First time that I vaped I was in sixth grade.

I was 12 years old.

I was nine years old.

15 when I first tried a vape.

13 years old.

12 years old.

Ten.

Nine years old.

I was 14 when I started.

About 11 years old when I started vaping.

My mentality was like I need nicotine.

I don't have nicotine.

I’m gonna be mad.

I can't live without it.

It's an addiction.

It was something that completely controlled me.

Vaping has become an epidemic here in Idaho.

We found it in the elementary schools, in middle schools, the high schools, in college.

It's everywhere.

E-cigarette were developed in China and came on to the US market in 2007.

They were sold to the public as a smoking cessation tool and they became this global hit super fast.

Within a few years, multi-billion dollar global industry.

No science to back it up.

So all vaping devices work the same.

They have a battery in the bottom, a heating element in the middle, usually an atomizer or a coil, a container for liquid and then a mouthpiece.

So the beginning products had no oversight.

There was no standardization.

It was kind of the Wild West and everybody bought into it.

And we're using these products, but yet the science wasn't there to tell us, are they really safe?

The first generation was really the e-cigarettes.

It looked like a cigarette.

There really wasn't much difference in size and shape.

And about three years later, in 2009, we saw the develop of the vape pen.

That's when we started seeing refillable tanks.

We started seeing flavors being added.

And then in 2012 we saw the mod devices come out.

Which is short for modifying.

You can add bigger tanks to the top, you can add bigger batteries.

2015 the Juul was created.

That's when they started really seeing a change in teenage use.

Juul made a product that was sleek, easy to hide, and on top of that, they tasted good.

They had sweet and fruity flavors that appeal to younger market.

And within a year or two, they had captured 75% of the market.

Part of the reason why these were so popular is because there was so much nicotine in them that kids felt like they were getting a high from it.

They're getting buzz from it.

If you vaped one Juul pod, that's equivalent to one pack of cigarettes.

That's a lot of nicotine.

We are going to have this whole new generation that's addicted to nicotine, just like we did with conventional tobacco.

It makes me pretty angry.

It makes me really sad.

You see the advertisements that these e-cigarette companies use and you see the advertisements that the big tobacco of the fifties and sixties used to use.

And they're the exact same.

But it's just a different generation.

My generation.

Juul advertised on social media using young, fashionable models.

They hired influencers to promote their product.

They had launch parties.

They gave away free samples.

Juul had an Instagram page and they had a Twitter page.

And when you looked at their followers, 45% of those followers were people between the ages of 13 and 17.

These are not people who are allowed to purchase e-liquids.

These are not people who are allowed to vape.

Juul strategically marketed to children, to expose them to a product that would result in a lifelong addiction.

Finally, in 2020, the FDA banned fruity flavors from pod based e-cigarettes like Juul.

Tthe vape companies were like, well, then we're going to stop producing pod devices or we're just going to make these pod devices into one device and call them disposables.

Therefore, we can still add flavors to them and we can have higher amounts of nicotine in them still.

I look at these kids, young kids vaping, and many of them have no idea how addictive this product is.