Over the years, smoking e-cigarettes, also known as vaping, has become incredibly popular – especially among young people. But many health organizations, like the CDC, warn against the effects that vaping can have on one’s health.
In recent years, teachers and students have claimed that they are seeing the number of their students and peers vaping increase. Most e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is addictive.
Students are more susceptible to nicotine addiction because their brains are not fully developed yet. According to the CDC, nicotine can harm the parts of an adolescent’s brain that control attention, learning, mood, and impulse control.
In 2024, the CDC estimated that 5.9% of middle and high school students in the US vape. While this number may seem small, this translates to about 1.63 million students. The CDC states that nicotine addiction can lead adolescents to addiction to other substances in the future, and that adolescents that vape are more likely to smoke cigarettes as they get older as well.
Vaping is something that remains a major issue at North and more widely throughout the district, according to School Safety Specialist Grant Allen.
“I get probably 30-40 notifications a day through email alerting me that one of the [vape] detectors is being triggered,” he said. “It’s very frequent, unfortunately.”
Allen was asked if he’s noticed vaping increase during his time as a School Safety Specialist.
“I’ve seen it in the high schools, many times in the middle schools. Unfortunately, we’ve even seen it in some of the elementary schools,” Allen said. “In numerous schools, they [vapes] have clogged the sewage. It’s become an issue where kids are flushing their vapes down the toilet to get rid of them and we end up finding them later in the plumbing.”
Freshman English teacher, Hannah Schneider, shared an educator’s perspective.
“It’s more of a teacher issue when it happens in the classroom. If the vape comes out and I see it, I have to deal with it. But when it happens in the bathroom, it’s not something I have to handle,” Schneider said.
Schneider brought up another issue caused by vaping: students skipping class.
“I think it [vaping] is a big issue, especially because it’s causing kids to skip class so that they can go vape,” Schneider said.
Since they arrived on the market in the early 2000s, doctors have warned against the use of vapes as the long-term effects are not yet known.
Vapes contain aerosols, which are the chemicals that people inhale when they vape. The American Lung Association warns that in addition to nicotine, these aerosols could contain carcinogens like formaldehyde, which is correlated with various cancers, as well as other harmful substances such as cadmium and benzene, the latter of which is found in car exhaust.
The American Lung Association also cautions that these aerosols can contain heavy metals such as nickel, lead, and tin. The effects of vaping are not only felt by those who partake in it, either. Truth Iniative, an organization committed to helping people quit nicotine, states that no exposure to secondhand smoke or aerosols is safe and can worsen symptoms in people who have asthma and lead to more frequent attacks, especially in children. It can also put others in danger of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Junior Kiersten Blake has witnessed other students vaping at school over the years.
“It’s not a choice I would agree with, but it’s obviously up to the person. But if you choose to do it, you need to be conscious of the people around you,” Blake (11) said.
