Honest Prevention: What If We Told Teenagers the Truth About Nicotine?
Current youth prevention says: nicotine is addictive and harmful. Honest prevention would add: delivered without combustion, nicotine is dramatically less harmful than smoking. The honest approach is more credible—and more effective. It's also politically toxic.
Telling teenagers 'nicotine is addictive and harmful' is accurate. Telling them 'nicotine is as dangerous as heroin' is not. Telling them 'there's no safe tobacco product' is accurate. Withholding that vaping is dramatically less harmful than smoking is not. **Honest prevention would communicate the spectrum of risk: cigarettes are catastrophically harmful, vaping is substantially less harmful but not harmless, NRT is the safest option. The evidence supports this approach. The politics oppose it.**
