The age of when youth start vaping is as low as 11 years old. One kid who started vaping at 11 is now 17 and in grade 12. To him vaping “ just seemed normal.”
He says smoking was normal because many adults around him vaped or smoked.
Emerge opted to keep source names confidential because of their ages.
During 2023 children as young as 13 had tried vaping, reports the Government of Canada.
According to The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), vapes, formally known as electric cigarettes, are devices which heat up the liquid inside them and produce vapor. This vapor often includes substances such as nicotine, cancer causing chemicals and metals such as tin, nickel or lead. Inhaling the vapor creates a head buzz for the user.
Another teen who currently attends Toronto Metropolitan University, 18, says he was introduced to vaping in grade nine. For him, vapes were a normal part of his environment. Teens list peer influence, social media, and the marketing of vapes towards a younger demographic as some of the environmental factors.
Interviews with youth reveal that the environment is the biggest factor for initially vaping.
A 22 year old ex-smoker wrote in a direct message that she was 15 when she first vaped. When her friend handed her the vape, it looked like a fidget spinner.
“The concept of marketing a vape as a toy for children never sat right with me after that first encounter,” she writes. But that did not stop her from trying it.
CDC echoes the environmental marketing towards youth through social media, flavouring and unique appearances.
Elf Bar is one brand that offers disposable vapes with flavours such as Watermelon Ice, Peach Ice and Strawberry Banana.
“I think it is absolutely ridiculous that they are able to market flavours like “Gummy Bear” and “Bubble Gum” for an adult product and drug,” says the 22 year old. “The marketing between the packaging and the flavouring makes it seem as though they are targeting children.”
She says there needs to be more regulation around flavors, limiting it to only the raw tobacco flavour. The packaging “should be similar to cigarettes,” and should highlight the health risk of vaping, she says. Right now, the Government of Canada requires vape products to have a health warning on the packaging, although it does not need to be plain like cigarettes because vapes are not regulated as a tobacco product.
Sheridan, 23, started vaping when she was 14. Accessibility as a teen was never a problem for her. She says there were friends and older siblings of friends who would buy the vapes for her.
Some teens say they could buy vapes directly from a vape store. The teen from Hamilton says some vape stores don’t verify age and identification.
Sheridan says the vape store owner in her town knew high school students would come to buy vapes, and he sold it to them anyway. According to the Government of Ontario website, the legal age of purchasing tobacco products is 19.
In an extreme case, Sheridan says she has heard of some teens going as far as exchanging sexual favors with the vape store owner.
“At the end of the day, it is a part of it, because it kind of shows how desperate we all were as children. Once we’re addicted to nicotine, it’s hard to kick. And a lot of people will go to pretty far lengths in the name of addiction,” says Sheridan.
Once teens are introduced to the head buzz a vape can create, many rely on it to relieve stress. Often, teens don’t want to rely on vapes but the thought of not vaping is nerve wracking.
In the case of the 22 year old ex-vaper, vaping initially was a form of stress relief when struggling with depression. For Sheridan, it’s the reason she can’t quit.
“I’ll be like, well, I can’t quit because exam week is coming up or I can’t quit because like this test is coming up and I can’t be going through withdrawals and worrying about cravings while I’m trying to study and I can’t be like all over the place unfocused,” she says.
The solution to teen vaping is no easy feat. There are multiple factors that are contributing to the problem but Sheridan believes permanent change will come from the teens themselves.
“I think the deterrent would have to be the kids themselves. And I don’t really think that there’s things that adults can say, because there weren’t things that adults could say to me.”