Why Teens Just Can't Quit Nicotine

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Chasing Life

Episode: Why Teens Just Can't Quit Nicotine
Host: Dr. Sanjay Gupta (CNN Podcasts)
Guest: Dr. Pamela Ling (Director, UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research & Education)
Date: October 24, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Dr. Sanjay Gupta explores why nicotine addiction remains so persistent among teens—despite significant declines in cigarette and vaping rates. The conversation dives into the rise of new nicotine products like Zyn pouches, how tobacco marketing continues to adapt, and the most effective strategies for parents and public health to combat youth nicotine use. Dr. Pamela Ling lends her expertise to discuss addiction, the changing landscape of nicotine products, and what really works (and what doesn’t) in helping kids quit.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Shifting Landscape of Teen Nicotine Use

• Historic Declines & New Threats

  • Cigarette smoking among teens peaked in the late 1990s (37%) and dropped to just 3.9% by 2021. ([05:34])
  • Vaping usage surged in 2019 (27.5%), then fell to 7.8% by 2024. ([01:07], [01:15])
  • As vaping declines, new products like Zyn (nicotine pouches) emerge, nearly doubling in teen use from 2023 to 2024. ([01:47], [01:54])

• Industry Innovation: “A Moving Target”

  • Tobacco companies purposefully roll out new products as old ones fall out of favor, aiming to keep people addicted to nicotine in any form. ([18:26])
  • “That is a tobacco company’s plans…their plan was basically to transform themselves into, like, nicotine pharmaceutical companies.” – Dr. Pamela Ling ([18:26])

2. The Addictiveness of Nicotine—and the Industry’s Messaging

• Recognizing Addiction

  • Most young people know nicotine is addictive, but industry efforts intentionally minimize its dangers, likening nicotine to caffeine. ([04:43])
  • Dr. Ling shares the stark reality of patients unable to quit despite severe illness, highlighting nicotine’s grip. ([04:43])

• Effect of Modern Products

  • Vapes and pouches today are far stronger, more discreet, and accessible than older products:
    • Modern vapes contain up to 10,000 puffs—the equivalent of several cartons of cigarettes. ([15:34])
    • Pouches like Zyn now start at 3mg (higher than traditional nicotine replacement therapy) and have escalated to strengths of 15mg per pouch. ([19:58])

3. Effective Strategies: What Works in Reducing Teen Use

• Lessons from the “Truth Campaign”

  • Success came not from fear tactics, but from messaging that empowered teens to hold tobacco executives accountable for lying and making profits at their expense. ([07:56])
  • “Rather than telling teens that this cigarette smoke is going to kill you… what they cared about was adults lying and getting away with it and making money… Teens can relate to adults not following the rules that they themselves are subject to.” – Dr. Pamela Ling ([07:56])

• Communication Must Resonate

  • Medical logic and facts (“this may cause cancer one day”) are less effective than arguments teens connect with emotionally (e.g., being manipulated by companies). ([09:26])
  • “It's more thinking like a marketer…Sometimes getting people energized about, ‘we need to hold this industry accountable’ is a better message.” – Dr. Ling ([10:09])

4. The Harms of Modern Nicotine Delivery

• Health Effects

  • For youth, vaping is tied to respiratory issues (especially for those with asthma) and introduces powerful, addictive substances during a vulnerable time for mental health. ([10:44])
  • The main concern shifts from cancer risk to the impact on adolescent mental health and the gateway effect toward cigarette use. ([10:44], [07:08])

• Cessation Claims: Myth vs. Reality

  • While vapes can help some quit smoking in clinical trials, real-world evidence shows most users do not successfully quit; many who vape never smoked cigarettes before. ([11:56], [13:04])
  • “As a commercial product, this is a failure because…most of the young people using vapes have never smoked cigarettes, so they're just an entry point into nicotine addiction.” – Dr. Pamela Ling ([13:04])

5. Regulation and the Role of Parents

• Inadequate Regulation & Loopholes

  • Despite voluntary withdrawal of some flavors by companies like Juul, thousands of flavored, high-strength products remain easily accessible and poorly regulated. ([15:34])
  • “There are still hundreds to thousands of e-cigarette products available in a wide variety of flavors…very difficult to enforce.” – Dr. Ling ([15:34])

• Evolving Marketing Tactics

  • Social media “zinfluencers” and influencer campaigns target youth directly, using flavors, concealability, and relatability to drive up use. ([01:54], [19:33])
  • “Now…the companies that are promoting the nicotine pouches…are using all of the techniques that made vapes popular, and translating even some of the same brands over to the pouches.” – Dr. Ling ([19:58])

• What Can Parents Do?

