BDO – Ellis Dean: What’s really happening, particularly on our college campuses, on our HBCU campuses and specifically black women and vaping and the increase in rise and in vaping amongst black women on these campuses?
Ms. Tatiana Stewart:
Based on the data and figures, uh, vaping is up while cigarette use is down. When you learn the history of your marketing techniques, you realize I may not be in as much control as you think. It’s definitely, there’s a disconnect a bit. Um, it’s fun. You take your cute Instagram videos, you blow your smoke and, um, and it’s fun and there’s an aspect to it. That’s and there, there is an effect, a physical effect on you that you experience the buzz, like a nicotine buzz.
You May Also Like
Ms. Dynecia Clark:
It’s (vaping) definitely marketed as something cleaner, something different growing up, you know, it’s always like cigarettes are bad. When you get to college, you know, there is nothing that tells you about who I didn’t even know that hookah was tobacco. The first time that I socially went to a hookah bar, but those are things that are marketed to us through secondary third-party, you know, promoters and things like that. They kind of come on to the college campuses and market this hookah as something that’s, you know, as fun. It’s like sexy, something that, you know, young women and young men can get into and do socially without like all the gross stuff that comes with the cigarette. However, a lot of times they don’t know, you know, the extreme, harsh outcomes that can come from it. And so I’ll definitely say working with this program, I learned a lot about hookah and vape pens and just like the market in the way that they target us, how they target the youth, why they target the youth, things like that.
BDO – Ellis Dean:
One of the things that they talk about, uh, in a documentary and I was researching about it is that it’s the flavors, right? They’ve got a Nana and Tutti, Frutti, and strawberry and chocolate and all kinds of flavors, blueberry, and all kinds of flavors. And the same thing is happening with hookah. And I’m going to ask you all, is that you think, is that with the flavoring, is that sort of striving kind of the, the lack of stigma that comes with vaping and hookah? Why do you think that they are targeting youth?
You May Also Like
Ms. Tatiana Stewart:
There’s a few elements there where one, the earlier you start with something as addictive as nicotine and tobacco products, you have a lifelong customer that will make you a lot of money. Um, and additionally, to being more impressionable, you want to fit in with their friends. Um, and when you see your friend using something, it may just be, even if your parents have told me, stay away from this, stay away from that. You, it may seem approachable if you have people in your life that are using it. And then another factor is the kind of developmental phase we’re in. As teenagers, as young adults, we think we’re going to live forever.
Dynecia Clark:
I feel like the more flavors that you have, the more appetizing innocence that it seems like how you said it’s like 2d fruit is banana. There’s like flavors like watermelon and just fun flavors, innocence that young people like, and it’s almost like nostalgic innocence. And so when you see flavors like that, it’s different. Like, I can’t go in a gas station and look at cigarettes and be like, oh, let me get the cherry flavored cigarettes. You know, like that just doesn’t sound like a normal thing. But if I’m in this fun environment and I have this clean smoking, clean hookah kind of thing, like I’m not smoking a cigarette, there’s not a strong menthol scent coming from it. You know, it just smells like bubblegum. You know, I feel like people overlook other things cause they’re so caught up in the nostalgia. It’s like eating a cookie and not looking at, you know, the ingredients on the back and realizing that, you know, even though it takes everything, this cookie is not good for you. So I feel like it’s, it’s like a, almost like, like targeting, like the childish part of your mind, not childish sense of immaturity, but challenged in the sense of like the, the cycle, the psychological aspect of it, like how they get you in. Young people fit that.
BDO – Ellis Dean: And so, um, when you’re talking to people that, that do use hookah or that do voice, what are they saying to you with regards to how they got started and why they continue to use the products?
Dynecia Clark:
A lot of people I know who still like smoke hookah or used tobacco products, this kind of, they do it in the sense of being stuck in their ways. Like, if I say, Hey, you know, like, why don’t we like not order hookah when we go out to eat tonight, it’s kind of just like because it’s fun. But it’s also dangerous and not really good for you. And it’s like, even if you explain like the health things it’s like, they don’t realize that the addictive part has already set up because now every time you want to go out to eat, you want to order the hookah and the thought of you not ordering hookah is like not fun to you. And you have to decipher when something is no longer fun and it’s actually detrimental view.
BDO – Ellis Dean:
Dr. Lenore talks about having an oil spill in the bottom of your lungs, and really talking about that scarring is really going to get people to see it in a different light and understand that cigarettes are not alone on an island. They (vaping and hookah) are part of a whole tobacco industry and trying to get you addicted to using their products.
For more information on vaping and the effects it has on your health, specifically your lungs and second hand smoke click the following link. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1122974901563447
