Yampa Valley teens help their peers quit smoking and avoid nicotine

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part article on underage nicotine use throughout the Yampa Valley. This story focuses on Moffat County and on November 5th it will focus on Routt County.

Craig resident Kali Hedman first tried vaping at age 12 when she was stressed during high school.

At age 13, Hedman was vaping, or inhaling vapor from electronic cigarettes, five to six times a day, and continued for about a year.

“One of my friends had given me a vaporizer and I soon became addicted,” Hedman said. “I thought it was something unique. For a while it made me feel good and then I started getting stressed when I couldn’t have it. It bothered me that he was hiding things from my mother, but of course, he had an addiction.”

With the support of the Moffat County Youth Action Council and the free My Life, My Quit program, Hedman stopped vaping. She said education helped her realize the toxic chemicals she was putting into her body.

“I really wanted to, but I fought through it,” Hedman said. “The physical addiction was difficult. It took me a while, about two to three weeks, to stop and leave. “One day at a time.”

Hedman, now a freshman at Moffat County High School, participates in the cheerleading team and is happy to have regained her lung capacity.

“When I vaped, my lungs hurt and my body didn’t feel good,” Hedman said. “I couldn’t run because my lungs were starting to hurt. I couldn’t breathe the same way. And when I stop, my lungs don’t hurt anymore. “I can exercise without getting out of breath.”

Hedman is now actively involved in the youth council, which focuses on helping other teens avoid nicotine.

Mackenzie Mixon, council sponsor and Partners for Youth empowerment program coordinator, said the council’s nicotine avoidance campaign was chosen by youth from Moffat middle and high schools.

“This was a big issue that everyone agreed on and that everyone sees in their daily lives,” Mixon said of the outreach and education effort now in its third year.

The youth council, with support from Communities that Care Moffat County and Bear River Young Life, organizes fun, clean and sober activities that attract up to 200 students at each event, Mixon said. The group hosts events such as color and foam parties, black light volleyball, bowling and movie nights, and a skating party scheduled for November 1 from 9 to 11 p.m. at the Loudy-Simpson Park Ice Arena, with details on Mocoyouthactioncouncil Instagram page. Each event includes several trusted adults to talk to and an informational table with information on avoiding nicotine.

The Youth Action Council is supported in part by the statewide nonprofit Rise Above Colorado, which works to show young people that most teens do not use nicotine, alcohol or drugs. A spring survey by Rise Above with a limited sample group of teens showed that 75% of middle and high school students in Routt and Moffat counties did not vape in the past month. However, that percentage is worse than the state average of 81% who don’t vape, said Jonathan Judge, director of the Rise Above Colorado program.

Past youth council president Hailey Schaffner said the group works to educate, inform and support youth with helpful resources about better choices and health.

“Our committee saw that young people were struggling with addiction and had the right resources to seek help,” Schaffner said.

Schaffner said the goals are simple, including easy access for youth to resources, free online resources and information to find which smoking cessation technique works best, while also allowing school staff better ways to reach students without a scare tactic.

Students and educators said that although nicotine products are prohibited by law for people under 21, vaporizers are widely used because they are easy to obtain and conceal. Hedman said he never paid a dime for a vaporizer in a year of using it multiple times a day, as older teens passed used vaporizers on to him.

Judge said underage youth typically obtain vaporizers through friends and older siblings or by bypassing restrictions on ordering vaporizers online. Young people typically pay for vaporizers online with Paypal or Venmo accounts, and parents don’t pay attention to the boxes that arrive in the mail.

“That’s a big gap for parents who claim some control,” Judge said. “You don’t have to be too intrusive, but you do need to know what’s coming to your house in the mail.”

Some youth say the permissive attitude of parents and older adults, as well as lax identification processes at some Northwest Colorado stores, also allow minors to vape.

Judge said the misconception persists that vaping is less dangerous than cigarettes and other substances, so some parents turn a blind eye.

“Vaping is incredibly addictive and can serve as a gateway to tobacco and marijuana,” Judge said..

Some vaping companies are owned by big tobacco companies and have skirted flavor and marketing regulations aimed at reducing vaping’s appeal to underage users, Judge said.

“Companies have been very adept at creating marketing strategies that skirt the laws and still appeal directly to young people,” Judge explained. “Flavor is an important part.”

Peer pressure to use or not use nicotine is very powerful, Judge said.

“Empowering teens works,” Judge said. “When adolescents have accurate and credible information, we can see dramatic changes in public health.”