According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, teenagers are about 20 percent more likely to start smoking e-cigarettes than real cigarettes. According to a lot of concerned parents and adults, e-cigarettes such as Juul, Vaperesso, Smok, Breeze and Aspire are the devil, but stating that a simple machine is toxic simply because of its misuse is dangerous and ignorant, especially when assumptions are made. Let me uphold my position: vapes, juuls and e-cigarettes are not a bad thing. Nicotine is a bad thing.

For people who are addicted to cigarettes, e-cigarettes are a much better alternative due to the fact that e-cigarettes do not contain many of the chemicals that are in real cigarettes. Now, the argument stands that e-cigarette and vape manufacturers have no legal binding to reveal what is in their products, so how can we know they are safer? But what we do know is that e-cigarettes do not contain any of the following that are in cigarettes: acetone, tar, formaldehyde, butane or carbon monoxide, etc.

The main issue with e-cigarettes besides their ambiguity is their appeal to teenagers. Nicotine is a very addictive drug, as is caffeine and as is alcohol. Now, e-cigarettes, vapes and Juuls all require a person to be 18 in order to buy, but a lot of vape shops do not properly ID people. For instance, in the eight vape shops I have entered since becoming 18, only about three have ID’d me. This makes it extremely easy for children to access the nicotine drug, and since nicotine is so addictive, teens who did not intend to become addicted when they bought their mods during the summer find themselves on nicotine withdrawals when school starts.

Not a lot of people know that one can buy an e-cigarette and refill it with water-vapor-based juices that contain no nicotine. A lot of danger and issues grow from ignorance, and the e-cigarette industry is a lot more than just the small looking juuls and such one finds at the gas station right next to cigarettes. A lot of these juuls only have the option of pods, and those do not have a no-nicotine option as they cannot be refilled with personal juices. For instance, Marlboro, one of the main leaders in the cigarette industry, has their own e-cigarettes, the IQOS; these are tobacco based and as far as we know, not refillable.

When asked, 66 percent of teenagers who smoke e-cigarettes reported that their vapes and mods contain no nicotine, only flavoring. We hope that they are all telling the truth, and that they all know their options. Teenagers becoming addicted to anything questionable is dangerous. Nicotine by itself isn’t dangerous, as the addictive drug does not cause mouth or lung cancer; nicotine is only dangerous because it can get people addicted to cigarettes.

Teenagers should not smoke e-cigarettes that contain nicotine if they have never been addicted to nicotine before. Teenagers should not binge drink alcohol every weekend, and they shouldn’t drink six cups of coffee a day. The danger here isn’t the alternatives to cigarettes, it’s the danger of ignorance and teenagers smoking nicotine because they do not know their options of refilling cartridges with a juice without nicotine. E-cigarettes are not the enemy—the danger of addiction in every context is dangerous.