001thank you for joining us tonight it is my honor to welcome Shane Watson he is a public information officer for not my child not my kid and also serves as a prevention specialist for the organization he is response his responsibilities include hosting and producing not my kids when this year podcast performing media appearances for the organization overseeing not my kids social media presence blogging facilitating early intervention sessions for project rewind program facilitating suicide intervention workshops and performing performing prevention education presentations for students parents students school faculty and other community members Shane originally joined not my kid in January of 2013 as a student peer educator on the topic of substance use in his time with the organization he has performed over 500 speaking engagements to audience of over a hundred thousand at schools corporations conferences
002community groups and other venues in Arizona California Boston Atlanta in Kansas City he has also made over a hundred local and national media appearances including television interviews on The Today Show good day New York and Kansas City live his writing credits include prevention articles for Katie Couric website a zpm good evening thank you for being here thank you for sharing your time with name is Shane Watson as mentioned I am the public information officer for not my kid and also a prevention specialist for the organization I've been not my kid for seven years and in addition to my staff duties for the organization I present on four topics Internet safety bullying a combination topic of depression self-injury and suicide and substance use under which the umbrella of this falls under substance use my connection to
003the topic of substance use has three very distinct parts first is professionally through my work with not my kid and then with the organization seven years during those seven years I've had the opportunity to work with schools students families and local and national behavioral healthcare professionals through whom I've learned some very eye-opening things about substance use the root causes of it the long and short term effects also professionally I manage and facilitate project rewind which is our organization's early intervention program several schools and school districts in the valley refer their students to us middle school high school kids if they are caught on campus under the influence with drugs or alcohol or with paraphernalia so I'm working directly with middle school and high school students who have started down that path of experimentation so I'm
004seeing firsthand what we are up against here locally my second connectionist topic is a very personal one I am in long-term recovery 8 plus years clean and sober and I went from being a kid who was a straight-a student a Boy Scout an athlete on for a healthy kid I went from being that person to being someone who struggled with substance use for close to two decades became addicted to alcohol cocaine methamphetamine and heroin at points in combination ended up incarcerated twice and as a result of the decisions I made the last night I drank are used November 28 2011 ended up a convicted felon and nearly lost my life so to say that substance use had a profound effect in my life is not an overstatement my third and final connection of this topic
005is the one that by far I am the most passionate about like many of you I am a parent and the very proud dad of a strong amazing intelligent stubborn little seven-year-old girl named Anna grace and she is everything to me and she's also the reason why my eyes look so tired now at seven years old vaping and e-cigarettes are not quite a reality in her world yet but we're beginning to see kids starting to experiment at earlier in earlier ages so I not only want to equip my family with the tools and the knowledge and the resources to prevent this I want to do the same for you prevention works we have seen the positive effects of it firsthand in schools in families in students right here in Arizona and one more thing before
006we start and this next statement might surprise you this is not an anti vaping or an anti e-cigarette presentation now let me clarify we are not looking to have these devices banned we are not looking to have vape shops shut down when it comes to adult use as we're going to talk about these were invented as a harm reduction method for adults a smoking cessation method remember that our organization is in the field of prevention for adolescents we don't even comment on adult use based on the odds based on the percentages someone here one of you adults probably uses vapes or a cigarette keep in mind in tonight's discussion we are not commenting on you we are talking about this being a health danger for middle school and high school kids for youth if you're
007not familiar with our organization a little bit of background we were founded 20 years ago in Scottsdale by a Scottsdale family Debbie and Steve Moke who had a son that by all outward appearances was the perfect kid a scholar an athlete a student leader and his parents didn't realize he was also struggling with substance use issues until he was in the grips of full-blown addiction they got him helped got him on the road to recovery the family's doing great he's doing great today but they felt like their job wasn't done they said we addressed our family's issue but how many other families are in this same situation great family who love their kids but are blindsided by what's going on with their own kids so we were founded around that initial topic that you see
008up at the top of substances we've since expanded out to include six total topics body image unhealthy relationships bullying digital behavior also known as safe social media use an accommodation topic of depression self-injury and suicide we speak on all six of these topics for two main reasons number you cannot walk into a middle school or high school in the state of Arizona without encountering students that are dealing with these that's reality number two through our work with local families schools students and behavioral health care professionals we've learned these are often interconnected very frequently when we meet a young person that's struggling with one of these they're struggling with another one or they are at greater risk to deal with another one we had a seventh-grade girl last school year referred to our project rewind program
009who had been bullied on Instagram about her appearance by people she had considered friends and turned to alcohol as an escape that's a cross over a five of those six topics in just one person scenario and as you see over here on the Left which better reach school faculty parents grandparents guardians aunts and uncles and students themselves because no one of these groups should try to have to tackle all these issues on their own but if we can educate and empower all these groups to work on the same page as I said before we can create change we can save lives and we can improve lives by the time we're done here tonight we want to make sure we've answered these guiding questions for you what our vapes and e-cigarettes we're gonna break down what's
010actually going on with these devices because a lot of people don't even necessarily know what they do I hear it referred to very frequently as smoking and it's not smoking it's actually something very different now if you're already aware of how that works great you're ahead of the game but we're gonna break down the mechanics of it why were they created for a very good reason which we'll get into how frequently are they being used by adolescents and that's the concern that's the focus of tonight's presentation what are the reasons they're being used by middle school and high school students if as a parent we find out our child is drinking or using we want it to stop but we also need to find out the why behind it the motivation behind why a kid
