With innumerable reported health issues over the years and, more recently, the seventh reported death tied to vaping, a push to more tightly regulate e-cigarettes and similar devices is gaining momentum across the country.

Tiffany Lam, with the Office of the Arizona Attorney General, dropped by Church of the Ascension Tuesday evening, Sept. 17, to take part in an ongoing seminar series geared toward educating parents. The topic was “E-cigarette Awareness and Prevention.”

Lam began her presentation discussing nicotine, which reportedly claims the lives of 480,000 Americans each year.

“We’re finding that teen and even adults don’t know that many e-cigarettes have nicotine in them,” Lam said. She added that this is a common misconception with vaping, which is why many incorrectly assume smoking e-cigarettes must be safer than smoking a standard tobacco product.

According to Lam, vaping – especially the flavored brands that come in everything from cherry to chocolate cake or bubblegum – is creating a whole new generation of users addicted to nicotine.

Lam warned that one of the major concerns of e-cigarette use is that they were only introduced to the market about a decade ago.

“That’s not enough time to know the full extent of the dangers,” Lam said.

At the moment, the CDC is investigating 450 cases of lung injuries tied to vaping. The average age of the individuals tied to these cases is 19. Lam argued that the design of vaping devices, the “cool” advertising and the multitude of flavors makes it clear that the devices are being targeted at teens.

Combine that with newer “open” systems that allow users to refill their vape devices with homemade concoctions and the user has no idea what additional contaminants are being introduced into their body, not to mention the margin for error in proportions.

According to Lam, the major concern for teen use at the moment are called pod e-cigarettes, which are made to look sleek, small and high-tech. An example of this are the popular products being put out by Jull. The salt-based nicotine used in these devices allows for more nicotine to be comfortably ingested while producing smaller volumes of exhaled vapor.

Lam highlighted the fact that a single e-cigarette is the equivalent of six to seven standard cigarettes in regards to nicotine. A single Juul pod, though, can contain as much nicotine as a pack of 20 cigarettes.

With so little information available concerning long-term use of e-cigarettes, Lam said that users are serving the purpose of Guinea pigs.

“A lot of students assume cigarettes are worse because we now have the data to back up all of those dangers,” Lam said, noting that everyone thought cigarettes were good for you until decades’ worth of use and studies proved otherwise. “Similarly, modern teens will provide the data, over time, as to what the actual dangers are of e-cigarettes.”

While the majority of teens believe the products they are using do not contain nicotine, Lam said 80 percent of e-cigarette products confiscated in schools contain nicotine.

“They know nicotine is bad for them, but they don’t realize the product they are using has nicotine,” she added.

For parents looking for additional resources, Lam recommended the Truth Initiative’s Quit Program. More information can be found at truthinitiative.org. To connect with a parent helpline specialist through Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, interested parties may also visit drugfree.org/helpline, call 1-855-DRUGFREE or text questions directly to 55753.