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CANTON OF CLINTON, Mich. – They do it in the school toilets. In the locker room. In hallways and on school grounds. The most brazen of students? They do it in the classrooms.
They emit vapors of electronic cigarettes often containing nicotine, which is highly addictive, attracted by devices easy to conceal against adults and by flavors such as mango, crème brûlée, mint and nectar.
The most recent data show that 3 million children of school age, including more than 600,000 college students, have already tried to run out of steam. Many fear that this could be a gateway to stronger substances, such as regular cigarettes or marijuana.
For many teenagers, this is the last way to look and feel cool. Go to YouTube and you will find many videos of teenagers talking about vaping, suspension, or exercises on performing vaping tricks – such as doing O's with steam. It is the tobacco product most commonly used in young people.
A collection of popular vaping products, including Suorin, Juul and Blu, is featured for Cheryl Phillips' presentation at Canton St. Joseph Mercy Health Center, Mich. (Han Junfu / Free Press of Detroit)
Parents are often in the dark – in part deceived by devices that look like everyday objects, such as USB sticks and pens. Many have never even heard of vaping – or JUULing, as is commonly known in adolescents.
"It's a big problem," said John Sobah, a 16-year-old junior at Chippewa Valley High School in Clinton Township and a member of a teens council that works to educate students about the dangers of vaping and addiction. "I saw a lot of people smoking. … It's happening in all schools.
This is increasingly the enemy of school administrators, who develop policies and treat students who get caught in vape as they would with ordinary cigarettes. Many use outside experts to educate students and parents, while others create their own prevention programs. In some districts of the country, school authorities removed toilet doors to discourage students from vaping.
And it is the experts who are concerned about the effects of the products on the health of adolescents.
There is already data showing that in addition to using the devices to vape nicotine, young people are using them to steal marijuana.
The head of the US Food and Drug Administration recently said that the use of vaping among young people was an epidemic, threatened to crack down on companies that target their products to young people and launched a campaign to reduce it l & # 39; use. The Surgeon General of the United States, in a 2016 report, said it was a major public health problem.
Cheryl Phillips has been teaching Vaping 101 courses to students and parents in local schools since January. During sessions with parents, she takes out vaping devices so that adults can become familiar with them.
"We have heard many times that the first time a parent heard about" vaping "was when the school asked him to suspend his student because he was found with a paraphernalia." said Phillips. as coordinator of St. Joseph Mercy Canton Health Center's health exploration station.
THE DATA SHOW THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM:
• A study conducted in 2017 by researchers at the University of Michigan found that nearly 17% of high school students had volatilized in the past 30 days. It was 13% for Grade 10 students and 7% for Grade 8 students. Both sets of numbers were up from the previous year, when a similar but not identical question had been asked in the Monitoring the Future study.
• In the same study, 11% of grade 12 students reported drinking nicotine in the last 30 days compared to 8.2% for grade 10 students and 3.5% for eighth grade students.
• The study also found that 4.9% of Grade 12 students had sprayed marijuana in the last 30 days, compared to 4.3% for students in 10th and 1.6% of Grade 8 students. .
• A national survey of youth smoking conducted in 2015 found that 3 million young people – 2.4 million high school students and 620,000 high school students – were using electronic cigarettes.
• According to the National Survey of Youth Smoking, 16% of high school students used e-cigarettes, compared to 1.5% in 2011.
• A study published in 2017 in the journal Pediatrics found that youth who use e-cigarettes are seven times more likely to start smoking regular cigarettes.
KIDS VAPE, BUT DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONSEQUENCES:
In 2015, the UM survey asked students why they used e-cigarettes. The most popular answers among high school students: experiment and see what it is, because it's good, because they are bored and have nothing else to do, to relax or to relieve the pain. tension, and to have a good time with their friends.
The attitudes of the students worry the experts.
"There is a great misconception of the dangers," Phillips said. "When it came out and became trendy, the students really thought it was the water vapor they were breathing, and it had no harmful effects and there was no problem.
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