011is drinking or using can begin to point you in the direction of a solution we meet plenty of kids who are using or drinking to get a feeling they want the buzz or the high or the euphoria we are meeting an equal or greater amount in our early intervention program who are using to get away from a feeling they are self-medicating anxiety depression and/or stress what are the potential negative side effects why should we be concerned that kids are using in these and finally what do we do about this how do we venit and if it's already occurring how do we intervene and if you are a stickler for sources as I'm quoting statistics or information tonight if you're wondering is this coming from a reputable source or sources the short answer is yes Harvard
012Berkeley that National Labs NIH etc so the reason why this has become our most requested topic vaping has to do with what you're seeing here I mentioned facilitating an early intervention program now we recently analyzed some data for the last 200 students who have gone through the program all local Arizona Valley students and this is what the breakdown looks like 51 percent THC use and we're not meeting kids that are smoking marijuana anymore they are vaping THC concentrates and a fairly close second 32% are vaping nicotine because of this breakdown tonight we're not only going to be talking about kids vaping nicotine eliquid or flavored eliquid but we're gonna be talking about the effects of kids using THC concentrates and this information right here comes from the monitoring the Future survey the MTF survey this
013is done annually of eighth graders tenth graders and twelfth graders they do is they ask questions about drug and alcohol use and other risky behaviors and you notice these columns here every column that you see that has an asterisk next to it not only it increased in 2019 from 2018 if it has an asterisk it increased significantly from the prior year vaping of nicotine increased any vaping increased marijuana and hash oil increase and the only one that went down that's what those caret symbols mean a major decrease all the way at the end kids just fake vaping the flavored liquid so nicotine and THC vaping have gone up so let's talk about it what is vaping as you see here it's the act of inhaling an aerosol created by a liquid heated in a personal
014vaping device a box mod vape Joule essaouira and we have models over here that you can take a look at when we're done talking tonight by the way this may spend a little bit funny please don't take my vapes home with you I've had parents leave parent presentations with concealment devices and paraphernalia please make sure that you leave it here it is not by the way smoking I hear a lot of people use the term smoking it is not actually burning something or the inhaling and exhaling of smoke it is actually an aerosol so it's actually not even a vapor either it is an aerosol and it can come in vape pens like this although we're not seeing this very frequently when it comes to youth we're seeing other devices much more frequently we'll talk
015about those in a minute but what is the liquid that's being heated and inhaled and exhaled a lot of the kids that we talk to the reason they have such a low perception of risk they believe that this is harmless is because a lot of middle school and high school students when polled will tell us well this is just water vapor you cannot blow vapor clouds that big by inhaling and exhaling water vapor what is in the e-liquid tends to be one or more of the ingredients that you see here now let's talk about propylene glycol which we'll call PG from now on propylene glycol is a food additive now people who will advocate for the safety of propylene glycol advocate for the safety of vaping it will tell you propylene glycol is approved by
016the FDA as safe it is for ingestion not for inhaling ingesting something and inhaling something are two very different things propylene glycol is a food additive that has put in prepackaged shrink-wrap foods that are going to be sitting on store shelves for a prolonged period of time to keep moisture out of them to keep them from spoiling other people will also advocate for the safety of pg by telling you propylene glycol is used in asthma inhalers so how could it be dangerous one very key difference asthma inhalers do not heat the propylene glycol vapes and e-cigarettes do when you heat propylene glycol to the temperature to which these devices get up to propylene glycol produces a byproduct chemical or multiple by-product chemicals that are not there at room temperature those byproducts Emma Claus have been
017shown to be cancer-causing and damaging to the lungs now vegetable glycerin known as VG a lot of people will advocate for it being safer than propylene glycol is it safer yes is it completely safe when we're talking about youth is it completely without consequence oh and I'll give you an example if you know someone who vapes eliquid primarily or solely made of VG have them take about a half dozen hits and blow them onto a glass plate onto a window onto a glass arcadia door right up on it about a half dozen hits after they do that take your finger and run it through the residue where they've blown those hits and look at the residue the glistening residue left on your finger now keep in mind you're seeing that on your finger and the
018person the child the middle schooler or high schooler that's inhaling that is taking that into their lungs and you're seeing the result of a half dozen hits multiply that out over how many hits someone's taking per day per week per month per year and remember that is going into the lungs nicotine is optional but the majority of kids that were meeting are vaping either nicotine e-liquid or a THC concentrate as you saw that monitoring the future study earlier flavor is optional but flavors the reason 80% of kids said that they started and then water is sometimes used to change the viscosity the thickness now a moment ago we showed the vape pen which is how this originated but we're actually starting to see that much less and as parents you've probably long heard about the
019Joule ease cigarette which for a very long time was the most popular east cigarette or vaping device with middle school and high school kids it was easy to get it was easy to hide it was a big social media status you can make a big production of having your Joule on Instagram snapchat etc but Joule can no longer produce the flavors that they used to produce if you're familiar with the news that's been happening recently they have banned Joule from making any flavors other than tobacco flavor and and menthol and I don't know a lot of middle school or high school kids who want to vape menthol or tobacco flavor so as parents a lot of us saw this a lot of people saw this and thought okay good the problems been legislated away it's
020been done away with well also in recent years we were seeing the Soron drop and we were seeing the soar in air now when we thought that this was being legislated away the surprise that came up on the horizon was something called the puff bar now this has made the national news within the last couple weeks because as you will see down here in the last paragraph a footnote on page 9 of the new policy that banned pod systems flavor pod systems like Jewel allows flavors to still be made if it is in a disposable device so as parents if we're still looking for the soar and drop the Soron air if we're still looking for the jewel we are looking for the wrong thing we have three puff bars up here on this bag
