We’ve all got our vices, as much as we’d rather not admit it. I feel like it’s almost more human nature at this point than anything else. Some people have an insatiable need for sweets while others need gallons of caffeine to even function on a normal human level. Or if you’re like me, maybe you have both. Regardless of your “thing” we should generally not judge each other for it because we all have one in some form or another, even though the form is usually harmful in some sort of way.

I know caffeine can cause my heart to beat irregularly and chocolate can cause me to eat over my calorie allotment for the day, but I do it anyway. Reason being is another story, but the motivation isn’t so much the issue here, but simply going ahead and doing it despite internal voices and reason telling us not to. Similarly, people who smoke know by doing so every puff increases their risk of dying at a young age because of heart disease or cancer, but they do it anyway. Taking a look at it from a numbers perspective, someone who smokes cigarettes is 15 to 30 times more likely to be at risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer.

So having said this, it would be logical to think when individuals with this particular vice try and do something to lower their risk of meeting an early demise, we or I, would support that. I’m going to be honest, I didn’t. At first anyway. I wasn’t against people trying to save their lives, but I didn’t agree with their lifesaving methods.

I have always had a sort of disdain toward e-cigarettes. Maybe it’s because I’m a paranoid asthmatic or simply due to the vapor they give off looks too much like cigarette smoke and it bothers me because of the negative image cigarettes carry. Or perhaps it’s because no one in my immediate family has ever smoked so I was raised to be against it and that could be where the issue stems from. Granted I don’t hate them as much as actual cigarettes, so you would think once I put together the fact that when a person is smoking an e-cigarette it means that’s one less person in the world smoking a real cigarette, but for the longest time I couldn’t make that connection.

One of the great things about being a writer and columnist in particular, is you do a lot of research about a lot of things and therefore learn a ton about a myriad of topics. This is one of the situations. Usually when I start a new column I being by researching to back up my opinion, but in this particular case the research actually changed my opinion in specific areas as well as made it clear where some adjustments need to be made when it comes to e-cigarettes.

Going into this piece, I set out on a mission to find clear and solid proof that e-cigarettes are overwhelmingly negative but in the end, I was only able to validate two of my previous assumptions on e-cigarettes: they can be addictive and they are not regulated enough by the government. The rest of my thoughts were virtually obliterated.

Since 2013, the use of e-cigarettes in teens tripled in the United States. Use among high school students increased from 4.5 percent to 13.4 percent. While this information is shocking enough on its own, the number of students in middle school who were regularly using e-cigarettes jumped from 1.1 percent to 3.9 percent. Reading this you may think, ‘OK, that’s not so bad. At least they’re not using regular tobacco products,’ which is true. However, e-cigarettes are still addictive and studies show the earlier kids become exposed to nicotine, the more likely they are of becoming an adult smoker. According to The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 90 percent of preteens who begin using nicotine will become addicts as adults.

It is for this very reason we need to eliminate the possibility of individuals who are under aged from buying e-cigarettes. 40 states have made it illegal to sell this tobacco alternative to minors in stores: under 18 years old in 36 states and under 19 years old in four states. However, this excludes selling of e-cigarettes via the Internet. A study conducted by JAMA Pediatrics in March 2015 found in 76.5 percent of purchases of e-cigarettes online the companies did not attempt to verify the purchaser’s age, which therefore would easily allow a minor to acquire this nicotine laden product.

This simply cannot continue. Since the 50s, America has worked long and hard to bring down the number of people who smoked in this country due to the misconception that smoking was actually beneficial to one’s health. In 1950, 44 percent of adults smoked cigarettes regularly and society has been on a gradual descent since. I see no reason why we have any right to undo the outstanding improvements we have made since then, nor do companies have the right to cause minors to think e-cigarettes are not addictive or damaging to their health.

Special neurotransmitters that fit perfectly into specially designed receptors reside live in your brain. When a neurotransmitter finds its receptor, it activates the cell. Unfortunately, nicotine molecules mimic the shape of a specific neurotransmitter called acetylcholine and when ingested it can take the place of acetylcholine and latch onto the receptor cells, thus causing the body to react in other, more harmful ways. Some examples would be breathing and heart rate irregularities as well as memory issues.

I applaud the way that as a country we are seeking ways to reverse the damage that smoking has done to our nation and I now think e-cigarettes are a viable solution. However, most every solution to most every problem does come with some very clear drawbacks, and in this case it’s that underaged individuals can easily get their hands on a product that could hurt them. We have to clamp down on the selling of this product to minors or we will be reintroducing the vice of nicotine addiction, which we have been working so hard to stamp out, to the next generation.