Why flavored tobacco and e-cigarettes are a problem for our community: Perspectives from two Oakland high school students

There are many kinds of stories, but today we tell you our stories; stories that we have lived. We believe that flavored tobacco is a big health issue in our community that is addicting many teenagers who start smoking with these products.

We were raised in Central America, from El Salvador and Guatemala. In our countries, we didn’t see flavored tobacco products, at least not in stores. Tobacco products are expensive in Central America, so people cannot buy them easily because most people are poor. When we arrived in Oakland, California, we saw different kinds of flavored tobacco products such as cherry, grape and chicken and waffles. These products are very cheap; for example, some of them are sold in packs of two for 99 cents. At first, they were very attractive to our eyes because some of the flavored tobacco looks and smells like candy, so we were curious and wanted to try them because we did not know that they were tobacco products. Even though we have never tried them, we have seen many of our friends start smoking with these products and get addicted. In fact, we know that over 80% of youth smokers start with flavored tobacco.

Teenagers under the age of 21 have easy access to tobacco products, especially to flavored tobacco. For example, we have high school friends who get tobacco products from a liquor store near our school. The majority of our friends who smoke are under the age of 21, and some of them are even under the age of 18, but it doesn’t stop them from having easy access to tobacco products. They can go to the liquor store and just buy tobacco products because the retailers do not always ask them for their ID. Some teens make friendships with retailers who sell them tobacco products, and other retailers do not seem to care if students are over the age of 21 because they are more focused on making a profit. In addition, many of our friends say that they would rather smoke flavored tobacco and menthol cigarettes because they cannot feel the damage. For them, is easier to smoke flavored tobacco than regular cigarettes because they do not taste as bad as the regular ones.

Moreover, some say that using e-cigarettes helps people to stop smoking or at least smoke less, but this is not true in our experience. My brother is using e-cigarettes and says that they aren’t as bad as normal cigarettes. I believed that at first, but now I have more information and know that e-cigarettes contain many chemicals that cause cancer, and most people who smoke e-cigarettes go on to smoke both e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes which is really dangerous. I am trying to help my brother quit smoking.

We are proud of our city Oakland for taking a stand against the sale of flavored tobacco products to protect teens in our community from a lifetime of tobacco addiction. The young people in our community should get to have the long and healthy lives they deserve.

By Cristina Orellana from El Salvador and Yesenia Martin from Guatemala, students from Fremont High School in Oakland, California, and interns at the Alameda County Tobacco Control Program.