This story was published in Volume 1, Issue 2
By: Rue Murray
Eli Nickie takes a drag of an American Spirit cigarette, exhaling a tendril of smoke into the air that lingers over his back porch. Sitting on the table next to him is a 1.5-liter wine bottle filled almost to the neck with cigarette butts and ash.
Nickie has had a familiar relationship with nicotine since the eighth grade and is now part of the 12% of adults over 18 in the U.S. who smoke cigarettes.
Despite various state and federal regulations, young adults across the U.S. consume nicotine at a high rate, whether that be vaping, smoking cigarettes or packing a nicotine lip pouch. While the use of e-cigarettes among youth users on average has declined from 7.7% to 5.9%, they’re still finding ways to use nicotine.
New products like Zyns continue to hit the shelves, creating a steady supply of addictive vices. A study by Truth Initiative revealed that unique nicotine products “more than quadrupled from 453 in June 2021 to 2,023 in June 2022.”
What it’s all led to these days is users often participating in multiple different ways of consumption. According to Truth Initiative in 2023, 73% of nicotine pouch users also smoke cigarettes and 49% vape.
Nickie had quit vaping after getting surgery for a knee injury caused by a snowboarding accident. But during the healing process, Nickie’s main activity consisted of lying on the couch, so his only social interactions revolved around smoking — reverting him to old habits.
“When everyone was hanging out, they’d all go out on the balcony and rip cigs,” he said. “And I wanted to be a part of the gang, so I’d go out and have a smoke or two.”
Another phenomenon affecting young people is known as the “drunk cig.” A combination occurs between drinking and nicotine where the user allows themself to smoke a cigarette only when they are drunk. Many users argue that they are already intoxicated, so what’s the harm of taking a couple puffs.
Some people never smoke cigarettes unless they’re drunk. Nickie knows many people who started with occasional drunk cigs, but later evolved into everyday smokers, including a close friend.
“She was like, ‘I’m only going to smoke when I drink,’” he said. “And then it’d be a Tuesday night and she’d be having a beer and sure enough she was smoking.”
Smoking cigarettes in any setting is often seen as a social activity, which is part of what kept Nickie going, but the aesthetics of cigarette smoking contributed to some extent.
Many movies use cigarettes to indicate a hard edge to a character. Nickie agrees that he perceives some sense of style within them, something he thinks vaping does not resonate with.
“Cool guys smoke cigarettes,” he said. “Lame people vape.”
But even if vaping is not seen as “cool” anymore, there is still a high percentage of young adults who’ve had their fair share. The appeal of inhaling or absorbing nicotine to look cool drives young people to find ways around regulations or age restrictions.
Trevor Thornton is a 25-year-old who was introduced to nicotine in the seventh grade. Like most first-time users, his initial interaction with nicotine, specifically vaping, was not necessarily a positive experience.
“I took a rip of it and it was a really, really large one and instantly my lungs felt like they were on fire,” Thornton said. “I immediately had to lay down because I thought I was having a heart attack and almost had my friends call an ambulance.”
Even with this terrifying experience, Thornton decided to try his luck a second time.
“I don’t know what compelled me to try it again, probably its addictive nature,” he said. “But I hit it again later and I was like, ‘That’s actually kind of sick. I like that.’”
Once he adjusted to vaping, he formed a new habit and before long he was fully addicted. The unique flavors appealed to Thornton alongside the highly addictive chemicals within nicotine.
Many states and cities, including Boulder, have added regulations where vapes cannot have appealing flavors in an attempt to dissuade younger users. Perhaps in an attempt to combat regulations, some vape companies have added visually appealing technological features to disposable vapes including minigames or digital displays.
These new advancements are entertaining to some but for Thornton they are too absurd to be taken seriously.
“There’s no reason that ripping your vape should have a Honda Civic dash on it where it’s got all sorts of lights and blinking,” he said. “You can play games on those things. They’re just ridiculous.”
Part of his plan to quit, however, came with shying away from the fruity flavors and flashing lights and leaning into the less favorable parts of nicotine. He thought that taking away the satisfying aspects of nicotine would make him less likely to crave it.
“The only thing that got me to quit was when I started buying tobacco Juul pods because I hated them,” Thornton said. “And then I picked up Zyns and found the flavor I hated the most and used that one.”
While new products like Zyns helped Thornton quit, they can do the opposite for others by adding another product to the addiction list.
Ethan Boeckers began vaping in his freshman year of high school. Because he was an athlete, he switched to Zyns during his junior year for a non-inhalant alternative.
Upon getting into college, his Zyn addiction only got worse as his peers and social spaces were also infiltrated with Zyn users. Greek life is a big part of his nicotine experience as the pledge packs he once carried at the beginning of fraternity rush put nicotine right in his hands at all times.
“Part of our pledge packs were to have some form of nicotine,” he said. “It’s a requirement to have it and then you get addicted because you always have it on you.”
While many fraternities are experiencing pressure to mend hazing rituals and implement some safety measures, nicotine and drug usage can fall through the cracks.
Federal regulations may sway some from nicotine use, but the concern of its health effects may not necessarily extend to fraternities. The main priority at a party school is not to get rid of vaping or cigarettes and therefore they continue to impact students.
“You don’t really hear about them cracking down on frat boys smoking cigarettes,” Boeckers said.
But governmental crackdowns on nicotine cannot fully convince every user to quit. And once users reach the legal age to purchase any new and upcoming products, they have that freedom to consume or quit at their leisure.
“In college I probably won’t quit,” Boeckers said. “I think after college I definitely don’t want to have this crutch with me for the rest of my life.”
Nearly 70% of smokers say they want to quit and have made attempts to in the past. Other studies show that 56.1% of those who quit do so for health reasons and 10.3% for financial purposes. Regulations have likely played a part in these numbers, but it ultimately comes down to the wishes of the consumer.
Nickie is an example of someone who has made attempts to quit for various reasons, but will he ever actually quit?
“Yep,” he said monotonously, before extinguishing the cigarette butt and reaching for another.
