feel the need to fit in with their peers in order to “be cool.” But what they don’t realize is that in order to simply “be cool” they’re putting their lives on the line.

             The FDA has noticed a few ways to stop teen addictions that have worked so far: raising the prices for cigarettes, effective campaigns, restrictions on selling to teens, and decreasing the marketing.  These all have shown effective results in the decrease of teen smoking, but there is still a long way to go until this deadly act is put to an end.