Craig resident Kali Hedman first tried vaping at age 12 when she was stressed during middle school.

By age 13, Hedman was vaping, or inhaling e-cigarette vapor, five to six times a day, which continued for about a year.

“One of my friends had given me a vape, and I soon got addicted,” Hedman said. “I just thought it was a one-time thing. For a little while it made me feel good, and then I started stressing when I couldn’t have it. It bothered me that I was hiding things from my mom, but then again, I had an addiction.”

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With the support of Moffat County Youth Action Council and the free program My Life, My Quit, Hedman stopped vaping. She said the education helped her realize the toxic chemicals she was putting in her body.

“I had a lot of craving, but I just kind of fought through it,” Hedman said. “Physical addiction was hard. It took me a while, about two to three weeks, to actually stop and walk away. One day at a time.”

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Now a freshman at Moffat County High School, Hedman participates on the cheer squad and is happy she has recovered her lung capacity.

“When I was vaping, my lungs hurt, my body did not feel good,” Hedman said. “I could not run because my lungs would start hurting. I couldn’t breathe the same way. And when I quit, my lungs don’t hurt anymore. I can exercise without being short of breath.”

Hedman now is active with the youth council, which focuses on helping other teens avoid nicotine.

Youth Action Council administrator Mackenzie Mixon, a Partners for Youth empowerment program coordinator, said the council’s nicotine avoidance campaign was chosen by Moffat middle and high school youth.

“This was big problem that they all agreed on and all see in their daily lives,” Mixon said of the outreach and education effort now in its third year.

The youth council — with support from Communities that Care Moffat County and Bear River Young Life — host clean and sober fun activities that are drawing up to 200 students each event, Mixon said. The group hosts events such as color and foam parties, black light volleyball, bowling and movie nights, and a skating party scheduled for 9-11 p.m. Nov. 1 at Loudy-Simpson Park Ice Arena, with details on the Instagram page Mocoyouthactioncouncil. Each event includes multiple trusted adults to talk with and an information table with nicotine avoidance information.

The Youth Action Council partners with statewide nonprofit Rise Above Colorado, which works to show youth the majority of teens are not using nicotine, alcohol and drugs. A spring Rise Above survey with a limited sampling group of teens showed 75% of Routt and Moffat county middle and high school students did not vape in the previous month. That percentage is worse, however, than the statewide average of 81% not vaping, said Jonathan Judge, program director with Rise Above Colorado.

Previous youth council president Hailey Schaffner said the group works to educate, inform and support fellow youth with helpful resources about better choices and health.

“Our committee saw that youth were struggling with addiction and having the proper resources to seek help,” Schaffner said.

Schaffner said the goals are simple, including easy access for youth to resources, free online resources and information to find what quitting technique works best, while also allowing school staff members better ways to reach students without a scare tactic.

Students and educators said — although nicotine products are prohibited by law for people under age 21 — vapes are widely used because they are easy to get and to hide. Hedman said she never paid a dime for a vape in a year of using multiple times a day as she was handed down pre-used vapes from older teens.

Judge said underage youth generally get vapes through older friends and siblings or by working around restrictions to order vapes online. Youth generally pay for vapes online with Paypal or Venmo accounts, and parents do not pay attention to the boxes that arrive in the mail.

“That’s a big vacuum there for parents asserting some control,” Judge said. “You don’t have to be overly intrusive, but you should know what’s coming into your home via mail.”

Some youth say the permissive attitude of parents and older adults, as well as lax identification processes at some Northwest Colorado stores, also enables underage vaping.

Judge said a misperception remains that vaping is less dangerous than cigarettes and other substances, so some parents turn a blind eye.

“Vaping is incredibly addictive and can serve as an entry moving on to tobacco and marijuana,” Judge said.

Some vaping businesses are owned by big cigarette companies and have gotten around flavor and marketing regulations meant to lower the appeal of vaping to underage users, Judge said.

“The companies have been very adept at creating marketing strategies that bypass laws and still appeal directly to youth,” Judge explained. “The flavoring is a big part.”

Peer-to-peer pressure to use nicotine, or not to use, is very powerful, Judge said.

“Empowering teens works,” Judge said. “When teens are equipped with accurate and credible information, we can see dramatic shifts in public health.”