- 22 hours ago
The question isn't whether hookah and vaping are popular—the question is why. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of how nicotine has been woven into culture, what the real health impacts are, and how we can collectively reimagine wellness, freedom, and community beyond the smoke.
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00:04so like Lauren said we'll be chatting about are we addicted to the aesthetic so today this panel
00:11will explore how culture marketing and social norms have shaped perceptions of nicotine use
00:16within our communities with our feature speakers first dr. Kendrick Dartice vice president of
00:24outreach and engagement initiative at truth initiative nation's largest nonprofit dedicated
00:30to nicotine free lives next we have dr. Eddie hackler cardiologist and health advocate
00:42look they look good don't they next we have dr. Chris T pernell director center of health equity
00:50at the NAACP all right let's get seated and get into this conversation all right we're gonna get
00:59straight into it first we all know that hookah nicotine is all the rage especially where I'm
01:06from in Atlanta you can't go and get breakfast without getting a hookah so now I want to know
01:11how his hookah and vaping became normalized within the social and cultural spaces today yeah so the
01:18tobacco industry for years has created opportunities to really create engaging ways to engage black
01:26audiences and black communities by socializing we know that we are social people and I know that the
01:31tobacco industry has created waves of getting hookah into our communities through club settings and and
01:37as well as in vaping in our communities because people know that we drove down the rates of cigarette
01:42usage and so they had to find a different tactic in a different way to get our people hooked wow
01:47and just to
01:48add something to that in particular with our youth it is a very social element so it has been
01:54normalized I mean I sit on a school board I'm not only a physician but I sit on a school
01:58board and we
01:59talk about not just hookah and vaping but how smoking has almost become so like cool trendy and the kids
02:09are thinking oh this is how I de-stress right yeah this is how I just live do you feel
02:14like time kind of
02:15repeats itself because like my father he actually passed away from lung cancer but what I found out
02:20was he was like when I was 13 that's what everybody was doing and so he was like I was
02:25peer pressured
02:25into that and then it came a time where people weren't smoking but now you feel like it's coming
02:30around but with it's like new innovative ways like hookah right yes all right so the role of marketing
02:37influencers and social media in shaping the perceptions of hookah and vaping like you just spoke on
02:44how do you feel like that has affected it because social media is so accessible right living in
02:50today's world and I talk about this with my nieces I call my nieces my boo bots and living in
02:55today's
02:55world what you see on social media is almost like a reflection of who you should be a reflection of
03:01who
03:01you could be and so what we see is we see things that we know aren't helpful things that are
03:06harmful
03:07being presented in ways that oh it's okay oh it's cool oh it's ordinary oh it's really not that
03:13important I have students that I talk to and they're looking at me like doc this is good
03:19it's all right it's not as dangerous as you think it is and I think to add on to that
03:24really if you
03:25mask it in you know cherry lime flavors exactly you know the flavor aspects really create a sense of
03:31you know well people thinking that it's okay yes and so we know that the tobacco industry has created
03:36these flavors to really marketing to youth and audiences because it makes it more palatable
03:41so what do you feel like many people misunderstand about nicotine addiction
03:48so one thing that people misunderstand is that nicotine is such a dependent thing and when you
03:58smoke it actually binds to receptors in the brain and that releases dopamine in the body and it creates
04:05a reward sensation exactly and it happens quickly less than 30 seconds so nicotine through smoking is
04:11like one of the back the fastest ways that people get addicted to smoking so do you feel like nicotine
04:18and social media are kind of the same things like how people are addicted to social media do you feel
04:22like there's some synergy there with the same thing yeah no exactly so people want that quick reward
04:28exactly so they can get it with social media and they can get it with nicotine yeah yeah absolutely
04:33okay you guys sorry my little ipad just went off on me
04:38okay so with the health impacts of hookah and vaping how do you feel like we need to be able
04:44to change
04:44that moving forward we need to be able to help people understand the dangers because right now
04:51if you're having conversations with people about hookah they're like oh i'm not doing it as often as
04:57maybe somebody who smokes but what we know is that those who use hookah because they're doing it in