  • Talk to children—avoid preachiness, focus on making authentic, non-judgmental connections.
  • Leverage lessons from successful campaigns: sometimes teens quit not due to health risks, but because they want to oppose manipulative industry practices. ([23:23])
  • Get involved: Parents can comment on FDA decisions or campaign for stronger regulation (e.g., limits on nicotine pouch strength). ([21:58])
  • “There's always something you can do… Parents can do things like put in public comment to the FDA…” – Dr. Pamela Ling ([21:58])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Impactful Statistics:
  • “In 2019, the CDC found that 27.5% of high school kids admitted to vaping…by 2024, just five years later, that number had dropped to 7.8%, the lowest in a decade.” – Dr. Sanjay Gupta ([01:07])
• Industry Strategy:
  • “Every time we sort of start to get a handle on one product, another one comes along.” – Dr. Sanjay Gupta ([18:06])
• Marketing Insight:
  • “What they cared about was adults lying and getting away with it and making money off of their lies…that was enough to spur action.” – Dr. Sanjay Gupta ([09:26])
• On Parental Despair:
  • “There's always something you can do…You can talk to your kids…You can tell the FDA, don't approve Zyn, or you can say, limit the nicotine. Why does anyone need 15 milligrams of nicotine in a pouch?” – Dr. Pamela Ling ([21:58])
• Youth Perceptions:
  • “For some young people, knowing the harms…is not going to be the thing that resonates. Sometimes just making a real connection with your kids, no judgment, and helping them connect with things that have meaning can be more effective.” – Dr. Pamela Ling ([23:23])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:55] Emergence and prevalence of vaping among teens
• [01:47] Rise of Zyn (nicotine pouches) and “zinfluencer” marketing
• [04:43] Nicotine’s addictive power and industry minimization
• [05:34] Statistical overview of declining cigarette smoking and rising vaping
• [07:56] “Truth Campaign” and lessons in anti-tobacco messaging
• [10:44] Vaping’s real harms for young people, especially regarding mental health
• [11:56] Debunking vaping as an effective cessation tool for most
• [13:04] Why most young vapers never smoked cigarettes before
• [15:34] Regulatory loopholes and growing product strength/flavor variety
• [18:26] Tobacco’s business model: always another product
• [19:58] Demographics and tactics fueling rise in nicotine pouch use
• [21:58] Advice for parents: personal action and public advocacy
• [23:23] Messaging that motivates teens to quit

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Conclusion

This episode highlights how each “win” against one nicotine delivery method is quickly followed by a new threat—because the industry adapts to circumvent regulation and public awareness. The conversation urges parents, doctors, and policymakers to combine effective regulation, compelling messaging, and direct youth engagement to counter nicotine’s enduring appeal.

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“There’s always something you can do.” – Dr. Pamela Ling ([21:58])
“You, as teens, can actually hold these adults accountable for their actions.” – Dr. Pamela Ling ([07:56])

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Transcript

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Welcome to chasing life. You know, one day about six years ago, I sat down for a conversation.

[Interviewer/Host]

With all three of my daughters.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

I wanted to talk to them about.

[Interviewer/Host]

Something that was weighing on my mind and the minds of just about every.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Parent I knew at the time. Vaping.

[Interviewer/Host]

What did you think was in these vapes?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

Olei? I thought it's just a lot of chemicals and some chemicals can, like, damage you.

[Interviewer/Host]

Are you comfortable with this conversation?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

No.

[Interviewer/Host]

Why not?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

Because I'm only 10 at the time.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

My youngest, who you just heard from. Soleil. She wasn't even a teenager yet, but I wanted her to be part of the conversation anyway because the numbers back then and also what her big sister, 14 year old sage, had already gone through, suggested to me that vaping was probably something she was going to run into in middle school.

