State officials address vaping "epidemic" among teens

HATTIESBURG, MISS. – Attorney General Jim Hood and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the popular trend of e-cigarettes as an “epidemic” amongst teenagers.

Hood mentioned, he plans to join the Mississippi Department of Heath, Mississippi Tobacco Data at the Mississippi State University Social Science Research Center, Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, and The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi to alert parents and teenagers about the dangers of “vaping.”

“Many people were misled to think that vaping was a safe alternative to cigarettes, but the truth is we don’t know what kinds of concoctions are brewed up in these unregulated stores mixing these chemicals. I want parents to know what their kids are doing, because it’s incredibly easy to hide these devices, and many teenagers don’t even know how dangerous it is to their health,” General Hood said. “One JUUL pod [the most popular brand] has just as much nicotine in it as an entire pack of combustible cigarettes. Some pods, found right here in the Jackson Metro are recently are laced with the deadly opioid fentanyl. Others are used to smoke cannabis. There are practical ways we can prevent the sale of these items to teenagers, and I plan to work on legislation with anyone who is committed to protecting the health of our youth.”