05:02a setting where they get more prolonged exposure is actually more harmful okay so if you think about
05:09it it's 100 to 200 times the amount of smoke that you would inhale if you were using cigarettes and
05:16then
05:17also what people don't talk about with hookah there is a infection risk right you're sharing mouthpieces
05:23um you're sharing tubing you can get the flu you can get herpes you can get mononucleosis and so we
05:31have to help people understand that though things like social media though your friends though your
05:37social settings may be saying one thing you need to know the facts and when you have the facts you
05:42can
05:42make it a more informed choice or decision absolutely and one other thing is that so when you sit in
05:49a
05:49hookah session you actually take in about 75 liters of smoke in comparison to about 600 milliliters when
05:56you smoke actual cigarettes so it's not better and it's not healthy at all so question when you're
06:03like going to the like hookah lounges and they have like the food even people that aren't necessarily
06:09smoking the hookah are they still being impacted absolutely smoke exposure is significant and african
06:15americans 19 000 die each year just from secondhand smoke exposure exactly just for being around people
06:21who utilize nicotine uh hookah and live with parents and i know you have a story dr chris you know
06:27i don't
06:28have my dad anymore my dad died during covet and one of the reasons covet ravished my my father's body
06:34so
06:34quickly is because he had poor lungs he had emphysema because he had been a lifelong smoker and my dad
06:40grew
06:40up in virginia he said i couldn't get a girl if i wasn't smoking and he tried desperately to quit
06:47but
06:47it was always something that he struggled with and so i lived with a person who smoked at one point
06:52he
06:52was just smoking in the bathroom because we thought okay maybe that wouldn't be as dangerous then he was
06:57smoking in the car with the window down maybe that's not as dangerous but i developed chronic bronchitis
07:02and i still have chronic bronchitis so now you're making me want to go get checked because i'm like i
07:07grew up
07:07around that and you don't know like some of the issues that you don't you know like if you were
07:11around it even when they tried it's like no wonder why i keep getting these signs infections or whatever
07:16the case might be your skin your hair wow the things that people don't think about so do you feel
07:21like
07:21if people have been um impacted by like being like hey i have a smoker in my house i may
07:27be a secondhand
07:28smoker just by like being around them do you feel like they can get tested for that or is there
07:32any type
07:33of tests that people can run if they have been smokers and vaping and doing the hookahs well
07:38primarily we tell people to go by how you feel right so for instance as a person living with another
07:44smoker some of your primary risks are going to be related to your lungs right so are you having
07:49excessive cough are you having recurrent cough um do you do sometimes a lot of throat clearing i used to
07:56do a lot of throat clearing even as a child not understanding that the mucus was building up in response
08:01to the exposures that i was having and then we want people to live in the frame of prevention
08:06so talk to your provider talk to your doctor about the risks and the habits that are in the family
08:12not just the individual so that your doctor can better equip you with information and then have
08:17a family conversation about how you get healthier as a family yeah absolutely and one other thing
08:22shortness of breath as well so we do ct lung screenings for people who have like a smoking history but
08:28if you have a secondhand smoking history too it may be appropriate for you to get a ct lung screening
08:32too all right now when i come visit you in atlanta i'll be like you know why i'm here all
08:37right
08:38so the next question is going to be why has nicotine been used like and affecting black communities
08:45as bad as it has like do you feel like there is like i mean there's science behind it for
08:51sure but
08:51particularly the tobacco industry in philadelphia rolled out um ice cream chucks to give out menthol
08:58cigarettes to our people when they started mentholated products they wanted to get black people hooked
09:03at a alarm rate and so what they did was they gave it out like candy to people across the
09:08country and
09:09particularly they focused on urban centers such as philadelphia chicago atlanta and some other places
09:14in new york particularly give they gave this out and then we that through generations people have
09:20taken menthols and that is the number one product that of choice for african americans is menthols yes
09:26it's data says anywhere between 80 to 85 percent of black people who smoke are smoking menthol cigarettes
09:34and as dr darti said it was deliberate is an example of structural racism right let's put toxins let's put
09:43crap let's put harmful things in communities where it's perceived that people have less power
09:49right less access to information and health care and then you begin to see the generational impacts
