Behind the Cloud: The Rise of Vaping in Schools
By Eleanor Bauermeister
Becoming more popular in recent years, this trend among high school students has taken over, particularly in school bathrooms. A while back, smoking cigarettes was the “cool” thing to do. Nowadays, however, vaping is the popular choice. Students have been caught in bathrooms or with a vape on their person by teachers or other staff members.
When two students who do not vape were asked why they do not, they both said that they think it is a problem in our school because of how many students do it. They said the school could install vape detectors to help prevent vaping. One student said, “I don’t want to throw my life away,” as a reason why they don’t.
According to a study done by the National Library of Medicine, over 3.5 million teens have reported using a vape. Of these students, 45% of teens reported that they were thinking about quitting, and 25% of teens reported that they had tried to quit in the past year.
Two students who did, but have since quit, both agreed that quitting was a very good thing for them to do. One of the students said that since it is so easy to get access to vapes nowadays, quitting was hard because they were around vapes so often. One student thought that vaping was a current issue in our school, while the other thought that it used to be, but then everyone got caught and suspended. Both of the students did agree that a way to try to prevent vaping in schools could be to install vape detectors in the school.
When speaking to principal Mark Brahmer, he shared his thoughts on vaping, including one of the reasons that he thinks that students start vaping is because it is just a trend of the time.
“You know what, I don’t (think vaping is a problem). Can we prevent people from using anything they shouldn’t use or taking anything in that they shouldn’t? It’s impossible,” Brahmer said.
Brahmer also shared the consequences that a student would receive if caught vaping. The first time a student gets caught vaping, they get a three-day out of school suspension no matter what. The next time(s) it happens, it could be a long-term suspension, which is 6-19 days, or possibly an expulsion for the rest of the semester. If a student were to get in trouble right before Christmas break, then they could end up being suspended for the whole spring semester or possibly expelled.
Teachers have unfortunately caught students vaping in the school before. Jason Freudenburg is one of them, and he shared his thoughts on students vaping and proactive ways to try and prevent vaping.
“I think with everything, you try to be proactive in trying to find positive things for kids to do, positive outlets,” Freudenburg said.
There are definitely some differing views about vaping between students and staff, but all of them did agree on one thing. That vaping is something that students start because of their friends and/or because it is popular.
If someone happens to struggle with vaping, they can text STARTMYQUIT to 36072 to get started.
