Vaping Loopholes: How Your Voice Can Make a Difference

“I want young people to know what a difference they can make,” says Deb Brown, Chief Mission Officer of the national American Lung Association. In an interview with Giving Youth a Voice podcasters, she praises young people for taking action to help close loopholes in the Clean Indoor Air Law and encourages teens to continue to talk with legislators about issues because their voices can really make a difference. This interview was recorded on May 6, 2025 during Day at the Capitol in Harrisburg, PA, hosted by the American Lung Association and the Tobacco Resistance Unit.

Transcript

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I'm Deb Brown, I'm the Chief Mission Officer for the Nationwide American Lung Association, responsible for our health promotion, advocacy, and research programs. 

So what exactly is TRU? 

TRU is a youth movement here in Pennsylvania and a very exciting one that has been in existence for quite some time now. Couple of different variations, I would say, but I think TRU has kind of stuck as the name. And, uh, it's just, we've had so many youth coming through this program that I am very proud and excited that we are able to help educate and keep young people close by as advocates for the lung health issues as well as the American Lung Association. 

And I can speak on Patrick's behalf and I that were both very excited to be here today advocating for it. 

Well, good. And I think the thing I love about youth-related programs is that you learn these skill sets on how to advocate, and you never lose them. It may be tobacco today, but it may be something else that you're very passionate about in a couple of years or 10 years down the road. The skill set stays the same.  

Yeah.
 
And I think that that's a really important thing is that young people, you know, sometimes you don't know that your voice matters as much as it does. But like I said, I think if you start feeling comfortable speaking to legislators about the things that matter to you, you might not get all you want every single time, but, you know, what you have to, you have to try. And being here today, you got great results because you they're very excited and they want your opinion, and it's perfect opportunity to give that opinion. 

Yeah. Last year, I talked to some of them about mental health, and now this year, I get to talk to them about tobacco and vaping prevention. 

Exactly. And again, it doesn't matter what-- the issues are important. They matter, but it doesn't matter how you go about advocating for them. It's just that you're comfortable. You know what to do, yeah, and you're not afraid to do it. 

I guess the question I want to ask you today is why did you get involved in TRU in the first place? 

Well, I worked in another state, where we had a youth tobacco program. It was in Delaware. And actually I'd like to think that TRU is very similar to the program that we have in Delaware. And I saw all of the great work that happens and Delaware also passed a clean indoor air law, and it was because young people were involved. They were engaged. They made their voices heard. The second reason I would say is that again, I want young people to know what a difference they can make and you have to start somewhere and this is where you're going to start. 

Thank you for sharing that. Honestly, that's really that's really cool that you inspired that way. 

Are there any big successes or results that you want to talk about? 

Well, I think some of the big successes are, even though the Clean Air Act has some gaping loopholes. I do think that it was really important to have our young people involved in that campaign to make a difference. I think also just the education that you all provide to your peers. Just to give them a safe space, to say if they don't feel comfortable, you know, being pressured into using tobacco products, they know they have a safe space with you all because you understand how hard it is. To walk away from that peer pressure. And so I think there's a couple of reasons that I feel that those are really big successes for us. 

One of the things that you mentioned on youth being able to know that they're not alone when they are uncomfortable feeling pressured is especially since they're such an increase in nicotine and vaping nowadays. It's good for the youth to know as much as it's a "trend" right now. Many people doing it if they don't want to do it, they're not alone in that and they mostly have to do that. 

And I think that one of the other things that I love about TRU is that if you take a look at everyone who is here today, there are people from every part of your school that are here. It's not just, you know, a certain group of people, it is everyone who feels passionate about this issue and there are so many people who feel passionate about it. So I love that aspect of youth programming as well. 

What do you hope to accomplish through your efforts today? 

I hope that after 17 years, we will get all of the loopholes closed in the clean indoor air law. I think it's really important. know, many of us have family and friends who work in places and those 1100 establishments who are being exposed to secondhand smoke. And that's just in 2025 we should not have that. Second thing I hope is that maybe we'll get that $1 million increase for the master settlement funding so that we can continue programs and expand our programs such as your programs that you're working on. But, you know, making sure that young people have access to cessation services through our not on tobacco program or the in depth program. And making sure that we can continue all of the wonderful programs that we're doing. I think it is really important to work with the representative to make sure that young people aren't punished. You know, there's so many competing factors that go into young people choosing to try, for example, vaping products then becoming addicted. And I think that having programs out there that we call evidence based--that means that they work--available, being able to make sure that we're not punishing young people and making sure that we are not only educating retailers, but we are making them understand the importance of not providing these products to young people. And I understand sometimes they say, oh, it's a business decision. It's not a business decision, it's just is wrong that retailers provide these products to young people because it is an addiction. And we need to make sure that the addiction to nicotine, there are ways for young people, not to become addicted, but also if they are, to quit. 

I understand that. I hope you're able to accomplish as much effort as you can today. With what you said. 

I hope we are too. It's always great. We walk away from today and we feel really good about all the hard work that you all did. But we also know there's a whole lot of hard work ahead. These things don't happen real quickly and we have a lot of education to do. And as I said, 17 years in between clean indoor air laws. That's a long time. And we have a lot more good examples of that even for people to work from, but just takes time. So we'll keep walking around and educating and working on that.

That's awesome. 

Thank you so much for coming on to our podcast and talking about the event here today. One of my big takeaways was definitely being able to come today and advocate it and being able to have time with these legislators. Because obviously we all know that they are very busy, but the fact that they are taking the time to not only meet with youth, but to generally listen to them. It's such like a special thing to be a part of. And so I appreciate events like this being able to bring everyone together and advocate for the same thing. 

I would make a suggestion if you do go to meet, take as many pictures as you can, you know, make sure that you're, if, you know, at your school, if you have a newsletter, you're putting it in there that you're meeting because those type of things go a long way with legislators. And in your hometown, that's even more exciting for me is like he or she recognizes that you came here. And now we're going to build this relationship in our hometown where it really matters the most to me. Well, thank you for coming and thank you for doing your podcast to let other people know that there are opportunities for young people to be involved in tobacco control related issues. And it's been very exciting for me over the last 20 years, as I said, to see so many young people go through and see the great things that they've done with their lives after TRU. I look forward to talking with you all again, and thank you. 

That's it for this episode. Thank you for listening to Giving Youth a Voice. Any questions about this podcast or our coalition can be emailed to podcasts@nc4youth.org. That's podcasts@nc"4"youth.org. Make sure to follow us on your favorite podcasting app and sign up to our email list on nc4youth.org, so you don't miss our next episode. This project is made possible by funding from the Drug Free Communities Grant. I'm Brianna wishing you a happy and healthy future. See you next episode!