May 23, 2019 – Nicotine Knowledge

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: Many young people who use e-cigarettes don’t know they contain nicotine, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Among teenagers who use e-cigarettes, a startling number may not even know the products they’re using contain nicotine, a recent study found. Among the 500+ subjects, 40 percent of those who thought they were using nicotine free products weren’t. Michael Blaha, a tobacco regulation expert and cardiologist at Johns Hopkins, comments.

Blaha: It was extraordinarily amazing to find out how little kids unfortunately know about all the details about vaping products. Sometimes they don’t know that there’s nicotine in the products. Sometimes they think that the message is that they’re perfectly safe, not just a little bit safer. Sometimes they think that since it’s not smoking and it’s not specifically banned for example in their school, and sometimes they find because it seems to them more socially acceptable that it must be okay to do.  :29

Blaha says providing accurate information, especially regarding the addictive nature of nicotine use, must be provided again and again to at risk populations such as teenagers. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.