Thanks to big, orchestrated pushes that began in the late ’80s to drive down cigarette smoking in California, the state now boasts some of the lowest numbers of smokers in the whole country. But this victory has gone up in smoke with the rise of a new trend. Across the U.S., kids are gravitating toward e-cigarettes, and adolescents who vape are more likely than non-vapers to start smoking traditional cigarettes. In Marin, new data from the state education department’s California Healthy Kids Survey shows that vaping among seventh, ninth and 11th graders (the only middle and high school grades surveyed on this topic) has more than doubled in the past two years, with the largest spike — from 11 percent to 28 percent — among 11th graders. And among those 11th graders, the percentage who have ever vaped or smoked e-cigarettes rose from 39 percent to 47 percent. In response, the Marin County Board of Supervisors last month approved banning the sale of vaping products and flavored tobacco products in unincorporated areas by adding an ordinance to the county code. Similar action has been taken in Sausalito, Fairfax and Novato.
Kasia Pawlowska loves words. A native of Poland, Kasia moved to the States when she was seven. The San Francisco State University creative writing graduate went on to write for publications like the San Francisco Bay Guardian and KQED Arts among others prior to joining the Marin Magazine staff. Topics Kasia has covered include travel, trends, mushroom hunting, an award-winning series on social media addiction and loads of other random things. When she’s not busy blogging or researching and writing articles, she’s either at home writing postcards and reading or going to shows. Recently, Kasia has been trying to branch out and diversify, ie: use different emojis. Her quest for the perfect chip is never-ending.
