What should parents say when their teen says "But it's not smoking" when they find out they're vaping?
I've been working with schools for a long time now and have seen many alcohol and other drug trends come and go. New substances come onto the market and often disappear just as quickly as they hit the streets, while older drugs, once relatively popular, may see a resurgence in use after some time away from the scene. The substances most likely to cause significant harms are rarely used by school-based young people, however when it comes to vaping and the use of e-cigarettes, anecdotal reports suggest that's just the group that are most likely to be picking up the practice. About ten years ago an increasing number of reports of vaping started to come out of the US with headlines like 'E-Cigs Timebomb', "Hooked on Vaping' and 'Sales of Smokeless E-Cigs Catch Fire'. By 2015 I was asked to give a series of presentations across the country on 'novel ways of smoking' and included a section on vaping and e-cigarettes. At that time there were very few...