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Smoking in the boy's room has turned into vaping in the boys 'and girls' room as the national e-cigarette vaping epidemic includes schools in the East Valley – perhaps making teenagers a new generation of nicotine.
Two East Valley school districts began defending themselves before the US Food and Drug Administration declared last week a national teen epidemic and targeted manufacturers of e-cigarettes, threatening them with in place plans to prevent minors from buying electronic cigarettes
Based on the results of an undercover operation, the FDA also issued 1,300 civil fines and a warning letter to retailers who illegally sold electronic cigarettes to minors.
But the FDA warning comes well after hundreds of kids, even in East Valley colleges, have been caught in the vaping.
"There has been a noticeable increase in vaping among our students this year, both on campus and off campus," Gilbert Public Schools warned in March. "It's not exclusive to GPS; it happens on campuses everywhere in our region, in the state and nationally. "
At a forum sponsored in June by the Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of Commerce, two area superintendents, Kevin Mendivil of Tempe Union and Jan Vesely of Kyrene, both said that vaping had become a huge problem.
While Mesa and Chandler, like all districts, ban all forms of smoking, it is unclear whether they have taken special measures to reduce tobacco use among their students.
But Kyrene and Tempe Union are trying to fight this dangerous trend.
Kyrene is heading the state by becoming the first district in Arizona to test a new type of monitor. Kyrene officials set up the monitors in the bathrooms at Aprende College in Chandler, which detect fumes and alert school officials by e-mail or text.
Vesely said the directors warned her last spring that vaping was a growing problem in middle schools and that they spent a lot of time patrolling the bathrooms to crack down on vapers.
She said that vaping students intimidated non-vaping students, threatening them with violence when they reported their activity.
Part of the problem comes from the addictive quality of vaping and partly from the way these electronic cigarettes are made.
Students as young as 10 are attracted by the elegant Juul electronic cigarette, which looks like a USB key. Experts say the devices also attract children with fruity flavors and most teens do not even realize that e-cigarettes contain nicotine, a highly addictive and insidious drug that prevents many smokers from quitting .
The call, "the form of tobacco most used by young people in the United States," was reported last year by the Centers for Disease Control: "There is already enough evidence to justify efforts to prevent electronic cigarette consumption by young people.
"Wet lung" up
"We know that the steam of electronic cigarettes is harmful because it contains harmful ingredients, including nicotine. Nicotine exposure during adolescence can be addictive and detrimental to brain development, "said the CDC, estimating that the electronic cigarette industry generates $ 2.5 billion a year .
Teens may also develop a "wet lung" after spraying for only three weeks. The condition can result in respiratory failure and the need to be placed on a respirator.
Vesely said college college board members had begged her to ask for help when she held her monthly regular meeting with them in May.
"Every college, every college representative said," We need to do something about vaping, "Vesely said, adding that they had identified vaping as their favorite thing about the school.
"It was something that worried me, but I did not know it was happening in our colleges," she said.
Vesely said Kyrene had negotiated a pilot program with Suter Technologies, a New York-based company that makes the Fly Sense 2 Mist Detection and Intimidation Alert System.
Kyrene plans to install monitors in the seventh and eighth floors of Aprende, at a cost of about $ 900 apiece.
Vesely said that school administrators in other districts were closely monitoring Kyrene's experience to see if instructors could improve their defense against vaping.
"He's not going to stop vaping but, we hope it will deter vaping," said Vesely.
The Tempe Union High School District is also working to fight the epidemic through an educational video campaign of the student council of the Marcos De Niza High School.
The goal is to publish videos on social media platforms to convince students who have never hesitated to avoid it – and to warn those at risk that they will be faced with suspension suspensions. they get caught on campus. Jennifer Liewer, District Critic.
She reported that 65 incidents of vaping were reported on Union Tempe's campuses during the first five weeks of the current school year.
Offenders included 11 first-year students, 21 second-year students, 28 juniors and five seniors – 51 boys and 14 girls.
But Liewer and the students participating in the video project readily acknowledge that the e-cigarette epidemic is far more prevalent than the statistics suggest.
Popular at all levels
Students Tyler Marquez and Matt Bergevin estimated that seven out of ten students in their school were vapers. Bergevin said a group of vapers was sitting in the "stoners" section of high school football games, dispensing electronic cigarettes and taking shots.
