With the growing trend of electronic cigarettes, kids today have stopped stealing packs of cigarettes and are now using electronic vapes. It’s important to understand that there are dangerous drugs your child might be vaping and what to have a conversation around when talking to your child.
Originally intended to help people quit smoking real cigarettes, kids now use vapes to get a quick buzz. But as these electronic cigarettes picked up in popularity, so did their potential for danger. Dangerous drugs can be smoked out of e-cigs and pose a significant risk to your kids.
While the FDA has started cracking down on retail sales of these e-cigarette cartridges to minors, this has simply moved the sale of these products underground and into more dangerous territory.
Buying these second-hand can only lead to tainted cartridges and the possibility that your kids might be unwittingly smoking drugs.
Here is a quick overview of some examples of drugs you can vape that are commonly treated at sober living facilities and how to know if your child needs treatment.
4 Dangerous Drugs Your Child Might Be Vaping
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Heroin
Recently, heroin has targeted the younger population through e-cig use. Drug dealers have noticed that it is easy to put this dangerous drug into liquid cartridges that attach to vapes and sell them to your kids.
These cartridges are usually knock-offs of what they sell in stores and are easy to disguise. Your kids could not even know that they have purchased tainted drugs.
It is important that if your kids smoke e-cigs, they buy their cigarette cartridges from authorized retailers only and never from friends or acquaintances.
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Marijuana
The most popular drug put in e-cig cartridges is marijuana. With the emergence of medical and recreational marijuana shops, there are many ways to consume cannabis. The most popular thought among adolescents is through liquid cartridges.
With electronic cigarette vapes, the user can smoke marijuana conveniently from a cigarette-sized device. Today, kids use these to smoke marijuana while disguising it as an e-cig sneakily. While the drug isn’t deadly, it may hinder motivation.
If you suspect your child is using an e-cig to smoke marijuana, you can usually tell if the cartridge contains marijuana by a simple smell test. Also, the liquid inside the cartridge tends to be thicker than average e-cig juice.
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Fentanyl
With the discovery of Fentanyl, there have been many attempts to disguise it as a conventional drug. Fentanyl is highly deadly and has caused countless overdoses across the world. With its chemical properties, fentanyl is very easy to mix with other drugs like heroin and can be easily disguised in a liquid form. If any amount of this drug gets on your skin in liquid form, there is a potential to overdose.
There is no safe way to check and see if a cartridge has been used to hold fentanyl. If you catch your child with cartridges of any kind, it is safest to throw them out simply.
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Cocaine
Since the 1908s, liquid cocaine has been a common way to take this drug, and smoking gives the same effect as snorting. These liquids can be disguised as e-cig juice that’s hard to detect. If bought from a second-hand person, these pods can be laced and cause serious mental and physical defects to your kids if they are still developing.
The best way to ensure that your child’s pods are not tainted is by buying a cocaine drug test. If the pod has been tampered with, the liquid in the test will turn blue and give you definitive proof that there are drugs in the cartridge.
Does My Child Need Treatment if he might be vaping?
While your child might not be aware that their cartridges have mixed drugs, they may also be combining liquid toxins for a unique type of high. If you suspect they are using recreational drugs use with any of these substances, it might be time to set up a consultation at a sober living facility.