021free to look at before you leave that were given to me by a school resource officer locally and I asked him you know we're seeing this nationally are you seeing this locally he said absolutely the jewel is beginning to phase out very rapidly the soaring drop in the soar and air are beginning to phase out very rapidly and now what we are starting to see is the puff guard in all of the same flavors that you could get before in a very similar style to the jewel with the equivalent amount of nicotine 5% nicotine so to give you an idea of what 5% nicotine equates to when it comes to cigarettes let's put it in terms of tobacco we may be more familiar with that 5% nicotine is the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes
022now have a lot of parents or educators ask me how long does it take someone to go through one of these that's going to depend on how long they've been vaping what their tolerances are like etc some kids it can last them quite a while some kids will be through one in a day or two so you may have noticed that the subtitle of this presentation was the good the bad and the ugly and it may surprise you that a prevention organization has something good to say about vaping but the truth is it was invented for a very good reason it was invented by a Chinese pharmacist in 2003 and he had been a smoker and he quit smoking by using nicotine patches but he missed the feeling of smoking his father had been a
023smoker and his father quit excuse me his father had died by lung cancer so this pharmacist developed the e-cigarette multiple numerous adults have used these devices to move from tobacco to e-cigarettes taper down their nicotine levels over time and eventually quit entirely that is a harm reduction method that is a smoking cessation method having said that I have yet to meet the middle school or high school student who is using these to quit smoking most often they're the entry point in a substance use now years ago typically students would start with cigarettes and an alcohol and then marijuana what we're seeing now is e cigarettes THC concentrates and alcohol is now coming in third other good news is that teen smoking is declining teen smoking is at the lowest it has been since 1991 when
024they started formally taking data from high school students about smoking that's fantastic well now let's talk about the bat as I mentioned earlier not only kids are not using not only are kids not using these typically to quit smoking there are six times more likely to go on to smoke cigarettes anyway if they start using e-cigarettes or vapes this is from a study done by the University of Southern California whatever reason a student starts whether it's curiosity peer pressure boredom flavors once that nicotine takes hold nicotine is a very addictive substance it is very difficult to quit the withdrawal symptoms are horrendous and that person finds out man if I don't have my jewel pods I feel awful but if I steal my grandpa cigarettes I don't feel that way there's six times more likely
025to go into smoke anyway and they are successful buying cigarettes online 94% of the time because typically age verification online involves a checkbox yes I am 18 years old that is typically the extent of age verification online and then finally the craziest-looking statistic and this is not a typo team use in the United States increased by nine hundred percent between 2011 and 2015 we are continuing to see on the graph of this it is continuing to climb the hope is that in the next few years the education and the prevention can catch up with it we'll see it plateau and eventually begin to decline so we talked about the what now let's talk about the why and I'd like to take answers from a few of you if you're willing to raise your hand and
026answer and this is not a right wrong thing I'm not looking for a specific answer I'd like to hear your experience as grandparents as parents as educators why two teens vape why is it popular so they can be cool in front of their friends meanwhile smoking could not be less cool these the decline the lowest it's been since 1991 smoking could not be less popular meanwhile east cigarettes and vapes are a big status symbol still on social media to try to be cool in front of their friends absolutely anybody else why do teens baby right here because they like the flavor as I mentioned earlier there was a poll done there's actually been multiple polls done that indicate about 80% of students who started vaping did so because of the flavors which we'll talk about
027here in a little bit we could answer this question for the entire time we have here tonight not give one wrong answer and not exhaust the entire list of reasons why there tend to be a lot of reasons why people will vape students will vape but will notice that many of the answers will tend to fall in one of the broad categories that you see here now appealing flavors was mentioned peer pressure was something similar to peer pressure to be cool to fit in was mention but I'm gonna draw your attention to two things on this list social media influence and advertising now this is an article if you can see the data appear in the corner January 22nd of this year now back in the day the concern was what about advertising the kids
028whether it was tobacco advertising or alcohol advertising there's still some of that that's going on and we'll talk about it here in a minute but what we're seeing much more often now is the appeal coming from influencers social media influencers social media influencers on Instagram and the FDA is seeing that this is so frequent that they're making this big display on their Instagram on their tik-tok wherever they have these millions of followers without mentioning the actual potential downside to it and it's not just occurring on Instagram although that's one of the biggest places and if you see down here researchers have discovered that Instagram posts that promote the use of e-cigarettes and vapes outnumber anti vaping content by a shocking ratio of 10,000 to one this article just came out a couple weeks ago and
029as I mentioned a moment ago it's not just Instagram is also happening on tik-tok as you can see this trending hashtag they tricks almost 300 million views on tick-tock by the way for you parents chances are if your parents of middle schoolers or high schoolers you already very familiar with tick-tock if you are not I highly recommend that you research it as well so they're having this not just promoted by friends or peers at school but people that they look up to on social media and they may be seeing it through advertisement now we as adults here those of you who are parents or grandparents remember as recently as the 90s the 80s the 70s the American public's battle against the tobacco industry an industry that lied about the dangers of their products used manipulative
030advertising practices we remember that we lived through that students who were not around for that may not be familiar with it unless we've had a deliberate conversation with them about that well there's some familiar names who hooked prior generations on nicotine who are back now with new nicotine containing products and they have a new target market which is youth but see if this looks similar side-by-side what we have on the left is we're gonna have a series of old-school cigarette ads tobacco ads on the right we're gonna pair them up with modern-day e-cigarette ads will have underneath each the year that the advertisement was released and at the top we will have the old tired advertising cliche that's being recycled once again to sell a new nicotine containing product so side by side we've got
031the tough guy the Marlboro Man kind of look leisure and lifestyle 1964 on the cigarette ad 2013 on the e-cigarette ad look at the convertible look at the pose sex appeal look at the dress look at the pose we're going back to 1930 the cigarette ad night life and romance look at the composition of these two ads side-by-side celebrity endorsement okay Stephen Dorff over there on the right not that big of a celebrity he made some movies back in the 90s will count it technically a celebrity girl power look at the airplane look at the pose going back to 38 on the cigarette ad fruit and other flavors so they've borrowed this from the tobacco company playbook as well and any flavor that you can think of you can find an e liquid in that
