Viewpoint: Vaping hurting, not helping, Indiana’s fight to be nicotine-free
Hoosier adults smoke cigarettes in greater numbers and with more frequency than people in most other states, a cause for alarm because smoking is the No. 1 cause of preventable disease and death. Indiana’s smoking rate isn’t a new development, though, as our state has ranked among the worst in the nation for most of the last decade. Those relative figures disguise some significant progress, however. At the dawn of the last decade, 25% of all Hoosier adults smoked cigarettes. By 2022, that figure had fallen to 16%.
As real progress was being made to reduce the consumption of tobacco via combustible cigarettes — at the individual level and via policy changes across the state — a new problem surfaced with the emergence of e-cigarettes. A report recently released by the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation details the full scale of Indiana’s vaping epidemic and includes recommendations for reducing e-cigarette use.
Moving in reverse
While traditional cigarettes gradually have become less prevalent, the use of e-cigarettes and vaping devices has grown quickly. According to the report, which was authored by experts at the University of Illinois Chicago, nearly 5% of Indiana adults used e-cigarettes in 2016, which was similar to the rate for Americans overall. However, in the five years between 2016 and 2021, the percentage of Hoosiers using e-cigarettes increased by 72%, far outpacing the American average. This is especially concerning because vaping is not a safe alternative; in some cases, e-cigarettes contain more nicotine than traditional cigarettes.
The negative health effects of e-cigarettes are substantial. Studies connect vaping to higher likelihoods of chronic cough, bronchitis and asthma, and vaping can lead to cardiovascular disease and early death. Further, e-cigarette vapor is far from harmless. In homes with people who vape, there is 2.7 times more airborne nicotine than in homes without tobacco use. Because e-cigarette vapor can contain harmful substances like carcinogens and metals, they have lasting health effects.
The effects on youth
Vaping presents even greater risks to Indiana youth, who vape at higher rates than adults. In 2022, nearly one in 10 Indiana youth said they had used e-cigarettes in the past month. For youth, e-cigarettes are now more popular than traditional cigarettes.
Nicotine, which is present in most e-cigarettes, negatively affects brain development and affects key brain receptors, making youth more susceptible to nicotine addiction. Additionally, some studies have even shown nicotine use may lead to future substance use by sensitizing the brain to other drugs — a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the “gateway effect.”
What to do about it
Despite significant strides in reducing Indiana’s smoking rate over the last decade, further action is needed to curtail the surging use of e-cigarettes. These steps are important not only for the public health of our state, but also for Indiana’s competitiveness economically. The benefits of a healthier Indiana would include longer average life expectancy, a larger tax-paying population, lower healthcare costs, and a more productive workforce. The average user of e-cigarettes accounts for $2,024 in additional health care spending each year, which is a cost all Hoosiers bear.
The UIC report summarizes what has been successful at reducing vaping, and the research points to what we already know to be true about traditional cigarettes: the most effective way to decrease use, by far, is to raise the tax. Research consistently shows higher prices decrease e-cigarette use, but increasing only the e-cigarette tax could incentivize people who vape to shift to traditional cigarettes. By increasing the tax on e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes at the same time, we might offset this risk. Other policy changes shown to be effective in specifically decreasing youth vaping are “Tobacco 21” laws, which ban the sale of e-cigarettes to people under the age of 21, as well as laws that ban the sale of flavored e-cigarette cartridges.
There is reason to be optimistic about our progress over the last decade in reducing Indiana’s smoking rate. But with the emergence of e-cigarettes, we must take seriously the threat they cause to the health of the people in our state and respond with urgency to reverse the trend.
Claire Fiddian-Green is president and CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Vaping presents great risks to Indiana youth.
