See the Toll of Youth Nicotine Addiction as a Nurse and Mother

By Jennifer Riggs

As a critical care nurse, I have spent years caring for patients on some of the most challenging days of their lives. Many of my patients suffer from the devastating health consequences of smoking, which tragically still kills over 32,000 Floridians each year. While it’s encouraging to see that fewer young people are smoking now, as a nurse and a mother, I’m alarmed by the tobacco industry’s unrelenting efforts to hook another generation to nicotine – this time with e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches in a never-ending array of kid-friendly flavors.

As a mother of three high school students and one middle school student, protecting our kids from nicotine addiction is personal. My kids come home from school and tell me how common vaping has become and how some of their peers can’t even make it through a class period without sneaking off to the bathroom to vape.

It is deeply concerning, as a mother and a nurse, to see the renormalization of tobacco use among today’s kids.

More than 12% of Florida high school students use e-cigarettes. These are our children, their classmates, and the young patients healthcare professionals like me care for. Many of these kids are not just experimenting–they’re addicted. Some of today’s e-cigarettes can contain as much nicotine as 20 packs of cigarettes and many kids do not understand just how quickly addiction can take hold or where it can lead.

Not only is nicotine highly addictive, but it can have a lasting impact on adolescent brain development, including the areas of the brain responsible for attention, learning, mood and impulse control.

Parents and educators are working hard to protect kids, but we are facing an increasingly difficult challenge. E-cigarettes come in sleek, easily concealed devices and fruit and candy flavors designed to appeal to young people. Some products even have bluetooth technology and digital screens with games.

When these products make their way into schools and into the hands of kids, parents and school leaders are left trying to push back.

That is why I was deeply troubled by the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recent decision to authorize fruit-flavored e-cigarettes for the first time, despite acknowledging for years that fruit flavors pose a high risk to kids.

Shortly after, the FDA announced a regulatory shift that will allow flavored e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches to stay on the market without the full scientific review required by law. We can’t allow our kids to be the tobacco industry’s guinea pigs.

At a time when parents, educators and health professionals are struggling to prevent another generation from becoming addicted to nicotine, federal regulators shouldn’t be easing regulations on tobacco companies. We should be doing everything possible to keep these highly addictive products out of their hands.

We cannot send mixed messages about youth nicotine use. We cannot tell parents and schools that prevention matters while allowing more flavored products that clearly appeal to kids onto the market. At the same time, we must protect the programs that give families, schools and communities the tools to prevent tobacco and nicotine use in the first place.

Sustained federal investment is critical to supporting the programs that make tobacco prevention and cessation possible, yet these efforts are under attack. Last year, the Trump Administration eliminated the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health (OSH), decimating our nation’s tobacco control infrastructure.

Fortunately, Congress ultimately preserved funding for CDC’s tobacco prevention work for fiscal year 2026, but significant gaps remain as OSH staff have yet to be reinstated. Now, we face the same threat again. The Trump Administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposes eliminating funding for CDC’s tobacco prevention programs.

Eliminating this funding will benefit Big Tobacco at the expense of our kids. Without this funding, Florida will lose access to critical scientific expertise, technical assistance and a dedicated funding source for its state tobacco control program, which helps support youth prevention, public education, and tobacco quitlines that give families access to trusted information and resources.

Congress must once again protect this funding so states like Florida can continue supporting proven prevention, education and cessation efforts that help keep young people from becoming addicted to nicotine.

U.S. Senator Ashley Moody has already demonstrated that she understands the danger of tobacco companies targeting young people. As Florida’s Attorney General, she took legal action against JUUL over its egregious marketing of products to kids. Now, as our voice in the U.S. Senate, she has another opportunity to stand up for Florida families.

I urge Senator Moody to protect funding for the CDC’s tobacco prevention work and speak out against FDA actions that put kid-friendly flavored e-cigarettes on the market.

This should not be a partisan issue. It is about giving parents, educators and health care professionals the resources we need to protect children before an experiment with vaping becomes a lifelong addiction.

Our children deserve the chance to grow up without nicotine addiction shaping their health and their future. As a nurse and a mother, I urge Senator Moody to help us give them that chance.

Jennifer Riggs is a Florida critical care nurse and mother of four.