'He died from vaping:' The rise of vaping among teens in NC

Doctors thought 15-year-old Solomon had bronchitis.

In April 2023, he went from being a healthy, active high school football player to not being able to walk to the bus stop.

"Finally was like time to see the pulmonologist," his step-mother, Charlene, told WRAL. "She immediately knew it was from vaping, and she asked him and he admitted it."

The teen had been vaping on and off for a year. On June 16, 2023, his father found him passed out. The two had just talked on the phone about 15 minutes prior.

The teen was taken to the hospital in Wilmington, where they found he had popcorn lungs and congestive heart failure.

"Hardest thing in the world is to watch your child on a ventilator and to know there's nothing you can do. And to know that it was 100% preventable," Charlene said.

Solomon's family had to make the agonizing decision to take him off life support.

"He died from vaping. The vaping caused popcorn lungs, which basically destroys your lungs. It takes your ability to breathe away," Charlene said. "He's got congestive heart failure, so his lungs, his heart, everything was filling up with fluid and he basically drowned in his own fluid."

Solomon had started vaping with his friends in early eighth grade. "It wasn't that he was doing all the time, unfortunately. He happened to be the person who was truly affected by it. It destroyed his body," Charlene said.

If he had not collapsed, doctors said Solomon would've had to undergo a heart and lung transplant just to survive.

It started with JUUL

Solomon was among the growing number of teens who are vaping. One in 8 high school students vape in North Carolina, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

"I was one of these folks who saw the trend lines of how much high schoolers were stopping smoking," North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said. "Then, all of a sudden, some mad scientist in California came up with a new way to deliver nicotine."

Ray Riordan, who served as the director of Local Policy and Program Development at the Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch of North Carolina's Division of Public Health, said that e-cigarette maker Juul changed things.

"Nicotine in and of itself is very astringent,, tastes pretty nasty," Riordan said. "But with Juul, they were able to manipulate that pH level to lower it so it didn't taste as bad, so people could get deeper inhales, take in more."

It was a recipe for addiction, Riordan said.

"We have a generation of youth who are now addicted to e-cigarettes," said Dr. Adam O. Goldstein, a professor of family medicine and director of tobacco intervention and weight management programs at the UNC School of Medicine. "We had worked for decades in North Carolina to prevent this and recognize that really one company was going after kids."

The North Carolina Attorney General's Office began an investigation into JUUL.

"What they did was they used flavors to attract kids. They used very high concentration of nicotine to get kids addicted quicker," Stein said. "Because their mind was, 'if we can get 'em addicted, they're a customer for life.'"

Stein said JUUL marketed itself aggressively, using "social media influencers to make it look so cool, so that teenagers wanted to replicate that lifestyle."

"What's so sad is that it worked beyond their wildest imagination," Stein said.

North Carolina was the first state to sue JUUL. The company settled before it went to trial.

"We won $48 million plus a series of changes to how they do business to protect young people," Stein said.

"It really brought resources into North Carolina and also provided models for other states to figure out how, what they could do to try to take policy actions and regulatory actions to prevent another generation," Goldstein said.

JUUL Labs released the following statement in response to the lawsuits: "Resolution of claims related to the company’s past has been a key priority and we have resolved the vast majority of such claims, providing over $1 billion to participating states nationwide to further combat underage use and develop cessation programs. Juul Labs is now focused on continuing to advance its mission of helping adult smokers transition away from combustible cigarettes while combating underage use. Our technology already has transitioned over two million adult smokers from combustible cigarettes. And we are encouraged by the fact that since 2019 underage use of Juul products has been cut by more than 98%, while overall use of vapor products is at its lowest level in a decade."

'Why are they making vapes that look like Yoda?'

While the focus was on JUUL, the industry was creating other products like Elf Bar or Esco, the top disposable vapes used by youth across the country in 2023, according to Goldstein.

New vape companies and products have saturated the market.

"They don't look like ugly, gross, scary, smelly cigarettes that they learned about in school, they look like the latest greatest tech device," said Virginia Johnson, Substance Use Prevention Director at the Poe Center for Health Education.

Teens who work as anti-tobacco advocates at the Poe Center have said they have seen vape products with Bluetooth connections and others that look like USB sticks or even pens.

"Why are they making vapes that look like Yoda? Why are they making a vape that looks like a highlighter marker or goes inside a hoodie?" Charlene said.

In 2023, the FDA sent warning letters to 15 companies who sold vapes that look like cartoon characters, school supplies like a highlighter and a vape that was actually a camera.

"This is a game of whack-a-mole at this point. And what we need in this country is a national standard of no flavors, because flavors are what attract kids. Kids want sweet things, and that limits the nicotine concentration," Stein said.

According to the CDC, vapes can contain cancer causing chemicals, heavy metals and some flavors linked to serious lung disease.

"We have hundreds, if not thousands of different flavors market around the United States," Goldstein said.

About 90 percent of high schoolers and 95 percent of middle schoolers who vape use flavored products Riordan said.

"Why are they tasting like Fruit Loops? No 50-year-old wants something to taste like Fruit Loops," Charlene said.

Vapes are coming from across the world, not just in America. And there seems to be more stores popping up.

There are more than 13,000 stores that selling tobacco products across the state. Eight hundred of those stores are in Wake County.

Gorja, one of the teenagers we met at the Poe Center for Health Education, said she passes 17 vape stores on her way to school.

"The more you see it, the more you think everyone does it," she said.

Nikhil, another teen advocate, did a project where he mapped out all the vaping stores near his high school in downtown Raleigh.

"There were a total of 86 vaping and tobacco outlets within two and a half miles of Enloe High School," he found. "With the amount of vaping outlets near a high school. it makes it super easy to purchase a device where you could vape."

Federal law to purchase tobacco products is 21-year-years of age, but North Carolina state law allows those as young as 18 to purchase tobacco products. And despite a requirement to check identification before selling those products, WRAL found that many places skip the ID process.

In an undercover test, a WRAL news production assistant went to 12 different stores and purchased vapes. Only two of the stores visited asked for her ID.

For Charlene, just seeing someone vaping, especially a young person - is incredibly difficult.

"I'll say things to people like, 'you're gonna die. That's how my kid died.' And I know they think I'm crazy and I have three heads on my shoulder, but nobody should feel like my family does ever," she said.

The WRAL documentary team produced a brand new documentary, Gen V: Teen Vaping in North Carolina, on the rise of e-cigarette use among young people. You can watch it on demand or on WRAL.com.