Pali’s Teens Against Nicotine Club had its first meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 17. Nearly 40 students attended the meeting, where they made signs discouraging nicotine use.

Junior and club President Ariella McNulty said that she created the club because she “witnessed first hand my peers being addicted to nicotine and the normalization of smoking e-cigarettes.”

McNulty said she wants school stakeholders to become more educated about e-cigarettes, commonly known as e-cigs, and their impacts on adolescent health.  According to McNulty, “students, especially at Pali, can’t wait even to get home before they need another hit of nicotine in their system and feel the need to do it at school. I would like Pali to be a safer, more educated campus when it comes to e-cigs.”

The club’s position is that the use of nicotine hurts students’ wellbeing and ultimately contributes to anxiety at school. McNulty said that “nicotine makes it harder for students to focus in classrooms, because people get anxious when they are not constantly hitting an e-cig.”

In order to raise awareness of the harmful effects of nicotine, McNulty said club members plan to place informational posters in areas where students tend to congregate to vape on campus.

McNulty believes that big e-cig companies are purposefully targeting teens, saying “companies such as Juul and Sourin specifically advertise to young adults by making appealing flavors that draw younger people in. Also, they do not do enough to prevent teenagers from getting a hold of their products.”

The products are meant only for people 18 years of age and older, yet some minors are still able to obtain e-cigs through online channels, friends and family, according to McNulty.

Websites such as Stillblowingsmoke.org are great for facts about addiction and vaping, and Vaping.org for personal stories about addiction and the long-term effects of nicotine, McNulty said.

Teens against Nicotine will continue to meet on Wednesdays in D207.