Happy New Year! I hope that everyone enjoyed a happy and healthy holiday season. As we embark on the first week of 2020, the Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey (PDFNJ) is more committed than ever to reach teens and adolescents and teach them about the dangers of vaping. As school’s resumed this week, PDFNJ in collaboration with the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General has unveiled a media campaign about the dangers of vaping that will be distributed to each of the more than 3,500 school through the state.

The campaign’s message, that there is simply nothing safe about vaping, emphasizes the risks associated with vaping by comparing e-cigarette use to skydiving without a parachute. We are in the midst of a nationwide explosion of teens and teen use of vaping devices or e-cigarettes, which the United States Surgeon General declared has reached epidemic levels. In addition to the schools, the anti-vaping campaign will also will appear on billboards, trains and buses throughout the state. The messages include a pathway to gather additional information at VapeFactsNJ.com, the New Jersey Department of Health’s website on e-cigarettes and vaping. 

We hope that this campaign will raise awareness of the dangers associated with vaping and e-cigarettes. We want today’s youth to understand that vaping can inflict significant damage to one’s health, and to understand the risks they are taking if they choose to use e-cigarettes. As of December 27, 2019, the CDC reported that 2,561 people throughout the United States had been hospitalized with severe lung injuries caused by vaping. This outbreak also was responsible for 55 deaths. In New Jersey, there have been 53 confirmed and 46 probable cases of vaping-related illness and one death, according to the Department of Health.

Sadly, in 2019, more than one in four high school students reported using an e-cigarette in the previous 30 days, according to preliminary results from the CDC’s annual National Youth Tobacco Survey. The results indicated a significant increase in teen vaping, up from 20.8 percent of high schoolers in 2018 to 27.5 percent in 2019. The use of e-cigarettes has exploded in the past decade, especially among teens. In 2011, just 1.5 percent of high school students said they used an e-cigarette.

As we continue to discover new information on the effects of vaping, I encourage you to stay informed by following our social media pages (@DrugFreeNJ) and frequently visiting our website for current news at www.drugfreenj.org.