Kick the Vape campaign aims to get Philadelphia teens off e-cigarettes

A new campaign launched Wednesday in Philadelphia aims to reduce the number of teenagers who use e-cigarettes.

The Philadelphia Department of Health kicked off its "Kick the Vape" campaign in an attempt to curb vaping among teens, which it says is up dramatically.

Harmony Ellis, a high school senior in Philadelphia, is on a mission to get other students to kick the popular habit of vaping.

"I didn't like it. I thought, you know, that was really harmful, and I have asthma," Ellis said.

The 17-year-old said there is a lot of peer pressure to vape, and the product flavors and designs are enticing for teens.

"They feel like it's cool, trendy," Ellis said. "They feel like it is something that they just want to do because they see their friends do it and they don't understand the true health risk about it."

Research has shown that e-cigarettes that contain nicotine and other chemicals can be addictive and cause lung, brain and heart damage.

"Smoking nicotine remains the number one cause of preventable death, disease, and disability in the United States," Dr. Samara Jinks-Chang, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said.

And because Philadelphia leads the country in the number of youngsters who are vaping, the city health department is kicking off a new anti-vaping campaign.

"The rates of vaping for high school students has risen by 300% between 2017 and 2025," Ryan Coffman with the health department said.

"The tobacco industry wants youth to be hooked," Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson said. "That is their model right back in the day with cigarettes, and people are hooked for life. Now, it's vaping, and you're hooked for life." 

Raval-Nelson said that, in addition to raising awareness about the dangers, the city will also target enforcement. Stores are only allowed to sell approved vaping products and not to minors.

"End up trying these products," Raval-Nelson said, "and they don't realize the hidden danger and how they're going to get hooked and addicted for life."

The new Kick the Vape campaign will have a number of resources to help people stop, and the city will also ramp up enforcement.