09:56of those predatory practices yeah and the menthol cigarettes what it does it makes it easier for
10:04you to smoke so people inhale deeper they inhale longer and those receptors for nicotine enhancing the
10:11brain so when you smoke these menthol cigarettes you have longer exposure you have more dopamine so it feels
10:18better so that that same reward pathway just increases over time and it's harder to quit it is harder
10:26to quit so i'm going back to what you just mentioned about how like they put it in these underserved
10:30communities because we even think about that for like a food desert like for example where i live in
10:35atlanta i'm like what why is there only like a church's chicken and a way like they don't have access
10:40to
10:40those things but now they're trying to like gentrify that area right but i 100 agree with that looking ahead
10:47like what trends are most are you most concerned with when it comes to nicotine among younger generations
10:53and what gives you hope that we can change that trajectory i think when we look at the trends and
11:00the data at truth initiative we focus day in day out on nicotine addiction what we see is that the
11:05correlation of
11:06putting vapes uh with thc and cbd and so the combination so people don't feel like they're
11:12addicted to nicotine they don't oh i just use this for marijuana use but no you really you use it
11:17for
11:17nicotine uses as well yeah so people have an understanding of that you uh when you use blunts
11:22particularly you're using wrappers that have nicotine products in it right and so there's an element to it
11:27just understanding but i think one of our most concerns is particularly nicotine salts and so we're gonna like
11:33you know dips and pouches that are coming back like zen um that people are using discreetly and
11:39being able to put in the back of their mouth and kind of go through it and we're seeing youth
11:42being
11:42able to do it and take and have nicotine usage throughout the day in their school day without
11:46being able to notify the teacher or being able to kind of have the telltale signs that they're using
11:50nicotine and the other thing that i would add to that the trend that's alarming i'm a public health
11:54physician there's an all-out onslaught on public health and we see evidence of that in tobacco control
12:01issues you see departments at the cdc gutted the office on smoking and health you see um policies
12:07being changed coming out of the fda and how we regulate these products and so when we allow things
12:14like fruity flavors menthol flavors when we allow the introduction of new products like the pouches and
12:20the salts it's a new way for the industry to try to like out maneuver the science but we got
12:25to keep our
12:26best wits and our best understanding about us and these products are not very well regulated at all
12:32so you have no idea what you're inhaling and you know all these things i went to a gas station
12:37one
12:37time and they had a pop-up and they were like oh this is a new way of smoking like
12:41it doesn't have
12:42the effects it doesn't have this you can sign up you can do and i said well but it's still
12:45nicotine
12:46right you're just packaging it a different way right it's interesting you say that because there's a
12:50a lot of misconception around hookah right in a sense that people say oh no it says on the label
12:55on
12:55the box it says zero nicotine but a lot of times it's mislabeled it's mislabeled because it's not
13:00being regulated yeah and there are other products in it too that can hurt your lungs and your heart
13:04yeah they're thinking about the nicotine but it's the other things that make this thing work yeah
13:08right right so what do you feel like black parents teachers and mentors should be sharing with young
13:15people about hookah and vaping and how do we have these conversations in a real way without pushing
13:21them away yeah so i'll tell the story really quickly my dad who struggled with smoking um it
13:27was so a part of his life growing up he told my brother my brother's 10 years older than me
13:32if i
13:32could give you one piece of advice that i want you to follow don't ever start he says because once
13:38i
13:38started i've never been able to quit and i saw my dad struggle through hypnosis through every type of
13:44treatment to the point where his lungs were destroyed so i want parents i want educators i
13:51want our black youth i want our black community to understand you only get one body on this earth
13:56and with all of the forces and the factors that are um deliberately out to harm our communities we have
14:04to wield our power with more wisdom yeah and with with with more truth yeah overcoming the misconception
14:12that is healthy or that it's an alternative way of smoking that won't harm you because it will
14:17yeah yeah well wellness is such a major conversation right now especially on social media how can we
14:24redefine what community celebration and self-care looks like without nicotine being the center of those
14:31experiences yeah so i i can already say that it's going to take all of us standing up in our
14:37social
