Talking with your teen about vaping

Does your teen vape? A recent Health Canada survey showed that 23 per cent of students in grades 7-12 have tried an electronic cigarette.

Health Canada has warned that vaping or using electronic cigarettes may cause health risks. Those health risks can be experienced by the person vaping, or by inhaling the vapours of others.

If you’d like to have a conversation with your teen about vaping, it's important to have the facts:

1. Vaping can increase your exposure to harmful chemicals.
2. Vaping can lead to nicotine addiction.
3. Although not all vaping products contain nicotine, the majority of them do, and some have the same or more nicotine than in a typical cigarette.
4. Vaping nicotine can alter teen brain development.
5. The ingredients typically found in vaping liquids include glycerol, flavours, propylene glycol and varying levels of nicotine… yuck!
6. The long-term safety of inhaling these substances in vaping products is unknown and continues to be assessed.

If you use tobacco or vaping products, be honest with your teen about the risks, and any regrets, difficulties and health effects resulting from your own experience. Talk with your teen about when and why you started to smoke/vape and explain how you thought it would make you feel, and how it is affecting your health.

Take advantage of situations where you can talk to your teen about vaping. Odds are, you will probably need to talk about the subject many times and in many different places.