I remember the first time I saw someone vape in front of me. I thought it was kind of cool, not going to lie. In fact, the first time I encountered vaping was by smelling it; it had an intoxicating fruity aroma, not fresh, definitely highly artificial but still good and it was good enough for me to want to taste it. I guess that's one of the appeals of vaping. Other appealing factors? You look "cool." Stereotypically cool. Because it's "smoking" but without the harsh, pungent, stale cigarette smell, it's covert. The only tell is the cloud of smoke that appears after you take a puff. It took me a while to even figure out what vapes looked like; most resemble flash drives or USBs, so that makes them harder to spot as a vape. Some are in pen form... another clever disguise. When I look back on it, I've been exposed to vapes and vaping since early high school, but it wasn't until college that I realized that it wasn't just an overnight fad. This was a new lifestyle in our generation and I wasn't sure how to feel about it.

When I had asked others why they vape or if it's safe I mostly heard, "Of course, it's just water vapor!" and I thought, "Oh okay water vapor sounds harmless." But I knew a lot of others who were skeptical that this was something that was too good to be true. I started noticing that when I saw people who I knew smoked cigarettes now vaping. In a sense, it was a good thing to see them smoke their flash drives instead of their butts (cigarette butts), but still, it was constant and every chance they got, and it resembled their cigarette habits. Essentially I concluded that vapes are replacement cigarettes. It was literally one of the reasons why someone I knew vaped. She was trying to quit smoking and turned to a "harmless water vapor device" instead. And granted, it's probably better than pumping tobacco and carcinogens into your lungs. But vaping comes with its own side effects and health conditions, as we are now seeing.

So far, six people have died and there have been over 400 cases of illnesses due to vaping as well. It's scaring some people so badly that they've considered smoking cigarettes again instead. And these aren't older folks who have been vaping for years and are now facing the consequences. Most vapers are young adults between 18 to 24 years old, and even though the age of cigarette smokers was also between teens and young adults as well, it would take years for the health effects to finally show up.

Now, this isn't to advocate for smoking cigarettes. We've seen those TRUTH commercials and PSA's and know enough now to say that it is unhealthy and slowly kills. But I feel that vapes are not only going down the same route, but they may be even worse because of the targeted demographic (I've seen 12-year-olds vaping, it starts pretty young) and how covert it looks and attractive it smells. Cigarettes smell pretty terrible, and I'm sure even a daily smoker would agree. But most vapes are scented, again either fruity or some other attractive aroma that would entice the vaper even more. Plus since it smells nice, others probably wouldn't mind inhaling some second-hand vape smoke (if that's even a thing). What began as trendy fad and somewhat of a meme, is now a major threat to our health. This is a similar pattern that occurred with smoking cigarettes.

So what do we do now that we've determined that vaping is just as bad (and some would argue worse of a threat) as smoking? Well, to say to just stop is a lot easier said than done. It's like telling a smoker who has been smoking for decades just to quit on the spot. I have an aunt who smokes and has been bombarded with pleas and demands from family members to just stop smoking. It's not that easy. Clearly vaping has a similar addictive quality as cigarettes do, so maybe the same methods that those who are trying to kick their cigarette addiction are using, could be implemented in stopping the widespread use of vapes. Granted, this affects tweens and preteens as well, and going on a patch wouldn't seem the most appealing for them. But to continue the conversation and not equate vaping to a trend or "less harmful way of smoking" could help lessen the appeal. I think most of all, the industries behind vaping are to take the heat and the responsibility for letting this get out of hand. Obviously the goal wasn't to lessen the number of people who smoked cigarettes as a way to better their lives but its for profit for their now-thriving industries. This is a multi-layered issue with multi-layered ways of solving it but just like how vapes were not the answer for stopping the use of cigarettes, let's not make another deadly trend the solution to vaping.