Vaping & Cobras

Vaping. Cobras. Irony. Rat tails. What do these things all have in common? Well, first we have to back up about 100 years and travel to the other side of the world. This takes us to India under British colonial rule. Venomous Cobras were becoming a concern, so they placed bounties on cobras.

The intention was to reduce the cobra population and to reward those who killed them. But instead, people farmed the cobras in order to gain more money. When they stopped the bounty, cobra farmers released them into the wild, increasing the population of cobras. This was called the Cobra Effect.

A similar thing happened in Vietnam with rats. To collect the bounty, you had to bring the rat’s tail. But the rat catchers would cut the tails, release the rats, and let the rats breed and grow in numbers, making the rat catchers more money. Thus another example of the Cobra Effect.

Now we are seeing the Cobra Effect amongst teens, in the form of vaping. Vaping was originally created by Hon Lik and Herbert A.Gilbert as a safer alternative to smoking. It was supposed to help cigarette addicts quit.

As we see nicotine addiction amongst teenagers due to vaping, a question we must ask is, what do teens actually think about vaping?

When asked if he vapes, Jay Lucero, a junior at Murray High School stated, “Um… I mean I have. But I don’t- I’m not like..hooked. But like if i’m at a party and somebody passes me one, I’m not gonna say no.”

“Usually they [students] think it’s cool or something…” commented Kaileigh Storrud, a junior at Cyprus High School. “My personal thoughts are, ‘Hey, you know what? You do you boo, but I ain’t gonna ruin my life, because I don’t wanna do that shiz.’”

Paige Smith from Taylorsville High School had this to add.

“I think that the kids who do vape…they don’t understand that it has really high levels of nicotine and nicotine is extremely addictive and it is really hard to stop being addicted…”

She also added, “But I also think they’re doing it just to either look and act cool in front of their friends.” “Because it’s what everyone else is doing or they don’t understand that it’s not a great thing for your body.”

Austynn Boren from Mountain View High School, when asked why she does not vape, simply said, “Because I don’t want to.”

“Personally, my first impression of it is that it’s a good way to quit smoking, but I’ve been reading a lot of articles and news about people getting vaping related diseases…” said Hyrum Leyva, a student from The Academy for Math, Engineering, and Science (AMES). He continued, “I think that it’s not particularly a good idea especially since it is highly addictive.”

Orem High’s very own Joseph Cruz had this to say about the subject.
“It’s kinda stupid and I don’t see the purpose of harming myself.”

Out of the 12 students interviewed from all over Utah, eleven out of twelve students claimed that they did not vape. One student claimed they occasionally vaped, and one student said they didn’t know if they would or not, if offered.

All of the teens interviewed had at least some issue with vaping. Whether it was the addiction, the harmful chemicals, the social pressure, the marketing towards teens, etc.

Janessa Scardina from Taylorsville High School had this to say for her final remarks.

“Before you get into it, you have to ask yourself, ‘Am I prepared to face all of these consequences?’”