Bergevin says he has friends who recognize that vaping is bad for health, but they do not want to quit, apparently ignoring not only the dangers of nicotine, but also the long-term danger of chemical aerosols that they inhale.
Although conventional cigarettes have become socially unacceptable, e-cigarettes are the opposite, he added. Vaping is popular in all segments of the student body, including students who score well and play sports.
"We complain about not having money, and then we deposit $ 50 on a vape. It makes no sense, "said Bergevin," These same people say I will never smoke a cigarette (conventional) .It's disgusting, it's a mistake. "
According to Marquez, students greatly underestimate nicotine addiction and do not understand that an electronic cigarette looks like a conventional cigarette, both of which are used as nicotine delivery devices.
"It's not good to put anything in your lungs other than oxygen," he said. "The addiction is very strong in my family. This makes me extremely afraid. That's why I'm so strongly against it.
Hailey White, a volleyball player, says she has a lot of stress to get good grades, but she realizes that there are better ways to handle stress than using nicotine or other drugs. .
"I think it's a complete excuse," said White. "I am an athlete, I take specialization courses, I do not want to be sold with nicotine."
The smoking rate in Arizona dropped to 15% after a wave of tax increases, smoking restrictions, and public health campaigns designed to deter smoking for decades.
But addiction experts, such as Stephanie Siete, a spokeswoman for behavioral health agency Community Bridges, and Judith Gordon, a professor at the University of Arizona, fear that all this progress will be compromised by the growing popularity of cigarettes. e.
Siete said national surveys have revealed that only 4% of teenagers smoke conventional cigarettes, while 36% have tried vaping.
$ 2.5 billion industry targets children
"It's blowing all over the country, vaping and oils," Siete said. "It's a universal thing that many kids do not think it's dangerous, that we adults are lying."
Siete, in a workshop attended by more than 50 parents and their children in Aprende, said that 66% of teenagers think that vape juice contains aromas and that only 19% of them know that they contain nicotine.
Although Juul has repeatedly stated that he is targeting adult smokers, he tries to convince them to empty themselves instead. Siete and other critics disagree, citing the flavors.
"They are 100% targeting children," Siete said.
Gordon, a psychologist, said that young people are a difficult group to influence because they often think they are invincible.
"It's a cool and trendy product. They definitely took a page of advertising from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, "Gordon said. "Nicotine is nicotine, no matter how it is administered."
According to her, studies have shown that once teens become addicted to nicotine, they are more likely to start smoking cigarettes to satisfy their cravings.
Gordon is using a grant to update an online campaign to discourage teens from smoking tobacco cigarettes, which is now out of date because e-cigarettes have become such an epidemic.
She recognizes that e-cigarettes can be used as a harm reduction technique for long-term smokers, but not for non-smokers. She said that nicotine itself has not been proven to cause cancer, but it has been implicated in cardiovascular disease.
Kevin Burns, CEO of Juul Labs, issued a statement reiterating the company's position that it does not target teens and that its market is made up of adults trying to quit cigarettes. At the same time, the company is opposed to any effort by the FDA to ban aromas.
"JUUL Labs will work proactively with the FDA in response to its request. We are committed to preventing the use of our product by minors, and we want to be part of the solution to keep electronic cigarettes out of reach of young people.
"Our mission is to improve the lives of adult smokers by providing them with a real alternative to combustible cigarettes. Appropriate flavors play an important role in helping adult smokers switch money, "the statement said. "By working together, we believe we can help adult smokers while preventing access to minors, and we will continue to work with the FDA to fulfill our mission."
Juul and four other electronic cigarette companies have 60 days to submit a plan to the FDA to reverse the trend of teenagers buying and using their products.
In March, the FDA announced long-term plans to force cigarette manufacturers to reduce nicotine use to non-addictive levels, with the overall goal of smuggling to e-cigarettes.
But Dr. Scott Gottlieb, FDA Commissioner, said Wednesday that these plans needed to be adjusted to protect teens from nicotine generation through electronic cigarettes.
"I think some flavors are one of the main drivers of youth appeal for these products," Gottlieb said in an FDA press release. "While we remain committed to developing policies to promote the potential of e-cigarettes to help adult smokers move away from fuel-laden cigarettes, this work can not be done to the detriment of our children."
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