Vaping woos a generation |
On Board Online • April 23, 2018
By Cathy Woodruff
Senior Writer
The enticing whiff of rebellion that once drew many students to sneak their first cigarettes has faded over the last 20 years. But there's a new fad with the power to launch nicotine addiction: vaping.
A term referring to the use of devices that deliver flavored vapor to the lungs, vaping is wooing a new generation of teens who shun traditional cigarettes.
Cigarette smoking among New York's high-school-age youths hit an all-time low of 4.3 percent in 2016, according to the state Health Department.
"The student perception of a 'smoker' tends to be very negative today," said Deborah Zale, a veteran health teacher at Kingston High School. "There's a more negative attitude toward smokers and smoking than I've ever seen."
But use of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems has been soaring. Surveys have found that use of e-cigarettes, vape pens and similar devices has nearly doubled among high school students in New York in just two years, rising from 10.5 percent in 2014 to 20.6 percent in 2016.
Nationally, about 11 percent of high school seniors use vaping to consume nicotine, according a 2017 survey commissioned by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a unit of the National Institutes of Health. Almost 10 percent of seniors said they vape "flavor only" compounds that have no nicotine and 5 percent say they vape marijuana. They were asked to report their use of vaping in the month prior to the survey.
The appeal, students and health experts say, comes from candy-like flavorings, social media marketing gimmicks - and a widespread misperception that the vapor from e-cigarettes is harmless, or at least much less harmful than cigarettes.
"It's just another way to get people hooked," said Diane Moore, who leads the Tobacco-Free Action Communities effort for several county health departments in the mid-Hudson Valley and works with student groups. "The nicotine keeps you coming back for more."
Vaping devices easily can masquerade as pens or asthma inhalers, and some batteries can be recharged while discretely plugged into a laptop. A sleek device known by the brand name Juul looks like a USB flash drive.
Potsdam Superintendent Joanne Chambers said a student intern from SUNY Potsdam recently alerted the district staff to the popularity of Juul-type devices.
"None of the adults in the room had heard about that," she said. "It's only because we had a college intern that we were aware of it."
Vaping in school is prohibited by law, posing a host of enforcement challenges for school officials. One is detection. The vapor from e-cigarettes dissipates quickly and is virtually odor-free.
Officials at Plainedge Public Schools on Long Island are working to improve vaping detection with equipment marketed as a way to alert officials to bullying or vaping in restrooms. The "Fly Sense" boxes have no cameras, microphones or sound recorders but can detect heightened noise levels and vapor, which show up in a digital readout.
Word spread quickly that the detectors were installed in the high school's two busiest restrooms in September, said Plainedge School Board President Catherine Flanagan, drawing praise from parents. And while few confirmed cases of vaping have occurred on Plainedge school grounds, Superintendent Edward A. Salina said it's likely that it is happening.
"If you go to the 7-Eleven or the pizza parlor, kids are doing it," he said. Because the detectors haven't yet registered any issues within the bathrooms, Salina said, "I think it's deterring them so much that they're not doing it there."
Kingston High School students with the youth anti-tobacco organization Reality Check say signs of the vaping trend are obvious to them every day.
"You can see kids go up and down the halls vaping and even in class," said senior Tajh Iniguez.
His brother Kyleel, also a senior, has declined invitations to vape but said he understands the appeal. "Hanging out, relaxing and looking cool - that's the vibe," he said. "It's like walking around in new shoes."
Emma Britten, a junior, said one of her teachers found a Juul under a desk on the same day she spoke with On Board.
A Juul starter kit is available from the company online for $49.99. The kit includes one rechargeable device, a USB charger and 'pods' in four flavors: Virginia tobacco, cool mint, fruit medley and creme brulee. None of Juul's flavor pods are nicotine-free.
The long-term health impacts of vaping are not yet fully known, but state health officials say e-cigarette aerosol can contain fine toxic particles that can damage lungs; heavy metals, such as lead, tin and nickel; diacetyl, a flavoring ingredient that can cause a condition called "popcorn lung;" and volatile organic compounds that can cause cancer.
Another danger of e-cigarettes was underscored this month when a 21-year-old Erie 1 BOCES student was burned because the battery of his e-cigarette overheated and caught fire.
Many health experts say e-cigarettes' power to kick-start nicotine addiction is enough to raise concern, however, even without other issues. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, nicotine exposure during adolescence can disrupt the growth of brain circuits that control attention, learning and susceptibility to addiction.
E-cigarettes are categorized as a tobacco product in the U.S., but they do not face the same restrictions on youth-oriented marketing and flavoring that cigarettes do.
Several school administrators told On Board that e-cigarettes are joining pills, opioids, marijuana, methamphetamines and tobacco on their student drug-use radar.
"We are concerned about this false idea that they are not harmful at all," said Superintendent Mark White of St. Lawrence County's rural Hermon-DeKalb district. "We have had three known issues with it this year - two with seniors who were trying to get through the day without smoking real cigarettes and one fifth grader. The younger student really has us concerned because we are hearing that many students are experimenting with (e-cigarettes) that would not be with actual cigarettes."
The Hermon-DeKalb students were not caught in the act, but they were carrying vaping tools, White said. He said the most common vaping venue seems to be the school bus, and because the vapor leaves little or no smell in the air or on clothing, it's very hard to detect.
"We have one bus driver with a super-sensitive nose, but she could not smell anything," said White.