032flavor here we've got vivid vanilla cherry crush caramel cuddles banana cream pie sweet fruit punch cotton candy luscious watermelon there's also a company in New York that claims to make an organic churro flavored eliquid I don't know how you get organic churro flavored eliquid but there is a company in New York that claims to make it you can find a flavor any flavor you can think of so how did this happen is this just a matter of ad agencies connecting with each cigarette companies and saying hey these ad cliches work let's do this again or is it because there's some familiar names behind these new devices so up here at the top we have the tobacco corporation they're now called Altria most of you probably will remember them being called Philip Morris they've rebranded the
033old name had some negative connotation they own Marlboro Parliament and Virginia Slims very recognizable cigarette brands they own Green Smoke mark 10 and more than a 1/3 stake in Joule tobacco corporation that fooled us once before back with new products then we have Imperial Tobacco which owns winston-salem cool and maverick recognizable cigarette brands they own blue another major east cigarette brand called out by name two summers ago by the Food and Drug Administration as marketing directly to kids and then finally Lorillard which you'll probably remember the name r.j. Reynolds they have rebranded as razz Altria did they own these cigarette brands and they own views a cigarette so it's the same people who were dishonest with us previously and we're expecting them to be once again to be honest this time around they fooled us
034once before and they have a new target market with new nicotine containing products so maybe we're at this point in your thinking ok so big evil tobacco corporations what is the actual danger involved what is the actual harm for youth number one if they're vaping nicotine a liquid nicotine can be addictive to anyone of any age but here is what we see in middle school and high school students that we don't see in adult users problems with memory attention and learning because their brains are still developing if you put a stimulant in mix up there which nicotine is a stimulant they can have difficulties with memory attention and learning when you are a middle school or high school student it is hard enough to remember everything you have to remember for your tests for your
035quizzes for your homework or projects that you're working on adding nicotine into the mix can make that even more difficult what about just the flavored eliquid well the short term research that is scrambling to catch up with this fairly new technology has found that it can cause permanent lung damage and finally to me what you see here under vaping in general lack of long-term research we just had the first long-term study on vaping ever come out a couple months ago other than that we have no long-term research you cannot have long-term research on something that just became commercially available in 2003 we have the benefit of decades of research on things like alcohol or marijuana or street drugs or prescription drugs let's say a young person was using cocaine for six months and they hadn't
036had any health issues and they went to their physician and their physician asked them do you use alcohol or drugs and they disclosed yes I use cocaine I've been doing it for six months haven't had any health problems based on the long-term research we have that position could project out and say well based on the long-term research six months down the road this might happen to you a year down the road you're probably gonna encounter this this is a question mark so just because a young person is not encountering health difficulties in the short term does not guarantee they're not going to have issues in the long run one of the most telling and eye-opening things that I have seen about the lack of long term research came when I was doing some research myself
037on the internet and I was reading a pro vaping forum everyone that posts in there not only is in favor of vaping they all do it they were all trading tips on how to customize their big box mod vapes so somebody starts a thread in the forum and he mentions hey I just started doing this about six months ago none of the stuff they warned me about the lung stuff or whatever none of that's happened what might I be looking at down the road so guy replies to him and the guy that replies to him vapes himself as a matter of fact in his forum signature he's a picture of his box mod VAP and this guy who's all in favor of it he does it himself was honest enough and real enough to reply
038to the gentleman with this quote and this is not a paraphrasing this is verbatim we don't know we are the lab rats we are the generation this is being tested on we are the lab rats we're the generation this is being tested on now as adults if we want to enter into this understanding the potential gravity that we may suffer health issues down the road so be it but a young person that lacks the adult brain development that we have to weigh those future consequences that's a stacked deck that is unfair and we're starting to see it now as the primary way that THC is used tetrahydrocannabinol one of the many active compounds in marijuana the one most responsible for the high but also the damage to the developing brain we are not meeting very
039many kids that are smoking marijuana if we're picturing a joint or bong hits we're way past that point now what we're meeting is we're meeting kids who are using dab pens or wax pens and by the way it looks like this some parents we've met haven't found the dab pens haven't found the wax pens but they've actually found the dabs themselves and little containers that almost look like little Carmex containers or you can find a pre-loaded dab cartridge where the e-liquid that has the THC concentrate in it can be connected to a permanent vape pen with a disposable dab cartridge or it can look like wax which actually looks like wax this is a THC concentrate so if you your your team comes home one night or they're in their room and you get to
040see the bloodshot eyes the dilated pupils you can tell something's not right if you're looking around and you're looking for buds if you're looking for a dime bag or you're looking for a quarter ounce this is more what we need to be focused upon than at this point and these are the signs and symptoms that you're going to want to look for now most of these are self-explanatory what these signs and symptoms mean but let me hone in on one that you may not be familiar with lack of eye convergence now I know if you've ever noticed have you ever seen on TV when law enforcement does DUI stops they're not just testing the presence of alcohol they're testing for what's called DUI D driving under the influence of drugs one of the tests that
041they will do is where they will take a pen or their fingertip or any type of stimulus and they will do a circle around the person's face have them hold their face still and follow the movement with their eyes and after making a couple circles the law enforcement officer will move it away and then bring it slowly in about an inch away from their nose and tell them to look at it with their eyes generally people who are not under the influence of marijuana or under the influence of depressants or inhalants will cross their eyes as the finger or the stimulus gets right here under the influence of THC I convergence does not occur correctly and here is why you keep hearing me mention brain development why THC nicotine prescription drug street drugs alcohol why
