States Raising Smoking Age to Combat Teen Vaping

By Jennifer Clopton, WebMD, March 15, 2019

With comments from Nicholas Chadi

Nicholas Chadi, MD, has had a front-row seat to the high-speed growth of vaping among teens. Chadi, a pediatrician who specializes in adolescent and addiction medicine, says he didn’t have any kids coming to Boston Children’s Hospital for e-cigarette use 2 years ago. Now, they see someone in their clinic as often as once a week.

“For a lot of teens, it’s the main concern they or their parents have. It is becoming pretty center-stage,” he says.

Some of the teens “are completely addicted, and it’s taken over their lives,” Chadi says. “Teens who come to see us couldn’t even sit in class for an hour. They had to leave because they felt they were having withdrawal symptoms, and we’ve seen teens dropping out of sports teams because they are so focused on their e-cigarette use.” Read more