NW7 BOE discusses e-cigarettes

BARKHAMSTED — Northwestern Regional High School Principal Ken Chichester spoke about vaping and electronic cigarette products being used by students during a Board of Education meeting held at the school on Wednesday, Jan. 14.

“When someone vapes, they use something called an e-cigarette, which looks more like a tobacco product, or they can use something that looks like this,” Chichester said, holding a device that resembled a black metal cigar. “This is a vape device. Essentially, this device is a battery powered deliverer of aerosol that someone inhales. You can charge the battery by plugging it into the USB port of your computer. You take off the top and add nicotine juice. These juices are marketed to young people. They have cutesy names like ‘honey bear’ and ‘strawberry.’ You name it, there are 7,000 different flavors of the juice. What most parents don’t know is that there’s also nicotine in here, sometimes twice the amount of nicotine that would be in a normal cigarette.”

Chichester said the concern of health officials is these devices will get children hooked on nicotine and into the gateway of smoking actual tobacco products. 

“These devices are a serious problem for us,” he said. “They’re an administrators’ nightmare. I got a call from another principal asking what we were doing about it because he was having a hard time with it. The reason that these are so much of a problem is that they are small. When you vape, you inhale, and the liquid will vaporize. It’s odorless and has a slight, somewhat sweet smell. It’s very difficult to detect. It’s small, so kids can walk around with it and take a hit off of it in class. There are devices like this that also deliver THC. The THC that’s in there, of course it’s marijuana, gets delivered at such a concentration that it’s caused kids to pass out and to become addicted. In fact, there’s a statistic out there that shows because the level of THC is so high, 17 percent of the kids using are becoming addicted to marijuana. A device like this can deliver marijuana in a way that it’s odorless. It could be brought into school, and it’s very difficult to find. These are finding their way into buses, schools and lavatories all across the country.”

Chichester proceeded to pass around a box of vaping materials he reported as being confiscated from students. 

“These are illegal unless you’re 18 years old,” he said. “You can buy them at smoke shops and gas stations. The American Heart Association is trying to get the FDA to very quickly regulate these. It’s important that you see this because you might be getting calls about kids doing marijuana on a bus, and in all likelihood they could be, but more than likely it’s one of these vape products. Other kids who don’t know what this is may think it’s a marijuana pipe because it looks somewhat like that.” 

Chichester said that children who are not necessarily drawn to smoking are attracted by the e-cigarettes.

“These devices have the tendency to go beyond just a small group of kids, and that’s alarming,” he said. “It doesn’t necessarily have the stigma of a cigarette. It doesn’t smell, it looks kind of cool. In some cases we’ve had parents buy them for their kids thinking it’s harmless.”

Superintendent Judith Palmer stated that since vaping products are making their way into schools, the board should look into updating the school smoking, drug and tobacco use policies to include these products. 

The board voted unanimously to update the current policies and include vapor products as being prohibited.

Board Chair Molly Sexton-Read said the board essentially added language to the existing policies to include the e-cigarettes and devices used for vaping under the already existing smoking and drug abuse policies. 

“They were already included in terms of intent but we added the specific language and definitions,” Read said. “If students are caught breaking the policy they are fined $60 and their parents are informed, plus they attend a three-hour Saturday stop smoking class and lose commons privileges for five school days. The second offense brings a $60 fine, parents are informed, one day out-of-school suspension and loss of commons privileges for 10 school days.”