The U.S. Food and Drug Administration claims 1.21 million high school students report current use of E-Cigarettes.
Vape use amongst teens has become a widespread issue in schools across the country. Students will leave class, meet up with their friends, and hit their vapes at various times throughout the day. To address this, many schools, including ours, have started placing vape detectors in the bathrooms and have enforced strict policies for dealing with students that get caught. Our school has been seeing the effects of vape use.
A Platte County senior and former vaper, going by the anonymous name Jane Smith, shares her experience with vaping and how it worked into her life from an inside perspective. Smith was first exposed to the concept in sixth grade by an older sibling’s high school friend. This exposure continued throughout middle school and into high school.
“[By] eighth grade and freshman year I had a lot of friends who vaped, so obviously I was influenced by that and I would do it too,” Smith said.
Peer pressure is a phenomenon that exists in most things we do as teens. The younger we are, the more people care about fitting in and not being judged. We don’t think about the long term effects as much.
“[I] think if it was introduced to me at a later time, it would have been easier to say no. Now I overthink everything. As a middle schooler and freshman, I didn’t think about anything. I just did whatever I wanted to,” Smith said.
Once students begin vaping, it can start to become a need instead of a want. They will do many things in order to fulfill this need to hit their vapes.
“I was doing it every day, all the time. I would bring it to school sometimes and go to the bathroom during class just to go hit my vape. People would meet up and pass [vapes] under the stalls and behind them,” Smith said.
It has started to become a normality for many teens. If the age to buy vapes in Missouri is 18, how do younger students get a hold of them?
“People always have someone who has a fake ID or someone older that they know. [A lot of the time] someone’s parents are buying stuff for them and everyone would get their stuff through that student because they knew they had access to it,” Smith said.
Administration has been working to enforce the policies and eliminate vape use in our school. Platte County Security Resource officer Andraya Kreiling works with the admin and other officers to catch the students vaping.
“[We catch students vaping] multiple times a week. We get text alerts when the sensor goes off so we can respond immediately.” Kreiling said. “When we get further into the year, that’s really when [the number of students who get caught] starts picking up.”
The Principal and Assistant Principals handle enforcement of policies and punishment. When cases get to a certain level, they move to the District Office. Each grade has a class-wide meeting at the beginning of the year where all rules are stated, along with the punishments and suspensions that come with the offenses.
Vaping is often misunderstood as being a healthier alternative to smoking. According to Mayo Clinic, “Nicotine can affect concentration, learning, memory and brain development. It takes two to five minutes to smoke most cigarettes. E-cigarettes can last up to 20 minutes, delivering more nicotine and damaging chemicals to the lungs. In addition, some vaping mixtures can contain 20 times the nicotine in a single cigarette.”
Even with these punishments and harmful elements, students, like Smith, still find ways to vape despite the repercussions.