042it all affects our kids very differently and in a much more damaging way than it does us anyone in here willing to raise their hand or an answer or just shout it out or guess at what age does the human brain stop developing finish maturing you all got 25 it's actually range 21 to 25 but research is beginning to point toward the higher end of a 25 years of age and the last portion of develop is the prefrontal cortex it is instrumental in higher decision-making weighing future consequences impulse control so for you parents that have preteens and teens if you have found yourself at some point saying to them why did you do that thinking you would never do it their manager is not online yet knowing that we have to be the prefrontal cortex
043for our teams it's not a matter of if they're going to be offered something they will it's a matter of when and if they haven't gained planned it or role-played it or talk through it and planned it out with you in that moment of crisis where a friend at a party's like here hit this wax pen if they haven't thought it out they are more likely to go into autopilot okay I'll do that with you they tend to in the preteen and teen years gravitate toward things they think are going feel good out considering the consequences we as adults will look at a piece of chocolate cake and will say that looks amazing but I'm gonna spend three hours in the gym working that off we do that pros and cons list naturally because we
044have the fully developed prefrontal cortex and tell the age it is developed we can't fall into that not my cake mentality we can't say my son's a great kid I believe he is my daughter's really smart I believe she is but even the best the brightest the most loving and talented and conscientious kids from great families can still be prone to impulsive decisions because there is a physiological reason so we can't disconnect from this and say oh I never need to sit down and have that talk they would never do that prepare them with it anyway just in case and to sum up what we have discussed so far and this will be the AV the largest major review of the research on e-cigs was published in the American Heart Association scientific journal in their
045research the scientists found formaldehyde propylene glycol and lead amongst other well known toxins in the vapor sound familiar it's just like cigarettes UC San Francisco's tobacco Research Center stated that e-cigs do not deliver pure nicotine and harmless water vapor it may not have tobacco in it but the e-cigs are still delivering the same carcinogens that are known to cause chronic disease and cancer and the second-hand vapor is emitting it as well then there's the most disturbing part of the study to me a growing number of middle and high schoolers report having tried ecigs instead of cigarettes users under 18 has more than tripled in the u.s. you like the nicotine yeah you like the way makes you feel at 15 years old via pouchee is one of at least 2 million teens who've tried or
046using electronic cigarettes according to a recent study cigarettes have surpassed traditional cigarette use among teens but inside the battery-powered plastic device is liquid containing nicotine masked by a rainbow of flavors flavors attractive to younger customers nicotine is not a benign compound and nicotine can be harmful to the still developing brain of the adolescent and nicotine is addictive that's the head of blue e-cigarettes are you marketing to children no I am NOT but the parent company of blue Lorillard has a website saying kids may be vulnerable to trying flavors like cherry vanilla and pina colada increasingly big tobacco is manufacturing these East cigarettes tapping into the booming market according to watchdog site open secrets among the biggest players Lorillard Altria the parent company of Philip Morris and Reynolds American together have spent nearly 22 million dollars
047in the last year-and-a-half lobbying Congress the flavors and ads like this trend have critics calling fouls saying the industry that fooled Americans wants about the effects of smoking is trying to hook kids on nicotine again and by the way the tobacco corporations in the tobacco industry aren't aren't only the ones behind the advertisements that we saw the print ads the magazine ads they are also paying many of the influencers there's articles that have come back and come out in the last few weeks talking about the amount of influencers that jewel was paying to make a big production a big show of using jewels on Instagram on social media so what do we do about this first and foremost get familiar with the signs and symptoms associated with substance use and if you grabbed your packets
048on the way in that we're out there in the lobby there is a page that has some of the signs and symptoms the easiest way to break it down is this you know your kids and the kids in your life better than probably just about anyone knows them you know what is normal for them normal tone of voice body language facial expressions level of eye contact you know how they carry themselves when they come in the door from school anyone can have one off day or two off days but if you're seeing multiple changes in behavior over a prolonged period of time a week two weeks three weeks sit down and have a conversation and find out what is going on is it related to substance use are they going through depression are they dealing
049with relationship issues but it's up to us to recognize that and it and have that conversation it's also important to recognize signs and symptoms specific to vaping in e-cigarettes now the unexplained smells is probably obvious because of these the flavors of the e-liquid however I'll tell you this if you're banking on being able to catch it through the smell good luck because the amount of smell put out by a Joule or a a puff bar is far lower than the amount of smell put out by a cigarette the amount of vapor put out by a Joule or a puff bar dissipates very quickly versus the way smoke from a cigarette lingers now increase thirst and nosebleeds the reason these symptoms are associated with vaping has to do with propylene glycol which we talked about earlier
050as I mentioned it is used to dry up foods to keep moisture out of food to keep it from spoiling that propylene glycol when vaped can dry up the mucous membranes and can dry out the mouth and then you see caffeine sensitivity some people who begin using nicotine develop a sensitivity to caffeine not everyone but some do if you have a teen who never starts their day without a rock star a monster a Red Bull and suddenly they're for going all caffeine and you're seeing some of the other symptoms we talked about that may be pointing in the direction of using vapes or cigarettes and the rest on this list are probably pretty self-explanatory now here is one that is a little less common if you get on YouTube and you look up the phrase
051DIY Joule do-it-yourself Joule you will find videos explaining how to take a USB to micro USB cord and modify it the way it works is you keep the USB end intact you cut the microUSB end and you'll notice that there's green wires from black and white wires if they are stripped and the black and white are twisted together with the wires exposed to red and green twisted together with the wires exposed what someone can do is they can take a jewel pot they can plug the intact USB n into a laptop or another power source like a phone charger battery and touch the 2x Bo's wires Oh plates on the jewel pod and can hit it straight out of the pod without having to pay for the jewel device which is the most expensive part
