Nicotine Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Hundreds Of Teens Attend Anti-Tobacco Summit

Hundreds of middle and high school students gathered at the Raze Youth Summit to learn about the dangers of e-cigarettes and vaping.

Nearly 700 students from across West Virginia attended the Raze Youth Summit on Wednesday morning to learn about the dangers of e-cigarettes and vaping.

Raze is a youth-led movement against the tobacco industry. Attendees are between the ages of 11 and 18 years old.

The program is funded and facilitated by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, the Center for Disease Control Prevention and the American Lung Association (ALA).

Students and educators gathered at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center for activities and educational sessions aimed at curbing smoking rates among teens.

Participants had the opportunity to have special effects makeup show how smoking would affect their aging process. The session was called “The Unfiltered Truth: The Physical Toll of Nicotine,” and featured special effects makeup artist, RJ Haddy. Haddy was a finalist on the Syfy Network’s reality television game show, “Face Off.”

One of the hundreds of attendees was Indy Tupa, a Raze Ambassador from Mineral County. She said Raze taught her ways to help her father quit smoking.

“I offered my dad those like links and those resources from like, the RAZE website, and like, alternatives to smoking, like chewing gum, or just like snacking on stuff,” Tupa said. “And that really helped him quit.”

In West Virginia, 22 percent of adults smoke and nearly 41 percent of high school students use a tobacco product, according to the ALA’s 2023 State of Tobacco report.

Tupa also said her school did not have working vape detectors in the bathrooms for about three years.

“My crew really pushed to get those working again, because vaping is a huge problem in my school,” Tupa said. “Not vaping has like really like opened my eyes to like how bad it is for people who do vape because like their throat always hurts, and they’re always coughing, and I just hear them complaining about how like sick they feel all the time.”

Jaxson Walker is a State Ambassador for Raze. He joined his Wyoming County school’s Raze crew in middle school and quickly rose up through the ranks of ambassadors.

“My fifth grade year, they asked us like to sign up for Raze, so I signed up, and then I never really realized how deep I was gonna dive into Raze, becoming a junior ambassador my eighth grade year,” Walker said.

As a State Ambassador, Walker had responsibilities to fulfill during the Summit. He and other ambassadors have been planning the event since the beginning of the year.

“I have a couple like topics I think are big today, and I think that would be peer pressure,” Walker said. “Whenever someone’s peer pressuring you into vaping or something. And then the other is people need to learn the effect a secondhand smoker can have on someone.”

Walker said he feels judged by his peers sometimes, but he just wants them to stop using nicotine products.

“You feel judged sometimes I feel like there’s been people that have judged me but I really don’t care,” Walker said. “Most people that are in it (Raze), we really just want you to quit because by the time you get older, you don’t realize it now you think, ‘Oh it feels good,’ but it’s gonna affect you really badly. I know several people in my county who have died of lung cancer I know people in my school who have vaped and just want them to quit.”

Walker called Raze events a safe space for teens like him to foster community.

“We talk with each other,” Walker said. “It’s like a little community. We have ideas. It’s just a great place to be and it’s a great club to be in. I encourage everyone to get into it. Go to your local high school, go to whatever, just get involved.”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Annual Anti-Tobacco Summit Aims To Slow Nicotine Use In Teens

An annual event is set to educate more than 600 youth from across West Virginia about the dangers of nicotine use.

West Virginia’s Raze will host the 2023 Raze Youth Summit on Oct.18th at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.

Raze is a teen anti-tobacco campaign funded and facilitated by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, the Center for Disease Control Prevention and the American Lung Association (ALA).

The event will include educational sessions on building strong mental well-being, a crucial aspect to remaining tobacco-free, according to the ALA.

Chaste Barclay is the Director of Health Promotions at the ALA and oversees youth programs in West Virginia, among other states.

“What a lot of teens, and even parents and grandparents that maybe aren’t as familiar with the products, know that in one vape pod, you have the equivalent of the amount of nicotine is the equivalent of 20 cigarettes,” Barclay said. “So the level of nicotine is quite high. And with teenagers their brains are still developing, it alters their brain chemistry, it makes them more susceptible down the road to other addictions and potential issues with that.”

Additionally, attendees will gain insights and strategies to help effectively navigate peer pressure.

Raze Advisor Eugenia Reesman from East Fairmont High School in Pleasant Valley said she is continually inspired by the passion and dedication of her crew members.

“The summit provides a platform for these remarkable students to drive positive change and equips them with the tools they need to lead tobacco-free lives through education, empowerment and innovation,” Reesman said.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Bill Seeks to Limit Childhood Secondhand Smoke Exposure in Cars

Outside of a 4th Avenue bus stop in Huntington, Ronni Stone is smoking a cigarette. She started when she was 15 years old and has been smoking for 35 years. She says she’s tried to quit about four times but was only able to last for about a week before the withdrawal symptoms made her light up again.

“I’ve done it for so long and it’s just that craving,” she said. “I hate how it smells, I hate how it looks. I’m the only smoker in my family, so it’s a really bad. It’s an addiction is what it is, it’s an addiction to nicotine.”

The West Virginia legislature has been considering a bill that would outlaw smoking in the car with children under the age of 16 present. But passing even moderate laws to limit tobacco use in the state are difficult sells.

For Stone, the idea is a no brainer. “They shouldn’t have to breathe what our habits are,” she said firmly.

While sponsors of the bill say has a lot of support from groups such as the March of Dimes, American Heart Association and American Lung Association, other members of the Legislature – particularly those in the Liberty Caucus, oppose the bill saying it limits individual freedom.

“I’m one of those that believe people have the right to make decisions for themselves but what I would like to see is for a dramatic decline in smoking,” said Senator Tom Takubo. Takubo is a pulmonologist and the lead sponsor of the bill. “I would like to see children growing up without shortness of breath and asthma because of their parents’ choice.”

West Virginia has been getting a lot of attention for the opioid crisis recently. But research shows that tobacco kills more than 4 times as many West Virginians as opioids.

“You know, I just read an article to the Senate that showed or compared just five minutes in a car with someone smoking is the equivalent of the damage and the inhalational injury to the lung that a firefighter would experience 4-8 hours of continuous firefighting in a large wildfire,” said Takubo.

Takubo, a Republican, says he understands the liberty caucus perspective, but thinks it goes too far in this case. He said he doesn’t know many smokers who like the fact that they smoke and that many have tried to quit, but couldn’t.

“It is very addictive,” Takubo said. “It’s more addictive than heroin in animal models.”

At Marshall University, Dr. Brandon Henderson is studying the neuroscience of nicotine addiction.

“So we look at specific neurons and regions of the brain that are altered by drugs of abuse,” said Henderson.

He said he hopes their research will provide information for future regulations that may help prevent another generation of lifelong smokers.

“So when you compare different drugs of abuse so cocaine, amphetamines and then compare them to nicotine, there really is a similar change in the amount of dopamine that’s released,” he explained.

Henderson said one of the main differences between nicotine and opioids is that tobacco is a legal drug. Although it has many health impacts, they take a long time to show up. Finally, unlike opioid abuse, culturally smoking is both prevalent and accepted in much of West Virginia.

But changing the culture is difficult. Bills like Takubo’s aim to start small by limiting the exposure of children to secondhand smoke.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.