[Interviewer/Host]

How would you describe the vaping situation in your school?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

It got kind of bad last year. Some people did it too much. Like a lot too much.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

In 2019, the CDC found that 27.5% of high school kids admitted to vaping.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's more than a quarter, and that's.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

The ones who actually admitted to it. But here's the thing. By 2024, just five years later, that number had dropped to 7.8%, the lowest in a decade. Before Soleil could even get her driver's license, it looked like vaping was already on the way out. And it seemed like the same tools and lessons that had driven down teen cigarette smoking were also successfully beating back this new threat. But today I wanted to talk about something else that was happening in 2024 as well.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

This half hour, a new type of.

[Interviewer/Host]

Nicotine product in the US is going viral in Zyn is taking over the market.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

That's right, Zyns. They're the most popular brand of nicotine pouches. And if you haven't heard of them, you probably will. Between 2023 and 2024, teen use of nicotine pouches nearly doubled in one year, thanks in part to boosts from social media influencers who are in fact called zinfluencers.

[Commercial Voiceover]

Once you try this, you're gonna get a lot richer.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Zyn.

[Interviewer/Host]

Is that their advertising campaign? Zyn is not a sin.

[Commercial Voiceover]

That's the advertising campaign.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

So today I wanted to talk about teen smoking, vaping and Zyn. What is the truth about nicotine? How does it affect our children's health? And why does it seem like every time we get a handle on one product, a new one comes along? My guest today is Dr. Pamela Ling. She's an expert in tobacco marketing and the director of the University of California, San Francisco center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. She's going to help us figure out why tobacco and nicotine are such moving targets for public health. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, and this is Chasing Life.

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[Interviewer/Host]

Okay. Dr. Ling, hi. How are you doing?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

Good. Hanging in there.

[Interviewer/Host]

I've been really looking forward to this. I'm curious. Let me ask you a basic question. I feel like most people recognize that nicotine is highly addictive. And I don't want to overstate this, but I think it's one of the most addictive. Right? I mean, some say even more addictive than heroin, for example. Do young people recognize that?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

I think young people do recognize that nicotine is addictive, but addictive? That addictive? Yeah. But I think the tobacco companies have been on a campaign since the 1988 Surgeon General's Report came out that said nicotine is addictive, Right? Nicotine is the reason why people can't quit smoking. And the tobacco companies have been on a campaign for 50 plus years to try to minimize nicotine and say, you know, nicotine is like caffeine in your coffee, it's not a big deal. But when you take care of patients who, you know, continue to smoke even though they've had their larynx removed or continue to smoke even though they have cancer because they can't quit, you're talking about a really serious addiction and that I think young people are maybe sort of aware of it, but there is an active campaign to get them to forget about it.

[Interviewer/Host]

I want to get a sort of snapshot of where we are as a country with regard to nicotine and tobacco use. I just want to read you some numbers and tell me, correct me if any of these numbers are wrong, but teen cigarette smoking peaked in the late 1990s, when 37% of teens at that point reported smoking. By 2021, that number had fallen to just 3.9%. But in the 2010s, after cigarettes were already in steep decline, vaping, sort of really, it was already there, but it really started to surge in popularity, peaking in 2019, when about 5 million teens were using E cigarettes. So you seem like you had two things happening simultaneously. Cigarette smoking dropped precipitously among teenagers, but at the same time, vaping increased significantly in popularity. So what are we to make of all that? What was the impact of all that?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

Yeah, so we did have big decreases in teen smoking, you're right, because we had national campaigns, we had warning labels, we had taxes on cigarettes, we had clean indoor air laws. So there were lots of things happening in the US to drive down those smoking rates. And then E cigarettes were introduced, and actually teen smoking continued to decline, but at a slower rate after that. But now, by far the most popular tobacco product used by young people is vaping.

[Interviewer/Host]

And do you anticipate as a result of this, that teen smoking may go back up? Is there a transition point between vaping and starting to smoke again?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

That is one of our concerns. So there have been longitudinal studies of young people who are vaping, and they really consistently find that teens that vape are about three times more likely to start smoking later in their life. So we are concerned that the popularity of vaping could lead to a resurgence of smoking.

