Youth vaping is a public health crisis – it’s time to treat it like on
Walk across any university campus in this country and you will see it everywhere. Between classes, outside libraries, in stairwells. A quick pull on a small device, a cloud of something that smells like bubble gum or tropical fruit, and then back to normal life.
Vaping has become so normalized among young Canadians that most users barely register the negative health consequences at all. As third-year medical students at the University of Toronto, we see it constantly. But we rarely hear the next question: how do these young people stop?
The flavours are not incidental – they are the point. Products named after candy and exotic fruit combinations are not designed with adult smokers in mind. Research indicates that flavour is one of the most common reasons for initiation of vaping among youth. It is designed to lower the barrier to experimentation for people who would never have picked up a cigarette, and it works.
Recent survey data show that more than one in four Grade 12 students in Canada currently vape, and the numbers are nearly as troubling a year earlier. Roughly one in seven Grade 12 students does so daily.
Canada has some of the highest teen daily vaping rates in the world. If the federal government is serious about protecting young people, it must do one thing urgently: ban flavoured vaping products that are appealing to youth.
The consequences of vaping on brain development should compel us to prioritize this issue. Nicotine exposure during adolescence disrupts reward pathways in the brain, increasing the future risk of addiction to other drugs. Evidence also suggests that over time, youth who vape are almost two times more likely to transition to daily cigarette use.
Overall, 90 per cent of adult smokers start before the age of 18. That is no coincidence. It reflects a window of neurological vulnerability that the nicotine industry continues to exploit.
The tobacco industry frames vapes as a cessation tool. For young people who have never smoked a cigarette in their lives, neither the framework nor the argument applies. These are not former smokers trying to quit. They are teenagers and young adults introduced to nicotine through a device that fits in their pockets, looks like a USB stick and tastes like mango – and are now dependent on it with no validated pathway off.
Nicotine replacement therapies, varenicline, counselling programs and quit lines were designed for combustible smokers. None has been properly tested on a 20-year-old who has been vaping since they were 15.
Research shows that the majority of young vapers want to quit and have tried to quit. Most rely entirely on willpower and distraction. This points to a clear gap between need and available support.
There is opportunity for Canada to do better. Building cessation supports specifically designed for this age group, rather than repurposing tools built for a different generation and a different product, would be a meaningful and achievable step forward. However, without tackling flavours alongside these supports, we risk treating the symptoms while leaving the driver of the epidemic untouched.
The evidence on prevention is also becoming clearer. Various American states that restricted flavoured vaping products saw significant reductions in sales compared to those that did not act.
Quebec’s flavour restrictions point in the same direction. Stronger regulations on marketing and packaging, the same approach that worked for cigarettes, reduce appeal and uptake among youth. These are not radical interventions. They are the logical next step in a tobacco control tradition that Canada helped build and now needs to uphold.
The young people who need help are already here, on our campuses and in our communities. As long as fruit- and candy-flavoured products remain widely available, the vaping industry continues to recruit new users into the same cycle.
We cannot afford to delay applying the lessons we learned from tobacco. The evidence is clear, and the outcome is predictable: when you reduce appeal, you reduce uptake. Restricting vape flavours now is about protecting the next generation and not leaving more young people behind.
Photo courtesy of DepositPhotos