052of it having to hide it from their parents and when the pods are done they're easy to dispose of they're easy to hide they're easy to get rid of fortunately I was already familiar with this when we had a mom of an eighth-grade girl come in our office and she came in with a backpack and she said I found something in my daughter's room and I'm concerned about it and I'm hoping you can help me understand what it is so she opens the backpack and dumps it on my desk and 25 of these in this condition fall out and she said my daughter's telling me oh I just keep breaking them but they're all modified in a very specific way red and green together black and white together stripped wires and I told them mom
053explained exactly what it was so she went home and talked to her daughter again her daughter owned up to the fact that that's what they were she had been bought them at the 99-cent store by Paradise Valley Mall modifying them and selling them to her middle school classmates for five dollars each that is the future business owner that is an entrepreneurial spirit if we could harness that and direct it in a positive way that kid's gonna change the world someday not only can it be used to hit the jewel pod directly without actually owning a jewel that same modify wire can be used to charge a jewel if you've lost your charger so that wire will be down there for you to check out afterward okay so what do we do about this what are
054the solutions number one get on the same page with your spouse or partner if you have a spouse or a partner involved in the raising of your child or children get on the same page if a kid is hearing one thing from one parent and something conflicting from the other parent regarding the rules around drugs and alcohol that conflicting message increases the likelihood that they are going to use a unified message a consistent message is a protective factor that decreases the likelihood that they're going to use and where do we have these conversations at the dinner table Casa Columbia Columbia University center for addiction and substance abuse an annual study on the importance of regular family dinners meaning at least four days a week preferably five or more where the devices are put away we're
055not doing this the whole time the TV is turned off and we're actually engaging and connecting with one another as a family they have found that families that intentionally regularly set this time aside have lower rates of teen substance use and other behavioral and mental health issues now if dinner at dinner time doesn't work for you because of your work schedule or your child sports or extracurricular schedule you can modify this find other one-hour periods that you can set aside during the week where you do an activity that lends itself to having a conversation watching a movie together is not a good one playing a game together working a project together we had a dad that went through a project rewind program and I saw him about a year and a half later because the
056dad a single dad of a 16 year old son and I was doing a presentation the school presentation like this and he came up and talked to me afterward he said hey good to see again we loved project rewind I want to talk to you about that dinner thing my son and I tried it and it was two guys awkwardly staring at each other from across a dinner table it was weird but here is what worked when we went out of the garage together and we were working with her hands on projects on the old truck side-by-side not across from each other that's where my son opened up that's where he started talking at a mom who's eighth grade son she said oh I can't get him and sit still for dinner she said what
057we do is we go out for walks and when he's out moving around and once again we're side by side and I got him out moving around that's where he opens up you know your kids you know the environments where they're likely to open up in the environments where they're likely to shut down you can modify this creatively and make it work for you and here are the final six tips to summers ago our chief programs officer jarana Montano was interviewed by The Huffington Post Deronda is a 20 year veteran of the prevention field and Huffington Post said if you were to take everything you've learned in those 20 years and narrow it down to 6 tips for parents related to substance use prevention what would they be and we have them here they're very
058plain because we want the content to stand out number one start talking your when they're young the average age of experimentation with drugs or alcohol in the United States is 12 years old that's the average age if we are going to truly be preventive we need to start having those conversations prior to those years now we've already talked about family dinners but maybe you recognize there's a week to week a three week to month period where you look at your schedule and you say my work schedule and your school schedule your sports schedule that's not gonna let us have these one-hour activities maybe you realize the window of opportunity you have is what you see here when picking them up from school maybe you recognize wow this 15-minute car ride to and from school or
059this 20-minute car ride to and from sports practice this is the only opportunity we're gonna get to talk for these next few weeks to really uninterrupted have a conversation make that car ride a car ride where the phones are put away now if you've never done this before the first time you ask your teen to put their phone away in the vehicle you may get some resistance we have family that went through project rewind that said the first time they asked their 16 year old daughter to put her phone away during the car ride this and you would have thought we could dipped her in boiling oil I kind of put my phone away even though she made it uncomfortable for them they stuck with it they were diplomatic and they were gentle about it
060but they said yes we want you to put it away as they did that on subsequent car rides they noticed that her reaction was less and less extreme about a month and a half into it they said she started self-regulating her device use more and about three months into it they noticed her anxiety beginning to decrease and they realized that at least a portion of her anxiety came from the constant device checking and the constant alerts and I have to do this and I got to post this and I have to respond to this and then at the bottom every day asked him two questions what was your favorite thing about today what was your least favorite thing about today to start the conversation in a non conflict manner now please don't hit your kids
061with these questions the moment they get in the car from school or the moment they walk in the door from school it's had a lot of students tell me hey I get what my parents are trying to do with the questions it's great when I get the car or I get home I need like 15 minutes to just decompress and we feel the same way as adults so do this but don't hit him with it right when they get in the car number two be clear about your rules and your expectations related to drugs and alcohol a lot of times we assume oh no no my son knows the rules or my daughter knows what I think about vaping better that we sit down and we have that conversation one more time and we be
062abundantly clear then to assume they know and I have there be any gray area or any confusion I know as parents of proteins or teens you have probably found yourself at some point asking your child six times to take a [ __ ] and you're saying yourself I know I've already told you to do this but it is until that six or seven time that the message clicks and they actually follow up on in behavioral health with youth there is a concept known as dosage it is the repetition of a message in order for it to sink in this is no different have this conversation multiple times how do you have the conversation it seems like not a week goes by without a local or national news report or incident related to drugs or alcohol when that's
