The Story

By the time I turned 16, I saw that many of my and my sister’s friends were vaping. By my senior year, I saw that one of my closest friends was severely addicted to nicotine and was even resorting to cigarettes when she didn’t have access to a vape. Now that I am in college, I see people vaping all the time, when they are walking to and from class, in the bathrooms, and especially at college bars and clubs. In highschool, my closest friends were not the type to ever vape, and I had previously thought that vaping was sort of dying off and becoming less cool. However, when I started college, I realized that the problem is much bigger than what I’d thought and witnessed in highschool. Seeing people my age vaping while walking around campus made me concerned about this dependence on nicotine and what impacts it might have on teen and young adult mental and physical health.