Today’s Substances Are More Harmful than Those You May Have Been Exposed to as a Teen

Nicotine

• The nicotine content in vaping products is equal to or higher than that found in cigarettes, and the type of nicotine used in some vaping products are designed to enter the bloodstream faster, increasing the likelihood of addiction and other negative health consequences.
• Vaping products are very discreet and easy to hide, allowing young people to use them more frequently and intensely throughout the day compared to smoking a cigarette.
• Vaping products come in countless flavors that appeal strongly to young people, increasing their interest in using them and reducing the perceived harm of the products.

Alcohol

• Alcohol products today come in many more forms and flavors than in the past, most of which appeal to youth because they mask the harsh taste of alcohol with sweet flavors and because they come in forms that resemble soda cans or fruit juice, making them more discreet and easy to hide
• The fruit flavors and low-calorie marketing claims also convey to youth that these products are healthier than beer and other traditional forms of alcohol when, in fact, they contain the same or higher amounts of alcohol than those products.

Marijuana

• The potency of THC (the psychoactive and addictive ingredient in cannabis/marijuana) in most cannabis products today is nearly four times higher than it was 20 years ago: the average percentage of THC in seized cannabis samples in 1995 was 3.96% while it was 15.61% in 2018.
• The ways in which youth ingest marijuana now compared to in the past – specifically, dabbing or vaping concentrated cannabis or using edibles, compared to smoking a joint, allow for ingestion of much higher doses of THC (up to 95%) on a single occasion.