What you need to know.
Time for some real talk: Could vaping be adding to your stress instead of helping?
Vaping has negative short- and long-term health risks. Decide what you want to do
about it and take back control.
Ready to Quit? Make Your Choice
The fact is that vaping actually has short and long-term health risks. Although vaping hasn’t been around long enough for us to know all its health effects, we’ve still discovered a lot.
Don’t get sucked in. Get the facts and make an informed choice about vaping and your health.
Highly addictive nicotine found in vapes can be extracted from the tobacco plant or made chemically in a lab. Every form of nicotine has risks.
Your brain is still developing until you are about 25 years old. This is why is takes less nicotine and time to become addicted. Did you know one vape (2mL of e-liquid) can contain more nicotine than 40 commercial cigarettes? That’s two whole packs! Vapes with more than 2mL of e-liquid can contain the same amount of nicotine as smoking 300 cigarettes!
Using nicotine before your brain is fully developed can lead to:
How does this happen?
Your brain is still developing. Each time a new memory is created or a new skill is learned, your brain is building stronger connections (synapses) between brain cells.
Your brain builds connections faster than adult brains. Nicotine changes the way these connections are made, impacting healthy brain development. It also increases the risk of addiction to other substances like cigarettes.
Vaping affects your mental health in ways that aren’t always easy to notice at first.
Social media and advertising make it seem like vaping helps you deal with stress and anxiety, but it’s been shown to actually make these feelings worse. You may vape to fit in, but over time, it could harm your mood and leave you feeling disconnected.
Nicotine in vapes is also highly addictive. When a person becomes addicted to nicotine, then stops using it, their body and brain have to get used to not having nicotine. This can lead to nicotine cravings and withdrawal, which could feel like:
Using nicotine can make these symptoms go away for a little while, but as nicotine levels in the body wear off, these feelings come back. This cycle leads to dependency on nicotine and can lead to addiction.
Vaping messes with the natural chemicals (neurotransmitters) in the brain. Nicotine found in most vapes, increases stress chemicals (cortisol), which causes increased heart rate, breathing and blood pressure. This is the same reaction people have when they are scared or stressed. It is the exact opposite of what your body does when it is calm.
The tobacco and vape industry use marketing techniques that promote their products in ways that target you.
The industry uses strategies that appeal to people like you, including colourful and “cool” packaging, popular flavours, and even social media influencers and celebrities to endorse products. These marketing techniques are designed to falsely make you believe vape and tobacco products are safe, helpful and even a “normal” part of life, influencing you to try them.
It is important that you are careful and think critically about what the industry is actually trying to sell. Make your own informed choices after learning the real facts about the risks of these products.
We get it—quitting vaping can be tough. But guess what? You’re not alone in this journey. Whether it’s your first attempt or you’ve tried before, we’re here to support you every step of the way. Remember, every small step counts, and we’re cheering you on!
Try any of these free resources to help you say goodbye to your vape.
24/7 online chat or phone support offering counselling on vaping or anything you might need.
Create your own plan to quit vaping and get tips along the way
Quitting vaping is one of the best things you can do to improve your health. Don’t believe us?
Here are just some of the benefits of quitting:
If you keep vaping, there are serious health risks.
Here’s what we know so far about vaping and its effects on your health
Just thinking about quitting can be overwhelming but there is support. You’re not alone in this journey. Whether it’s your first attempt or you’ve tried to quit before, we’re here to support you every step of the way. Remember, every small step counts, and we’re cheering you on!
Hamilton’s leading youth health advocacy group. Using creative engagement strategies to provide peers with the unfiltered facts about health issues that affect them.