[Interviewer/Host]

Before I get into the real harms of this, which I think for a lot of people may be intuitive, but there is a success story in here. Again, in terms of how much teen smoking did drop over the couple of decades, and you said it was several things. What do you think? Attribute it to more than anything, is there something that sort of stands out as a lesson learned in terms of really bringing down teen smoking?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

I mean, we in the US we had some of the most effective mass media campaigns to educate young people about the dangers of smoking. So probably before your kids time was the Truth campaign, which is now run by the Truth Initiative. But this campaign started in the 90s. Right. Why I like it is because it really. Rather than telling teens that this cigarette smoke is going to kill you, the campaign was really focused on holding tobacco executives responsible for their role in perpetuating a lie to the American public about the dangers of smoking. So you may have. Remember they had these ads where you would have teenagers bringing a lie detector to the Philip Morris offices to, like, interrogate the CEO of Philip Morris. Because when they were doing the research for this campaign, they found out that, like, teens did not really care that much about getting lung cancer 50 years from now. Right. What they cared about was adults lying and getting away with it and making money off of their lies. Because teens can relate to adults not following the rules that. That they themselves are subject to. So that energy around saying, you know, the tobacco industry is responsible for this. They've been lying, they've been making all this money off of it, and you, as teens, can actually hold these adults accountable for their actions was the core message of the truth campaign in the 90s. And that was actually very relatable and energizing for rebellious teens who have the highest rates of youth smoking.

[Interviewer/Host]

You know, I find this really interesting because I think we're both doctors, but the idea of effective communication, I think for a lot of doctors, people who went to medical school, it's this idea that, look, if you don't do this, this may happen to you. If you don't exercise, you don't eat right, you may get heart disease, you may develop problems later in life. But this point that you're making is you've got to understand what's really going to resonate with people. So for these young people, imagining lung cancer 50 years from now, bad, but not immediate enough to maybe spur them to action. But the idea that these tobacco executives were taking advantage of them in some way, lying to them in some way, that was enough to spur action.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

It is more thinking like a marketer. Right. And it's a little less thinking about. In medicine, we tend to be very logical and very much like, if you give people the facts, they'll respond, they'll learn, and they'll change their behavior, which is true. But sometimes the facts you need to share are not just changing your individual behavior. Sometimes getting people energized about we need to hold this industry accountable is a better message.

[Interviewer/Host]

Going back to vaping nicotine. So what do we know now over the last couple of decades in terms of the potential harms associated with this?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

There are some health harms associated with vaping for young people, particularly for like, if young people have asthma, it can exacerbate asthma. It is associated with respiratory problems. I think the biggest harm from vaping is really exposing yourself to an addictive substance, which is the nicotine. So while the nicotine doesn't cause cancer, the nicotine is very addictive and can then lead you to move on to other tobacco products. And it's not a trivial thing. So people who are addicted to nicotine, you know, then experience especially, I mean, you have teenage girls, so, you know, I do too. Right. Like the mental health challenges in teen girls is like a real thing. And adding nicotine addiction to someone who's already trying to navigate, you know, strong and complex emotions or anxiety, depression, stress, that is a really bad combination for young people.

[Interviewer/Host]

That's interesting because I was going to ask if there was any redeeming qualities to vaping, because I think when, you know, they started to really become quite popular, I think one of the things that they were touted as doing was helping people quit smoking.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

Yes. And actually there is now better evidence than before that there are some randomized controlled trials that show that when you give people vapes and counseling in a randomized controlled trial situation, they do quit smoking at rates equal to or a little bit better than nicotine replacement therapy. Problem is that life is not a randomized trial. Right. So the highly controlled conditions that we do for RCTs are not like, go down to 7, 11, get a geek bar and do the best you can. And that's what people are mostly using vapes. And we have lots of population based studies and the studies show that people actually don't quit at higher rates. And in some cases they actually are less likely to quit if they're using vapes.

[Interviewer/Host]

Quit at higher rates compared to other.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

Nicotine, compared to people who didn't use vapes. Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

So where do we land on this then? You know, because I think again, the redeeming quality, if there was one of vaping, was that it can help people quit smoking. Now that we're in 2025, was that a failed experiment? Did it work? How would you describe it?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

I would say that you potentially can use vapes to quit smoking, but it needs to be in a very controlled environment. Right. You need to have counseling, you need to have a doctor's supervision, you need to have really close follow up the way you would give a medication. Right. As a commercial product. This is a failure because the, the highest rates of use are by young people. Now most of the young people Using vapes have never smoked cigarettes, so they're just an entry point into nicotine addiction. And the real world way that people are mostly using vapes isn't effective for cessation.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

After the break, Dr. Ling breaks down why vapes and nicotine pouches are actually more addictive than they've ever been before.

