{"id":311214,"date":"2026-10-21T20:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T20:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/311214\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T20:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T20:06:11","slug":"philly-launches-teen-vaping-campaign-amid-state-restrictions-nbc10-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/311214\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly launches teen vaping campaign amid state restrictions \u2013 NBC10 Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia health officials are taking aim at teen vaping with a new campaign called “Don’t Get Finessed,” as Pennsylvania begins enforcing new restrictions on the sale of certain vape and e-cigarette products.<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health hopes the campaign will educate young people about the dangers of vaping and discourage them from using nicotine products.<\/p>\n

According to the city, <\/a>about 19% of Philadelphia youth currently use e-cigarettes, while 38% have tried them.<\/p>\n

At Girard College in Philadelphia, 12th grader Harmony Ellis said vaping remains a problem among students, even with measures in place to discourage it.<\/p>\n

“We have vape detectors in our school bathroom, but students simply don’t care about them. They vape anyway,” Ellis said.<\/p>\n

Ellis said she has watched the issue grow throughout her years at school.<\/p>\n

Dr. Samara Jinks-Cheng, an adolescent addiction doctor at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said vaping has become more common among young people than traditional cigarettes.<\/p>\n

“I don’t see any young people that smoke cigarettes, they think it’s gross. No kid would smoke a cigarette, they vape, so I noticed the numbers are not actually reflecting nicotine vaping use,” Jinks-Cheng said.<\/p>\n

The city’s anti-vaping campaign comes as Pennsylvania begins enforcing Act 57<\/a>, a law restricting which electronic nicotine delivery systems can be sold in the state.<\/p>\n

Beginning Monday, Oct. 19, retailers are prohibited from selling vape and e-cigarette products that are not listed in the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General’s official ENDS Directory.<\/p>\n

At Girard Mini Mart, owner Rosa Aguilera said the new rules could mean a significant loss of revenue, particularly after the store recently removed its gaming machines.<\/p>\n

“I’m affected because you lose a lot of money,” Aguilera said.<\/p>\n

Aguilera said she has always checked customers’ identification and has never sold vaping products to minors. She believes adults should be allowed to make their own decisions about nicotine use.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania House recently passed legislation that would impose fines on store owners who illegally sell vaping products to minors.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia health officials hope the “Don’t Get Finessed” campaign will work alongside state restrictions to reduce vaping among young people.<\/p>\n

Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson, with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, described the city’s approach as a combination of education and enforcement.<\/p>\n

“We do education, and then if education is not working, we use the fullest extent of the law enforcement,” Raval-Nelson said.<\/p>\n

For students like Ellis, the hope is that more young people will recognize the risks of vaping and encourage their friends to quit.<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC Philadelphia. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC Philadelphia journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia health officials are taking aim at teen vaping with a new campaign called “Don’t Get Finessed,” as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1057,28,30,29,69],"class_list":["post-311214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-health","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-philadelphia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}