By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

After decades of winning young people’s hearts and minds in the war against nicotine, all of a sudden we’re losing, so now what do we do about it?

Last month, the National Institutes of Health said teen use of vaping products, or e-cigarettes, has doubled in the past two years, according to a survey of eighth, 10th and 12th graders. One in four seniors has vaped in the last month. While cigarettes are no longer cool, vaping apparently is.

The vaping industry says its products are a safer alternative to cigarettes and are even a smoking cessation tool, which is true for some.

However, many vape users are simply moving from cigarettes to vapes, which contain nicotine and other chemicals. We don’t know what vaping’s long-term consequences are. Meanwhile, hundreds of severe lung illnesses leading to six deaths have been reported nationwide, often as a result of people misusing the product. Nine Arkansas cases resulting in eight hospitalizations have been confirmed or are being investigated. At least four involved users inhaling THC, the compound in marijuana that makes people high.

Meanwhile, a new generation of young people is becoming addicted to nicotine, and legislators are hearing from concerned educators. Mountain Home School District officials told legislators recently that students from families across the socioeconomic spectrum are vaping. Five students had faced health situations in the previous two weeks that may have been vaping-related, with several requiring an emergency transport to the hospital. Last week, Bentonville School District Superintendent Debbie Jones told legislators her district has seen a 420% increase in infractions since 2016, and that’s just the students they caught using the easily hidden products.

“We have lost control in trying to discipline this out of the schools,” she said.

Last month, President Trump and the Food and Drug Administration said the FDA will ban all flavored e-cigarettes, a major draw for young people. But let’s see what happens once the vaping industry deploys its lobbyists and lawyers.

If change doesn’t come suddenly from Washington, it will have to come state by state. New York and Michigan already have banned flavored e-cigarettes.

Arkansas lawmakers this year raised the legal age for all tobacco-related products, including vapes, to 21. But determined teens can overcome age restrictions.

An alternative is to make the product more expensive by taxing it, which has proven to reduce smoking, particularly among young people. While cigarettes are taxed in Arkansas at $1.15 per pack, e-cigarette buyers pay only the typical sales tax.

Last month, Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Gravette, proposed the School Safety Act, which would levy a 67% tax on e-cigarettes, limit their use indoors, and ban e-cigarette billboards within 1,000 feet of schools. Proceeds would pay for school security and school-based mental health counselors. He says smoking products create societywide health costs unfairly borne by non-users.

Hendren says it’s a starting point for discussion. He hopes he can get majority support that will lead Gov. Asa Hutchinson to call a special legislative session. Otherwise, he’ll have to wait until next year’s fiscal session, when he’ll need two-thirds support because it’s not a strictly budgetary matter, or until the 2021 regular session. That’s a long time while kids are getting hooked every day.

Earlier this year, Hendren proposed taxing vaping and tobacco products and using the money for an earned income tax credit refund for lower-income Arkansans. It died in the House. It asked for too much too late in the session. And nicotine is a tough opponent because so many people profit from it and so many voters consume it.

Hendren says opposition is softening as more is known about the epidemic. The House and Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committees Wednesday voted to adopt an interim study, which grew from his failed bill, to consider how to combat the problem.

That was fairly meaningless. Moreover, many legislators’ seats were empty, prompting the Senate chair, Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, to say of vaping interests, “They have a very strong lobbying group that’s on the ground right now, which may be why people aren’t here.”

Let’s hope policymakers do something sooner rather than later to discourage young people from vaping. It’s hard for someone to break an addiction to nicotine, even after they’ve decided it’s no longer cool.