Imagine you are at a high school party your freshman year. A senior comes up to you and asks if you want to hit their vape. You want to fit in and be cool, so you say yes. You like how it makes you feel so eventually you get one of your own and end up getting addicted. Three months later you are laying in a hospital bed wondering when the pain will go away and if you’ll ever walk out of here alive. So, who's to blame? Who is responsible for teen smoking? In my opinion, many people are. 
Many people are responsible for teen smoking. Some may argue that teens make the decision for themselves to start. While that is true, the problem is way deeper than it seems. Teens make many of their decisions in life based on what they are exposed to. Whether it's what their parents do, what they see on television, or what their friends do. If a teen sees their parent vape/smoke they might think it’s okay and want to do it to.  Some parents even allow their teen to do this and even buy them the products. This is not just one person's fault. Tobacco and vaping companies market their products to teens to convince them to buy it. Unfortunately, lawmakers are too worried about their votes to do anything about this epidemic. Regulation is not being addressed until 2022, but something must be done before then.  
In the last week, the number of deaths from vaping have increased from nine to thirteen. That number looks like it will be increasing tremendously due to the over 800 people in the hospital sickened from vaping. Even the CEO of Juul, a popular vaping company, quit last week suddenly. Many people believe this is due to everyone getting sick from the vapes and he doesn’t want to get in trouble for it. So, you may be wondering, what is in the vapes that is so harmful that people are dying? Vitamin E acetate is the biggest ingredient to blame. This deadly chemical acts like Vaseline and coasts your lungs. Eventually, your lungs will fill up with fluid and you’ll drown. Also, ultra fine particles are inhaled into your lungs when you inhale a vape. Those particles will end up in your lungs and could sicken you. Vaping has over 40 million users. This means that over 40 million people have a chance to end up in the hospital due to vaping. Unfortunately, this could turn fatal for some. 
Knowing and educating yourself about the dangers of e-cigarettes is very important. It is so important that it could even save your life one day. The amount of people being hospitalized each day due to vaping is growing each day and something needs to be done to stop this epidemic. Fixing a problem starts with being aware. We can only fix a problem if people are aware of what is happening. E-cigarettes are the modern-day serial killer more people need to be aware of. We need to be aware. We need to educate ourselves. And we need to do something about this epidemic.