Are Academics Playing A Role In The Nationwide Juul Epidemic?

October 11 2019- It’s gummy, It’s chewy and boy is it deadly.  We’ve all heard of it, that flavorful great-tasting drug that we use to replace our daily smoking habits. And apparently, it is flying off the shelves in America’s convenience stores. This Item is known as Juul and many are unaware of the dangers of this new form of smoking technology. Based on the recent data that was collected from truth initiative.org, Juul contains more of the harmful chemical nicotine than many other e-cigarettes. This means on average, Americans smoke five cigarettes at one time alone while using this new product. However, the question remains “who will protect our nation’s youth from the dangers that Juul can cause?”.  According to Gq.com, Vaping trails only alcoholic beverages as the preferred psychoactive drug delivery system of America’s youth. In a December survey conducted by the National Institutes of Health, more than one-fifth of high school seniors—20.9 percent—reported vaping nicotine at least once in the preceding 30 days, compared to just 11 percent a year earlier. Whatever manufacturers are doing to get young people to try their products, it is working fantastically, which may be why more elected officials are looking into a vaping ban. This pattern is troubling, presumably, for public health experts at places like the Centers for Disease Control, which says it has received reports of six deaths and over 450 possible cases of e-cigarette-related lung illnesses, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is investigating a nationwide outbreak of respiratory conditions linked to contaminated cannabis vaping products. This week, FDA officials issued a pair of letters to e-cigarette giant Juul that shines an unforgiving spotlight on the company’s business model—and may signal the imposition of stricter federal regulations in the not-so-distant future. 
 
Unfortunately, political leaders did not act fast enough. The New York Times recently reported that a 17-year-old Bronx boy whose death was disclosed by the New York State officials on Tuesday is the first teenager in the United States to die of a vaping-related illness, according to federal and state data. The teenager died on Friday after being hospitalized twice in September with a vaping-related illness, becoming the state’s first fatality from the mysterious lung disease, according to state health officials. “Parents have to know; young people have to know,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in announcing the teenager’s death on Tuesday. “You are playing with your life when you play with this stuff.” The death brought the total number of vaping-related deaths in the United States to 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state agencies. New Jersey health officials said last week that an adult woman was the first resident of that state to die of a vaping-related illness. The New York City medical examiner’s office was conducting its own inquiry into the death announced by the state, according to a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio.
 
Although the harmful chemical nicotine causes teens to get addicted to this new form of smoking. Scientist believe that academics also plays a role in this issue. According to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, Academic failure and drinking are both problematic aspects of the adolescent stage of the life course, and the connection between these two behaviors can disrupt the basic functioning of individuals and schools. Drawing on theories of problem behavior from multiple disciplines, this study attempted to determine whether the academic failure was a risk factor for adolescent drinking, and vice versa, and then to identify the mechanisms underlying these two longitudinal associations. Cross-lagged models of data from 11,927 middle school and high school students in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health revealed that the number of classes failed in one year predicted alcohol use a year later more than early alcohol use predicted later class failures. Aspects of social bonding (e.g., attachments to adults) and symptoms of general maladjustment (e.g., delinquency) did more than opportunity structures (e.g., peer norms) to explain the connection between these two behaviors over one year of secondary school. Adolescence entails dramatic changes in behavioral expectations, opportunities, and consequences. As one example, schools become more differentiated, cumulative, and competitive, which increases the risk of academic failure as well as its long-term consequences (Dornbusch, Glasgow, and Lin 1996; Rosenbaum, DeLuca, and Miller 1999). As another, alcohol use becomes more normative, social, and higher status, all of which encourage this problem behavior and introduce a whole new range of health risks and other dangers (Schulenberg and Maggs 2002). These two defining features of adolescence are, of course, related to each other. For young people who are struggling in school, drinking can become a new method for coping and an alternative form of social achievement. For young people who begin drinking heavily, schooling pursuits may become harder but also less important. Thus, the connection between academic failure and adolescent drinking, not just each on its own, is a major social problem that both the educational system and American families are confronting.
 
With these claims, we can better understand the psychology of the adolescent brain to form a valid opinion. However, we must continue to fight for the health of not just teenagers but for the future of all American lives.
 
Sources:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2834180/, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/nyregion/vaping-death.html https://www.gq.com/story/juul-vaping-federal-ban https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/03/juul-e-cigarettes-popularity-among-teens-concerns-schools-fda.html https://www.marketwatch.com/story/juul-will-make-it-harder-for-minors-to-buy-its-e-cigarettes-2019-08-29