You hear your heart monitor start to speed up, lying in your hospital bed. It slowly goes back to its original pace, and you, knowing you could die at any minute with a breathing tube in your throat. Your family, cowering around you, sobbing, all because you got addicted. These are the effects of vaping. 
The only problem: the question that remains—who's responsible? Many people have guesses about who’s responsible for teen vaping, but their guesses are merely suggestions. We still don’t know what kind of chemical or virus is causing this mysterious lung disease. Although more medical research is needed, the research and studies we have now show that there are 40 million users worldwide and climbing. 
Vaping is linked with smoking. Smoking kills 1 in 5 Americans in the states each year alone. Now imagine what smoking does worldwide. Most of the vaping population are addicted to cigarettes. Vapes are advertised as an alternative to smoking, when really, it’s just as bad. Sometimes worse. 
Some vapes, despite of the nicotine, can be better for you, but none of them are better when it comes to smoking cigarettes. One juul pod contains 5% of nicotine, as much as one whole pack of cigarettes. So, you can imagine what smoking four or five of these a day does to growing teen’s body. It can even harm fully developed adults as well. 
 Even though nicotine has been known to cause death, there is another chemical in juul pods that, in theory, is causing the growing lung diseases. This chemical is called THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol). THC is found in drugs such as marijuana, which contains cannabis. The cannabis in vape pods is turned into acid and oil. Another oil in the pods is Vitamin E acetate. Vitamin E acetate is a modified oil substance that acts like Vaseline. You are supposedly putting Vaseline on the inside of your lungs, corroding them, building up fluid, drowning them. 
In the USA alone there have been over 800 cases of this mysterious lung diseases. There have been up to 15 deaths in U.S. alone, and the numbers are climbing. We need this to stop. We need to take a stand. Why keep something that kills us? Every day, every hour, even this very minute someone could be dying from a vape. And who’s responsible? 
Everybody is responsible! Teens, Parents, Teachers, Lawmakers, Tobacco Producers, Bystanders, everybody! What is the reasoning behind this you may ask? In the article “Teen Smoking: Who is Responsible?”, paragraph three talks about the things that tobacco companies do, such as advertisement. “...companies use appealing advertisements and other techniques to manipulate kids into buying cigarettes. For instance, one brand developed flavored cigarettes and promoted them with fun tropical images.” This statement from the text proves that these companies only want to make money, so therefore, contributing to this growing epidemic. 
Lawmakers, such as the Senate and Council, maybe even the president, have discussed this ongoing problem several times, but have gone nowhere. They say that the government does not intend to regulate vaping products until 2022, the next presidential election. They choose to do this because they care more about getting votes than the Americans losing their lives to this vape-related lung disease. 
Teachers have an influence on their students.  If these said students trust their teacher, what do you think would happen if the teacher comes in smelling of smoke or vape products, and tells them all about how smoking is bad? They would lose trust, and, perhaps, pick up the habit themselves. The same goes for parents, as well. If a parent tells their kid to not smoke, but either/or one of their parents smokes, how does this make the kid feel? He/she might feel pressured or influenced to be a smoker too. 
Bystanders—you yourself could be a bystander. If someone watches someone else vape and says nothing to them, they could end up in the hospital, never knowing that the vape was the problem. And you didn’t say anything! 
Finally, teens. It is the teens fault because they’ve heard about how bad these things can be, what they can do to your body, yet they still choose to smoke or vape. Although it has been proven that most of the teens that vape didn’t know anything about it. That still doesn’t excuse the fact that they did it. They should have been more precautious about their decision. Like when you label a cereal box with its ingredients and fat and sugar content? They should’ve read on the box and done some research or else they wouldn’t end up in this mess. 
Everyone is responsible for teen smoking and vaping (to all ages). We are the only ones who can do something about it. We are the ones who will take a stand. “We the people...” we choose what’s best for our country. Let’s end teen smoking, all smoking and vaping in fact, once and for all.