063on the TV when that's in the newspaper when you're pulling that up on your news app that's an organic window to begin that conversation what do you think about this ask them a question ask them what they think about it and let them talk listen and let them talk number three understand the teenage brain know that they are physiologically wired to be impulsive and take risk in the early elementary years 1st 3rd 2nd 3rd grade both the pleasure-seeking part of the brain and the logic driven part have not matured in the teen years in the preteen years the part that seeks out pleasurable activities has come online but as we mentioned earlier the prefrontal cortex which which controls impulsive decisions has not fully matured yet there is a reason we see in those preteen and
064teen years kids starting to gravitate toward things they think are going to make them feel good without thinking of what's the potential downside and as you see here help them find positive activities to achieve the feelings they're seeking I mentioned earlier about finding out the why if they've been drinking or using asking them why an equally important quest is what what have they been using because knowing what they've been gravitating toward will let you know what types of natural activities can replace that or get that neurotransmitter release naturally on the end of the spectrum where kids are gravitating towards stimulants nicotine is a stimulant cocaine methamphetamine if they're taking adderall that they're not prescribed for ADHD some other kids medication to get the euphoria the buzz people who like that dopamine release that rush that
065energetic high can benefit from things like martial arts extreme sports skateboarding that allows them that dopamine release and that adrenaline rush naturally on the opposite end if they're gravitating toward things like alcohol benzodiazepines valium klonopin xanax opioids THC marijuana THC concentrates trying to bring themselves down they can benefit from things like yoga or meditation now tell you now if your child is used to tossing down a 2 milligrams a kneebar and in 15 minutes the universe seems perfect the first time they do yoga it's not going to equal that but over time as someone is no longer tampering with their neurotransmitters and they begin to balance out they can achieve those releases of dopamine and serotonin through natural activities find what they love to do find what lets them feel good and lets them also
066work out that anxiety that they're dealing with number 4 I love this gray in a code word that they can text you and you will come and get them no questions asked now no questions asked doesn't mean that if there needs to be correction or consequences later on that you don't apply that what no questions asked means is if they're at a party and they're under the influence they're about to pass out of the party under the influence they're about to get in a vehicle with someone behind the wheel under the influence or they're about to drive under the influence all that matters in that moment is their health and their safety and keeping them alive there will be time later to apply correction or Consequences so the way that this works involves a code
067word or a code phrase and teens like this because it does not look like they're being rescued they are hesitant and of a group of their peers to call and say dad I need you to come get me mom and I'm at a party things are getting weird they're afraid to do that because they can't save face with peers so you agree in a code word or a code phrase that if appears see them texting it it looks like nothing but you know what it means well you need to know where they are so you call them back and some families I've seen use this scenario where the parent calls back and they say where are you you had like six chores you were supposed to do tonight none of them are done I need
068to come get you and they can say to their friends oh I'm in trouble again all my mom is so uncool or I know one family that went to the extreme that when the mom received the code word from her daughter the one time her daughter took her up on the offer the mom called and said where are you your aunt is in the hospital we need to go to the ER right now where are you I need to pick you up so agree on that code word in advance number five oh by the way let me back up as far as no question asked you can even take that a step further further there is a parent that we work with some time we work with a lot of parents some parents of recovering
069addicts that speak for us and there's a lady by the name of Pam who speaks for us sometimes and her daughter's took took her up on this offer one time and she said I picked them up at the agreed meeting place where they told me to come get them and they got in the car and I kind of gave him one of these and I just started driving and I said nothing and that silence drove them nuts and within five minutes they were telling me everything I would have asked about had I asked any questions so sometimes the power is not in our words sometimes the power is in the silence that we allow number five and I love this one to decide on consequences together with your child now this may sound counterintuitive I'm
070supposed to let them pick their own consequence and tell you think of it this way they may suggest something that you hear and you think oh yeah oh yeah that's way better than what I came up with yeah let's put that down we as adults we think very big picture with our consequences when you heard in my introduction that I have a permanent felony that I was incarcerated that I nearly lost my life we hear legal problems in debt and we hear felony and all that and we said wow that would make me not want to do that teens can often disconnect from that because they see it and they say well that's never gonna happen to me I said that and everyone I've met recovery said that as a team what often resonates with
071them are immediate short-term consequences that click in the world that they live in and they all start with the letter C credit card cash cell phone curfew computer car credit card cash cell phone curfew computer car or the restriction thereof so if they come home smelling like alcohol you can tell that they're drunk you sit down with them you have the conversation you find out the Y you find out the what you maintain your composure but then you say hey you know what remember what the rules were and what the what the consequences we talked about I'm gonna move your curfew I'm moving it from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. they can then make that immediate cause and effect association when I come home drunk I get my curfew moved up when I do this
072this happens I don't like how this feels maybe I shouldn't do this they can make that immediate cause and effect association doesn't mean don't talk to them about the big consequences if addiction runs in your family if alcoholism runs in your family that genetic component increases the likelihood that that child will go down that path if they choose to drink or use if they know someone personally who's lived through it use that as an example because that makes it real it's not somebody in a book it's not somebody on a TV show that makes it much more real to them but include the consequences that they choose and include those short-term ones and then if you ever have to apply the consequences which are not fun nobody enjoys doing it you can say not only
073did I show you the respect of making sure we were clear in advance what would happen if you broke this rule I actually let you pick this consequence you made an informed decision and number six this is everything in prevention this is everything keep communication lines open even if they are raising their voice to us which we don't want and it's not ideal that is still preferable to a preteen or teen who is disconnected they've isolated they've shut down and we can't get anything from them that is a scary place to be and even if they come in all emotional and hot and worked up and they're up here all charged up don't need them up there you come in down here maintain your pitch your meter your rate of speech your volume now I'm
