The New York health department has launched a new campaign to help young adults overcome their nicotine addictions.
The DropTheVape texting program is a partnership between the department’s tobacco control program and New York State Quitline. It offers confidential and free skill-building exercises and resources through text messages to those who want to quit vaping.
“The program is based on an evidence-based treatment manual that you might deliver in person or over the telephone with a therapist. It's just adapted so that it can be delivered via text,” said Dr. Christin Sheffer, director of the tobacco treatment specialist training program at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, NY.
She and her team led the program’s development.
“The text messaging program is designed to meet people where they are," Sheffer said.
After registering for the program online, the participants will receive daily messages over the course of six weeks. Sheffer said these messages will include tools for managing stress, cravings and withdrawals symptoms.
“It's not going to change the world, but there are very few resources for young people to quit vaping and other tobacco products,” Sheffer said.
In the U.S. young adults are using e-cigarettes, or vapes, more than any other tobacco product, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s reported that most of them want to quit, but researchers say treatments for young people are scarce.
" We have to treat it like the addiction it is, and we have to offer programs that are treatment focused, not punishment focused, which is what they are now,” said Dr. Holly Russell, family medicine doctor at UR Medicine who is also board certified in addiction medicine.
Russell said schools right now are desperate for solutions. And her mission is to implement addiction treatment programs in schools to help combat what she believes is a public health crisis.
“We shouldn't be punishing these kids. We should be helping them,” she said.
Russell said depending on the severity of the addiction a combination of medications and cognitive behavioral therapy is probably the best way for quitting to be successful.
To register for the texting program visit, www.dropthevape.org.
