Chicago Public Health Campaign Takes on Vaping Among City Youth

Public health campaign takes aim at vaping among city youth

By Brianna Gurciullo, Chicago Tribune

The Chicago mayor's office and the Chicago Department of Public Health launched a public awareness campaign Wednesday to warn residents of the dangers of vaping.

The campaign, targeted at young people and their families, rolled out this week with a social media push as the health department posted links to studies about nicotine on Facebook and Twitter. Digital and billboard advertisements will appear starting Monday. The ads have bold, colorful text that reads "Vaping: Liquid Poison," "Vaping: It's Still Addiction" and "Vaping: Why Risk It?"

Matt Smith, health department spokesman, said the campaign will run between four and eight weeks and could continue even longer. It will include ads on 50 CTA rapid transit stations, more than 100 buses and trains and eventually multiple billboards. A state grant is funding the campaign, Smith said.

Nationwide, smoking among teenagers is at a 40-year low, according to the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future survey. But use of electronic cigarettes tripled among middle school and high school students from 3.9 percent in 2013 to 13.4 percent in 2014, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey.

With liquids that can come in fruit or candy flavors, "the vaping industry is really strongly marketing their products to appeal to young people," said Julie Morita, Department of Public Health commissioner.

"The marketing isn't so different from what we experienced in the '50s with the Marlboro Man," she said, referring to advertisements that made smoking appear "glamorous."

Morita called vaping a "gateway" to regular tobacco use because it gets young people in the habit of inhaling from a device. She said the campaign aims to dispel the idea that vaping is a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes, curb its appeal and prevent the normalization of smoking.

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"We know that there are risks" including nicotine addiction, impact on brain development and negative health effects associated with the chemicals in e-liquids, Morita said. "They're not as safe as people would believe them to be."

The department announced that it will help community organizations raise awareness of the risks of vaping and connect residents to resources for quitting.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a release that the campaign was part of a "comprehensive effort to reduce youth smoking." In November, the City Council passed an ordinance to make Chicago the first large city in the country to tax e-cigarette liquid. The city has banned the sale of flavored tobacco products within 500 feet of schools. Morita said the mayor has looked to create a "tobacco-free generation."

Between 2011 and 2013, nicotine use among Chicago high school students decreased from 13.6 percent to 10.7 percent, according to the city release that cited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

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The Food and Drug Administration has yet to gain authority over regulating e-cigarettes, which has left state and local governments to determine rules for sales, according to the Public Health Law Center.

"Also, because the federal government has yet to exercise its regulatory authority over these products, e-cigarettes are manufactured without regulatory oversight or quality controls, and promoted and advertised broadly without appropriate health warnings or legal age restrictions," according to the center.