[Interviewer/Host]

Stay with us.

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[Interviewer/Host]

Are we doing enough as a society in terms of regulation around vaping?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

I think we could do more because.

[Interviewer/Host]

Correct me, so flavors were a big concern and it seemed like a lot of flavors were sort of designed to be attractive to young people. I mean, watermelon and bubblegum and flavors like that, some of those have gone away. Is that right? And I think menthol was still allowed to exist. But just give us a little bit of the landscape in terms of where the regulation is.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

Yeah, so when the vaping epidemic was at its Peak in 2018, 2019, that was really driven by the product called Juul Little one that looked like a USB port. Juul voluntarily withdrew their flavors except for mint and menthol and tobacco flavor. So some of the products that were had the most scrutiny got rid of some of the flavors. But if you, and they did that voluntarily, you said they, they voluntarily did that, I think to avoid like having flavors be banned across the board. But what you see if you look on the marketplace or if you just, you know, if you like, go online and look around is that there are still hundreds to thousands of e cigarette products available in a wide variety of flavors, because those products are. I mean, they're officially under the auspices of the fda, but they're just very difficult to enforce. And they're just tons and tons of flavored products still really easily available. They're also now getting much bigger and stronger. So Juul really dominated the market because they put salts, they put acids into their liquid, which allowed them to deliver a lot of nicotine. And a juul pod had about 200 puffs in it, which was the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes worth of nicotine. Now you can get vapes that contain 6,000 puffs, 10,000 puffs. So they're like 20 times stronger than what was in a juul pod. And you can buy them for 10 bucks or certainly under 20. And so you can walk around with like, a couple of cartons worth of nicotine, you know, in your handheld device. And the problem for that, for young people, is that you often don't know how much nicotine is in the vape. And, you know, because you can kind of stealthfully use it all day long and in different situations without realizing it, you can become very addicted to the nicotine.

[Interviewer/Host]

I mean, again, I think if there's any good news, I like to celebrate good news. So if there's any good news here, I think that the vaping sort of surged in popularity, peaking, it seemed like, right in 2019, so just before the pandemic, and by 2024 has dropped to about a third of that peak, which was the lowest level in a decade. So potentially some good news there. But at the same time, a new product sort of emerged. I'm not even sure how to say this. Z, Y, N. How do you say that, Zyn?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

Yes. Oh, the nicotine pouches. Yes, the nicotine pouches, yeah. These pouches that contain nicotine. Yes. And Zyn is the most popular brand.

[Interviewer/Host]

So it's like if you were imagining a graph over time, cigarette smoking peaks, starts to come down, vaping starts to go up, that starts to come down. And now, Zyn, these nicotine pouches, is that just the way it is, Doc? Like, every time we sort of start to get a handle on one product, another one comes along.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

You know, I will tell you that that is a tobacco company's plans. So we talked about in the beginning about the tobacco industry. Twenty years ago, the cigarette companies said, we have a problem. People are quitting smoking. How do we stay alive as A business. And their plan was basically to transform themselves into, like, nicotine pharmaceutical companies. And so all of this rolling out the next new products, whether they're heated tobacco products, E cigarettes, nicotine pouches, other smokeless products. I mean, some tobacco companies also own nicotine replacement therapy, pharmaceuticals, because as long as they get people addicted to nicotine and they can keep producing a new product, right, they're still making money. So it's not a surprise that as vaping drops off in popularity, the nicotine pouches are coming up, because there's a whole arsenal of new products that are rolling out along with these campaigns to say it's not a big deal, right? Maybe it's good for you. Don't worry about it.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's cool. Whatever it might be, Nicotine pouch is.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

Really easy to hide.

[Interviewer/Host]

Really easy to hide.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

They look like candy.