14:37environments that means no hookah at the baby shower that means no hookah at the party it really it
14:43takes somebody in the group to be able to lead and have the conversation like hey yeah we're not going
14:48to do that and being able to have stand up in your own social circles because that's how we affect
14:53change but also not letting these cultural moments like baby showers and graduations and
14:59a moment that we want to celebrate to be overshadowed right all right all the things look i've seen it
15:04everywhere everywhere gas stations nail salons they have mobile hookah people yeah who will come to
15:11your events and set up a hookah space i've been to them yes they'll be in the corner i'm like
15:16wait what
15:16are you here for exactly no yeah so i think just like when you talk about like black pride and
15:22understanding
15:22what that looks like it's saying that the number one preventable cause of death in this country
15:28is nicotine addiction it doesn't say it on your death certificate it looks like in the day-to-day
15:33and you live and so you have to stand up in your own social circles to be able to really
15:37affect change
15:38and the number one killer of all people all races all genders is heart disease and the number one
15:44modifiable risk factor is smoking and not only is smoking causing heart disease but we know it also causes
15:51cancer it influences stroke it influences other respiratory issues it influences your skin it stays
15:58in your hair for up to 90 days but the flip side of that is when you are able to
16:04quit the body begins
16:05to heal itself so the sooner that we can educate people and we can move to healthier more empowering
16:11behaviors the better that our communities can live lives that are full and healthy and it's very
16:20very quickly too once you stop smoking your mucillary um becomes very more active so smoking even if
16:27it's just for five days ten days that immediate effect is very profound if i can make a plug for
16:37things we have a truth initiative as a tool resource so we have a great program called the x
16:42program x program has helped a million people quit um nicotine addiction and so we have a great
16:48partnership that we're launching with nacp and we're still called the breath of freedom movement we're
16:53excited launching that at convention at nacp yes yes yes yes and so we're excited for that but
16:57particularly it's a it's a great program that helps with communities to be able to encourage people
17:01and people can join by text um um pride and progress you can text that to 88709 or you can
17:07join
17:08live free you can check that to 88709 to join that what's the word again yep so join freedom join
17:14freedom
17:15to 88709 join freedom to 88709 we gotta text it for you pull out your phone it's okay and i
17:22got my
17:22jones one other thing out there and we still have quit lines right we do see some cuts but we
17:28still have
17:29quit lines so if you're looking for you know other resources in addition to the breath of freedom movement
17:351-800-QUIT-NOWN you can call you can talk to someone talk to your physician talk to your health
17:43care provider um and and just know that the power really does rest in you though there are powers that
17:50be that seek to destroy that okay wonderful well we're going to wrap up with one last question for
17:55the audience if everyone in this room could leave with just one action item or mindset shift after today's
18:02conversation what would you want it to be i always say this it is not related but it is vote
18:09because
18:11what we see in public health we see a lessening of the regulations to protect especially our most
18:18harmful from these products we see the relaxing of policies that allow these products to flood our
18:24markets and that means we got to vote at every level so doctors orders vote get your whole family to
18:30vote get your whole block your whole neighborhood yes yes 80 of heart disease is preventable so the
18:36things that you do and the things that you don't do directly affects your heart and it doesn't have
18:42it doesn't start when you're 50 or 60 when you're 20 and 30 those are the things that you're going
18:48to
18:48have to deal with when you're 60 so start now you're never too young to care about your heart
18:53prevention is the key i would say that encourage your family and friends through the actions of
19:01love if we want our families to be here we want longevity in our communities that means taking a
19:07stance speaking up not turning the blind eye to friends that we know are using nicotine at alarming
19:12rates we know that all of our friends and we know our social circles and it just means standing up
19:17and if
19:18you truly love them you'll say something i love that thank you guys so much for joining us today
19:25and like you said say it one more time for pull out the phones and text join freedom to
19:3288709 and it's a great 60-day intervention program that you can pass on to family and friends
19:37to help them quit in their journey all right well thank you guys so much thank you thank you all
19:43for being
19:43here yeah thank you
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