Schools fight to dispel health misperceptions, 'vaping epidemic'

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Schools fight to dispel health misperceptions, 'vaping epidemic'
After the last bell for school rang on Thursday, Lindsey gathered her friends to walk to the Three Rivers Mall in Kelso, blowing vapor from her Juul in the cool outdoor air.“I Vape Wholesale because I have a hard time getting focused, and it makes me less stressed,” the eighth grader said.

Although she and her friends are too young to buy the products themselves, they are available through older friends or siblings, Lindsey said. By her account, at least half the students in her middle school smoke, and most of them prefer vaping to cigarettes.Schools officials in middle and high schools across Cowlitz County say the number of local students who are vaping is surging, a trend mirrored across the country. Kalama High School principal Guy Strot said he’s worried the fad is hooking the next generation on nicotine — and educators are losing ground against vaping due to widespread misconceptions about its safety.

The 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey showed the youth vaping population increased 78 percent between 2017 and 2018, with 1.5 million more students reporting they used vaping products last year.

“We are only into early December, and we have had 34 total tobacco infractions, and 32 of those have been vape,” said Kelso High School principal Christine McDaniel. If this year’s trend continues, the number of vape infractions this school year will approach 100, doubling the 49 vaping infractions reported last year.Rincoe

Vaping products first hit the mass market around 2007 as e-cigarettes, though manufacturers have grown and diversified the products in recent years to look like cigars, pipes, pens and USB drives. The devices heat a liquid or “juice” to make an aerosol that can be inhaled.

The juice usually contains nicotine, so vaping products offer a substitute to regular cigarettes. For adult smokers, the devices offer a less harmful way to get a nicotine fix.“When you look at the difference of COPD and asthma conditions, we haven’t heard anything horrible yet,” said Marshall Brock, manager at Vipor Vapor in Longview and Kelso.

Though they are less harmful than cigarettes, the Center for Disease Control warns against using the products for those who don’t already use tobacco. The center emphasizes the potential hazards for teenagers, whose brain development can be negatively affected by nicotine.“Kids think it’s safer, and we’ve even heard people say that. But with one Juul pod, you are putting the equivalent of an entire pack of cigarettes into your body,” McDaniel said. “They are uninformed.”u2022eney7485yyWEEEEDD