The word "Due" read from top-down and "South" left-right, with the U shared between them. Reminiscent of a compass.

Due South

NC efforts to educate students on the dangers of vaping and how to quit

By Leoneda Inge,

Published June 6, 2024 at 11:16 AM EDT

Editor's note: This segment originally aired Feb. 28, 2024.

E-cigarettes were first made widely available in 2011. By 2019, rates of e-cigarette use among high school students had risen to over 20 percent across North Carolina, and more than six percent of middle school students were using e-cigarettes

For years, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has worked to promote education and prevention efforts around e-cigarette – or vape – use.

Their youth tobacco survey released in 2022 found that 27 percent of high school and 20 percent of middle school tobacco users wanted to use a tobacco product within one hour of waking up, while 25 percent of high school and 33 percent of middle school users found it hard to get through the school day without vaping.

The state offers cessation programs, including Live Vape Free, to help mitigate the enduring challenges.

Guest

Kelly Kimple, Senior Medical Director for Health Promotion, Division of Public Health at NC Department of Health and Human Services

Due South

Leoneda Inge

Leoneda Inge is the co-host of WUNC's "Due South." Leoneda has been a radio journalist for more than 30 years, spending most of her career at WUNC as the Race and Southern Culture reporter. Leoneda’s work includes stories of race, slavery, memory and monuments. She has won "Gracie" awards, an Alfred I. duPont Award and several awards from the Radio, Television, Digital News Association (RTDNA). In 2017, Leoneda was named "Journalist of Distinction" by the National Association of Black Journalists.

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Stacia Brown

Stacia L. Brown is a writer and audio storyteller who has worked in public media since 2016, when she partnered with the Association of Independents in Radio and Baltimore's WEAA 88.9 to create The Rise of Charm City, a narrative podcast that centered community oral histories. She has worked for WAMU’s daily news radio program, 1A, as well as WUNC’s The State of Things. Stacia was a producer for WUNC's award-winning series, Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon and a co-creator of the station's first children's literacy podcast, The Story Stables. She served as a senior producer for two Ten Percent Happier podcasts, Childproof and More Than a Feeling. In early 2023, she was interim executive producer for WNYC’s The Takeaway.

See stories by Stacia Brown