[Interviewer/Host]

And so much of this used to be sort of TV advertisements. And now the other thing that has changed tremendously is social media. And there are these folks that are called zenfluencers. So they are literally influencers around Zyn, largely sort of credited for the rise of these nicotine pouches. Has that surprised you? Just sort of the rise of nicotine pouches?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

I was a little surprised because, you know, we've had smokeless tobacco products in this country for a long time, and they've never been very popular. I mean, it's been popular among, like, young men, macho young guys, but for, like, women and other people, it's, like, disgusting. And so for a while, the nicotine pouches were kind of associated with chew. But now, because the companies that are promoting the nicotine pouches, a lot of them are vape companies. So they're kind of using all of the techniques that made vapes popular and translating even some of the same brands over to the pouches. And I think that's opened up the market or the audience. The concern I have about pouches not only is the concealability, but they're also getting bigger and stronger. So even in the pouches you can buy this year compared to last year, the milligrams of nicotine. So, you know, when we prescribe nicotine replacement, you know, the low dose is 2mg and the high dose is 4mg, right? Zyn starts at 3 and has 6. So it already starts out stronger than nicotine replacement. And now you can get 9 milligrams, 12 milligrams, 15 milligrams. So all the newer pouches coming out have higher and higher amounts of nicotine in them. So the whole market is going kind of bigger, stronger, cheaper, which, again, really facilitates addiction.

[Interviewer/Host]

I really resist being preachy at all in life and certainly on this podcast. But what would you say to parents who.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Because, you know, I do talk to.

[Interviewer/Host]

Parents whose kids are vaping and the parents know it. And sometimes I get this sense, Doctor, that they are kind of. Kind of like, just let them, you know, like, what am I? It seems insurmountable for them. Nicotine's so addictive, and then kids go off to college and you don't have eyes on them all the time. And I think it's frightening, but I think there's almost this sense of, like, despair, like there's nothing I can do about it. What would you say to those parents?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

I would say there's always something you can do. Right. So parent, you can talk to your kids. But also, you know what parents can do? Parents can do things like put in public comment to the fda. Right. The FDA is taking comments right now on approving Zinn. So if you are worried about your kid using these products, tell your story. Go to the FDA website. Anyone can put in a public comment and say, my kid is addicted to vaping, and I don't want the Zins to be the next wave of nicotine addiction. You can tell the fda, don't approve Zyn, or you can say, limit the nicotine. Why does anyone need 15 milligrams of nicotine in a pouch? Right.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah. I think parents definitely have a voice. And if you're talking to your kid one on one, again, I think the way we started this conversation was this idea that what we've learned from big Tobacco marketing was that they were selling a product by extolling the virtues of it, obviously not emphasizing the harms. If you reverse engineer that message as a parent, talking to a kid is the message, hey, imagine your life without vaping. Imagine your life without these nicotine pouches. As opposed to saying, hey, this is so bad for you. Is there a different approach, do you think, in terms of that conversation that parents should be having with their kids that would be more effective in getting them to quit?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

I think the answer is there might be. Right. It might be for some young people, knowing the harms, but for some young people, the harms of what they're doing is not going to be the thing that resonates. So it might be, yes, Focusing on the positive thing that they do want to and seeing how vaping or using pouches interferes with that, or thinking about a different reason that might not even be health related. Sometimes when we get kids involved in these campaigns that are anti industry, they will quit smoking or vaping on their own, even not for health reasons. They'll just say, I'm really passionate about this and I just feel like it's not the right thing to do because I'm part of this campaign. And so sometimes just making a real connection with your kids, no judgment, and helping them to connect with things that have meaning can be more effective.

[Interviewer/Host]

And hey, look, these campaigns have worked in the past and we can end the podcast there. There's been some good news, right, in terms of the effectiveness of these campaigns. Maybe we learned it from big tobacco initially, but it doesn't mean that it can't be applied for good.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

That's right. And we can do more.

[Interviewer/Host]

Can always do more. Hey, I was really looking forward to this. You know, we're both parents and, you know, I think that this is something that a lot of parents are thinking about. So really appreciate your guidance. Thank you.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

For sure. It's been a pleasure.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

I want to thank Dr. Pam Ling for coming on the show and I want to thank you for listening to Chasing Life. If you like the show, please subscribe or share. It makes a difference. And if there's something health related you've been wondering about, send us a question. We might answer it next week. Record a voice memo, email it to asksanjayn.com or give us a call 470-396-0832 and leave a message.

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

News fatigue have I GOT news for you?

[Commercial Voiceover]

Was the cure and also the disease. CNN's Comedy Quiz show is back, making sense of the mayhem and definitely adding to it. Have I GOT News for you?

[Dr. Pamela Ling]

Saturday at 9 on CNN.