074not telling you that the first time that your teen is all worked up and you talk calmly they're gonna immediately calm down but there are some very amazing verbal de-escalation techniques that can work there's some great tutorials on the internet yes I'm advocating that you as parents implement skills implemented by law enforcement they can work and while we're maintaining this communication be conscious of your tone of voice your posture your body language and your facial expression depending on what research you read as much as 93% of the message that is conveyed is often not in our words it's in our nonverbals tone of voice body language facial expression etc and now this sounds exaggerated until you think of it this way imagine I'm a dad I have got us my son sitting right here we
075have a great relationship we love each other very much but I just found out that he's doing something I'm not okay with I'm really scared I'm worried for his safety and I say this to him do you know what I love you do you understand that the words were I love you that's what I said is that the message I just said no dad's raising his voice dad's hovering I'd like to have these conversations sitting down maintain eye contact allow them to break it sit in a proxy me that shows that you're there with them don't check your phone don't check your watch be there in that moment with them and for teens or preteens who are struggling with quitting this is a resource that they can text and there is text support that they
076can get to learn to quit to eventually be able to stop entirely but parents of teens or preteens who want to know what they can do to help their team quit this is a resource you can use we've spoken with some local physicians recently who've said to us this is now becoming a thing at my pediatric practice where I'm having to help kids figure out how to taper off of nicotine and they're saying we I've never seen this with the frequency that I'm seeing this now because kids are starting with jewel or they're starting with nicotine eliquid because they like the buzz not understanding how hard that is going to be to quit so if you grabbed one of the packets on your way in on the next to last page there is a double-sided
077page that on one side of the page says taking action and it has a list of checkboxes it's on the next-to-last page and on the opposite side of that page it has a list of blanks and it says our family prevention plan if you have a spouse or a partner involved in the writing of your child or children sit down as adults first sit down with your spouse or your partner and go through the taking action list and check off the ones you want to incorporate and cross out if there's any ones you don't want to use then flip that over and customize it to meet your needs your principles your values your guidelines your living situation the age of your kids the maturity of your kids once you've agreed upon that plan as adults
078then present it to your team take them to dinner make them their favorite dinner and bring it and say we feel like we owe it to you to be clear what we expect of you and what you can expect of us what do you think of this let them amend it let them add to it because if you let them be part of the process you'll get more buy-in from them it'll feel less dictated to them but I ask that you not let them cross out anything that you've put on there and come to an agreement because if the rules are clear they're concise they're consistent they're understood and they're agreed upon in advance you are less likely to have an incident and you are more likely to have a positive outcome now no prevention
079plan is perfect but if you are intentional about forming the plan as a family using those six tips from jaronda setting aside those family dinners or regular communication times incorporating all those pieces the more pieces you put in place into a prevention plan the more pieces you put into that puzzle the higher the likelihood that you're going to have success and we have some free drug test kits for you over here from first check they test for 14 different drugs seven illicit seven prescription results in five minutes in the privacy of your own home between parent and child one of the substances that this does not test for however is nicotine which is why we are showing you this Express drug test is a company based in the Scottsdale air park global medical systems these
080however will test for THC which as you saw is being vaped even more frequently than nicotine eliquid also if you do grab one please grab the sheet that says before you test because there's a very specific way to approach these we do not advocate this being used as a gotcha or in a heavy-handed way or as a disciplinary measure if this is approached in a negative way this will become a negative thing please do not take one of these kits and walk into your team's room tonight and go like this with it this can be used as part of a reward system rather than the focus being on what's the punishment for a positive test how about the gaining or the maintaining of a privilege for negative or clean tests I know a dad whose
081son turned 16 wanted to use the family car and the dad said I completely believe you're not using drugs but if I'm putting you on the streets of Phoenix in our car I have to be a hundred percent sure I'm gonna test you when you come back clean let's get your license and maintaining that privilege will come with periodic tests I don't know once a month once every two months whenever I feel like it and here's what I like tests that gives them an out that gives them a way to say no and save face with their peers they can blame it on us I love to smoke that with you I can't my parents are crazy they drug test me and if I come back positive I can't hang out with you anymore it's
082not about me it's about them my daughter is seven years old so we're not quite at this point yet that's a little ambitious but when she is hitting those middle school years where that temptation begins if it keeps her off of drugs and if it keeps her healthy and safe I'll be the uncool dad she can blame it on me all she wants and please if you have your phones please take a picture of this we are 15 episodes into our podcast the response has been excellent that web address is the direct address where it's hosted but as you see below do you already listen to podcasts and Apple podcasts Google Cass Amazon Alexis Spotify except you can find the podcast there as well all of the topics that we speak on that you saw
083in that interdependence model we have podcasts on while we talk about the problem and the scope of the problem we are much more heavily focused on the solution some of them are heavy topics but we are very positive and inspirational with the messages that we use also we have a few episodes with some parenting experts talking about things that don't even necessarily have to do with drugs or alcohol increasing family communication etc and then finally if you got a survey with your packet if you missed my name at the beginning where it says presenter name or it says presenter right here my name is Shane Watson Shane Watson if you liked the presentation if not my name is jeff' Smith and while you're filling that out first and foremost thank you so much for your
084time I will be around here for a little while later if you have some questions that you wanted to ask feel free to grab multiple kits we have two cases of 36 here please come by and take a look at the devices and I will be down here in just a couple of minutes if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them for you thank you so much for sharing your time with me I appreciate it have a great night [Applause]