

The Truth Initiative’s texting support line, called This is Quitting, launched in mid-January. In the last year, she says, they’ve doubled enrollment. Levy says that over the Past two years, in-take calls for her program have increased sixfold, mostly from worried parents. “We just don’t know how well nicotine replacement is going to work,” she says. E-cigarette users inhale a lot more nicotine than regular smokers do. Some parents report THAT their kids are asking for lozenges constantly, but Levy says she has no guidelines for when to cut the kids off. How long will that take? And how many patches and gums and lozenges? Levy says they just don’t know.
You week off. dont quit. how to#
The hope is that the medication, alongside behavioral counseling on how to manage anxiety or social pressure, will eventually help addicted vapers wean themselves off of nicotine entirely. Most of Levy’s advice is based on strategies for quitting traditional cigarettes. Because lozenges are ingested, not inhaled, the nicotine is absorbed more slowly into the body and they don’t deliver the same euphoric dopamine hit of ripping a Juul. She also counsels parents to give kids nicotine lozenges if they start to get a craving.

You week off. dont quit. Patch#
Levy tries to treat with the lowest dosage possible, but if the patch isn’t working, there are also stronger medications like Buproprion. Managing these symptoms is the key to successfully quitting, Levy says, “because that’s what makes it so hard to stop.” Her program uses nicotine patches to ward off withdrawal.

Quitting is a physically uncomfortable experience and includes withdrawal symptoms like cravings, headaches, irritability, and depression.
You week off. dont quit. free#
“It’s just literally everywhere when they’re exerting their best effort to break free from it.” “Refusal skills are not a strength of many kids,” says Graham.

Others had friends who offered them e-cigarettes all the time, making it harder to resist. In a survey by the Truth Initiative, many teens reported being the only ones in their social groups who were trying to quit. For vapers, the feeling of being done only comes at the end of a pod, when they’ve inhaled about an entire cigarette pack’s worth of nicotine.Īnd since vaping is now so prevalent, teens can find it socially isolating to try to quit. “Kids typically smoke a cigarette until they’re done with the cigarette, and that signals when they’re done,” says Amanda Graham, who studies nicotine addiction at the anti-smoking nonprofit Truth Initiative. Pods vary widely between manufacturers, but of the two nicotine strengths Juul sells, its stronger pods contain the equivalent of 200 cigarette puffs, or roughly one pack of cigarettes. “I have kids who were doing well over the summer and were saying, 'I don’t want to go back to school, because I know I’m going to walk into the bathroom and everybody’s going to be handing me a Juul,'” says Levy, referring to the largest American e-cigarette maker.Į-cigarettes’ design also encourages high nicotine consumption. Teenagers can take a quick hit in the hallway or during class, or hang out in bathrooms, sharing each others’ e-cigarettes, and holding the vapor in their mouths long enough that it dissipates without releasing that telltale vapor cloud.
