Federal and local authorities have launched a sweeping campaign to tackle the surging problem of youth vaping, targeting both the supply chain of illicit products and the culture of use among American students. On September 15, 2025, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that federal agents had conducted nationwide raids to seize Chinese-made vape products, marking what he called the beginning of a broader crackdown on the industry.
“The Chinese are getting richer while our children get sicker, and we’re putting an end to that,” Kennedy declared at a press conference, as reported by multiple outlets. The operation, conducted in partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), involved undercover purchases at distributors in Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Arizona, California, and Florida between August 1 and August 14, 2025. According to Kennedy, these coordinated efforts included ATF visits to 14 retailers and HHS investigators targeting five distributors.
The results were immediate and dramatic: “Today, these gentlemen of ATF and FDA confiscated 50 truckloads of this material, and 90 percent of it comes from China,” Kennedy announced. The raids, he emphasized, were designed to “target the biggest distributors, and also to send a message throughout this entire industry that this will not be tolerated anymore.”
Kennedy credited Attorney General Pam Bondi with leading the charge. “There’s a new sheriff in town. Her name is Pam Bondi, and we are going to target these Chinese vapes and stop them from poisoning our children,” he stated. This tough stance echoes Kennedy’s earlier warnings about Chinese economic influence in American markets—he previously raised alarms about China’s ownership of nearly 384,000 acres of U.S. farmland and called for restrictions on such purchases. The latest enforcement action comes amid a backdrop of heightened tensions, with the Department of Justice in July charging two Chinese nationals with collecting intelligence on U.S. military personnel.
The federal crackdown arrives at a moment when school districts across the country are grappling with what many now describe as a vaping epidemic among youth. At Marietta City Schools in Georgia, which serves about 8,500 students, superintendent Grant Rivera told ABC News that vaping has become “the biggest issue” facing administrators and teachers. “We see that children are vaping and they don't know what they're inhaling. We've had numerous situations where kids have passed out, kids have been unconscious. We've had to call 911 and some of those have been linked back to vaping,” Rivera said. He described the district’s response as a “critical safety initiative that is as important as any active shooter or fire drill that we're going to do.”
The scale of the problem is staggering. The HHS Office of the Surgeon General, in a Youth Vaping Resource Guide released on September 15, 2025, labeled youth vaping an ongoing “epidemic.” According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study, over 1.6 million U.S. students reported using vapes from 2023 to 2024. An August 2025 poll by C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital found that 56 percent of U.S. parents consider smoking and vaping a big problem for children and teens.
Vaping, once seen as a rebellious act, has evolved into a mainstream activity among students—including high achievers and athletes. Jennifer Folkenroth, senior director of nationwide tobacco programs at the American Lung Association, told ABC News, “Kids that were using traditional cigarettes in the past, they really were the rebels. We saw a huge evolution when e-cigarettes were released on the market over a decade ago. ... They now are the college-driven, the aspirational, the key students and athletes of the school districts.” Folkenroth added, “It's very much a part of today's culture with teens.”
Dr. Rachel Boykan, a pediatric hospitalist and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Nicotine and Tobacco Prevention and Treatment, explained the risks: “A cigarette delivers about one to two milligrams of nicotine per cigarette. Some of these more recently popular [vape] devices … they're larger devices that contain a solution of a high percent of nicotine and they can deliver as many as 600 cigarettes, so 30 packs of cigarettes, in one device.” Boykan warned that many students are using vapes 20 to 30 days a month, or even daily—a clear sign of addiction. “Even if it's 6%, that's like one in 15 kids, one in every classroom, who has this problem. That's a lot of kids in a school. … It's just a lot of kids in general that need help.”
The health consequences are not limited to addiction. Boykan noted that starting a vape habit young can lead to long-term or lifelong use, and is linked to mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression. Studies have also shown a potential link between vaping and further drug use.
In response, schools are experimenting with technology and education. Marietta City Schools installed 54 Halo brand vape detectors in middle and high school bathrooms for the 2025-2026 school year, funded by a $70,000 grant from the Georgia Department of Education and a class action settlement with vape maker Juul. “We're trying to help the kids understand that if, in fact, you attempt to vape in a bathroom or you attempt to tamper with a vape detector in a bathroom … we will have an alert that occurs immediately and within seconds, we have an administrator who's walking in the bathroom [to] check it,” Rivera explained.
Motorola Solutions, maker of the Halo detectors, stated that “thousands of schools throughout the country have installed Motorola Solutions' Halo Smart Sensors to help deter and detect vaping.” The technology can also detect THC, poor air quality, and even aggression or gunshots, providing a holistic view of health and safety issues.
Still, experts caution that technology alone is not enough. The American Lung Association advocates for a comprehensive approach: “Teens should not be punished for being addicted to a product that was aggressively marketed to them on social media, through celebrities and kid-friendly flavors,” Folkenroth said. The association’s Vape-Free Schools Initiative, now partnered with over 4,200 schools, offers education, intervention training, youth activism, and policy-building. Their programs, including the CATCH My Breath curriculum, are backed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Ultimately, as Dr. Boykan stressed, helping students overcome vaping addiction requires a network of support: “The real issue is that these kids are probably addicted, and if we don't recognize that they have a problem and support them and help them navigate that, then we have done nothing. There needs to be support within the schools. There needs to be medical support, whether it's the school nurse, the guidance counselor, contact with the pediatrician, [or] community resources.”
For youth seeking to quit, HHS recommends calling the CDC hotline at 1-800-QUIT-NOW or texting 88709 with “DITCHVAPE” for support. As the crackdown on illicit vape products intensifies and communities mobilize, the message is clear: the fight against youth vaping is far from over, but the resolve to protect the next generation has never been stronger.
