Alice Smith, 18, tried to quit vaping for almost two years. The headaches, whole body shakes, blurry vision and a feeling that her whole body was about to shut down made it hard.

Now she is in her senior year of high school, but spent the morning of Sept. 11 speaking up against the flavored nicotine that has become increasingly popular among children and teens in recent years.

Smith shared her story at a campaign kickoff event for a coalition called Flavors Hook Kids Washington, hosted by El Centro de la Raza at their Federal Way location, 1607 S. 341st Pl.

The group seeks to end the sale of flavored tobacco products in Washington state, citing the harmful impacts to health and well-being.

Campaign manager Andrew Estep began the event by showing examples of fruit flavored nicotine vaping devices with a built-in gaming system. Turning on the “strawberry blow pop” flavored device, the user can either decide to vape, or play games similar to Pacman or Tetris. The vape is called V-play and advertises having “regular mode” or “beast mode” to choose from.

“If this is not something directly targeted to children, I don’t know what is,” Estep said.

Estep described Flavors Hook Kids as a “coalition of diverse community organizations, educators, medical professionals and youth and youth organizations who are calling on the Washington State Legislature to end the sale of flavored tobacco products here in Washington state as soon as possible.”

Smith affirmed that the fun flavors, packaging and styles of vapes are part of the appeal.

She hit a vape for the first time in sixth grade at age 11 after someone she looked up to told her, “I wasn’t cool if I didn’t hit it. He told me that I wasn’t going to ever excel in life, and that I wasn’t going to have any friends” if she didn’t.

She bought her first vape herself the next year, when she was 12, and said “it became like a sort of community at hangouts. You would bring it out, you compare them, and you would see which one’s cooler, which one tasted better, who could do the best tricks.”

Over time she started to notice both the physical and mental damage vaping was having on her.

“I could physically feel it,” Smith said. “My breathing would be slow, like I couldn’t get enough air, and as a student athlete I could feel myself getting tired easier.”

Hitting her vape became something she was constantly looking forward to and thinking about. She said that she would start to crave more after 20 minutes or so — depending on what else she was doing.

At one point, she said she asked 100 other students at her high school about their experience with vaping. Only three of the students she asked said they had never hit a vape and only 10 had never owned one themselves.

“It really is as big as people say it is, and it is truly as harmful as people say it is,” she said in her speech at the event.

After the event she emphasized the importance of education for young people, explaining that “when I first started vaping, I had no idea what it would do, because people had also told me that it would calm nerves, rather than make me more anxious and make me more nervous during the day, because, like, when’s the next time I can get my vape? Is it going to be in three hours or it will be 10 minutes?” She added that it’s important to let people know that “it really does affect your well being.”

Aside from banning flavored tobacco and nicotine products, Smith said that she believes there should be more awareness and education campaigns, especially those that include stories of young people like her.

“If people need to hear my story to stop, then I’m willing to be that voice,” Smith said.

30th District State Rep. Kristine Reeves shared that although fruity flavors “may seem harmless on the surface … they are designed to attract children, kids who often don’t realize that behind these flavors is a highly addictive and very deadly substance.”

Estela Ortega, executive director of El Centro de la Raza, added that for “far too long the tobacco industry has preyed on communities of color, ensnaring them in addiction.”

One alarming statistic she shared was that one in eight high school students in the Latino community are current users of some form of tobacco products.

John Johnson is the president of the Tacoma NAACP and spoke to the way it has impacted his own family.

“My father never saw his grandchildren because he smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. He never got a chance to pass on little bits of wisdom that I still carry,” he said.

Johnson shared a memory of his son witnessing people smoking at Disneyland and asking him if they were going to get sick like his grandpa did. Later, he grew up to smoke himself.

“How compelling does something have to be for the lesson that he learned at a very young age could just be overridden?” Johnson asked, adding that “we’re sacrificing our children to something that has no value in our society.”

Alice Smith is a senior student at Roosevelt High School in Seattle and is now speaking out against the harmful impact of vaping on young people. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror

Campaign manager Andrew Estep shows an example of a vape that includes a built-in video game and comes in a variety of fruity flavors. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang/the Mirror

30th District State Rep. Kristine Reeves said she plans to introduce a bill banning flavored tobacco products in the 2025 legislative session. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror

Executive Director of El Centro de la Raza Estela Ortega at the Flavors Hook Kids campaign kickoff. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror