VHCS seeing rise in e-cigarette usage

In December 2018, the U.S. surgeon general declared teen vaping to be a “national epidemic, and Vestavia Hills City Schools are unfortunately not immune to the problem, city and school leaders said.

Vaping, according to the Center on Addiction, is the inhaling and exhaling of aerosol through the use of various products, including electronic cigarettes or the popular JUUL device, which looks similar to a flash drive. While it’s marketed as being safer than cigarette smoke, JUUL “pods” contain as much nicotine as is found in a single pack of cigarettes, and other products also contain the addicting substance.

“It’s very alarming,” Vestavia Hills City Council member Kimberly Cook said.

The Pride survey, completed by students each year, indicated that 32 percent of Vestavia seniors in 2018 had vaped, compared to almost 40 percent nationwide, Cook said. Her son said he believed that percentage to be lower than it would be if every student was honest.

“As a parent, that just really scares me,” Cook said. “... They can get it easily, and they are getting it.”

Cook said, and described dealing at the high school as “rampant.”

Vestavia Hills High School Principal Tyler Burgess said the staff is dealing with vaping on a weekly basis.

“This year, it is largely the JUUL device,” Burgess said. “It’s the most available and the most concealable.”

Vaping doesn’t always leave an odor and doesn’t leave much of a trace either, Burgess said, making it harder to catch students who are using them. Most of the usage has been in the school bathrooms, he said.

Because of the high nicotine concentration, vaping is “highly addictive,” Burgess said.

It’s not just at the high school, though. Students as young as 12 years old are experimenting with vaping at Pizitz Middle School, Principal Meredith Hanson said.

“I have seen more than I would like in the last six months,” Hanson said.

While vaping hasn’t yet affected sixth-grade students, Hanson said staff has dealt with the issue in both seventh and eighth grade. Students are obtaining the devices mainly from older siblings, Hanson said, or they simply know where they can find them.

A JUUL Labs spokesperson said no young person or non-nicotine smoker should use JUUL devices, and added the company is committed to preventing youth use of the product.

"We cannot fulfill our mission to provide the world’s one billion adult smokers with a true alternative to combustible cigarettes if youth use continues unabated," the spokesperson said. "We suspended the distribution of certain flavored JUUL pods to traditional retail stores as of Nov. 17, 2018, strengthened the age verification of our industry leading e-commerce site, exited our U.S. Facebook and Instagram accounts, and are developing new technology to further limit youth access and use. In addition, we strongly support raising the minimum purchase age for cigarettes, tobacco and vaping products to 21. We look forward to working with lawmakers at at the federal, state and local levels to achieve this end."

The company also added they have an action plan, which can be found here, to combat youth use.

In Vestavia schools, the first punishment for being caught at VHHS is Saturday school, Burgess said, followed by in-school suspension and more for each subsequent incident.

While the issue has come to the forefront in schools across the country, VHCS Superintendent Todd Freeman said that’s the result of the sharp increase in vaping nationwide.

“Schools are microcosms of community and society,” Freeman said.

The problem hit the schools “very quickly,” Freeman said, and now, leaders are working to educate both parents and students about the dangers of vaping.

“We haven’t gotten over the challenge of convincing [people] that it’s highly addictive,” Freeman said.

Burgess said high school staff are working to be proactive, not just reactive, to the issue of vaping, and educating students, not just punishing them. At Pizitz, teachers lead sixth and seventh-grade students in “Life Skills Training,” helping them know how to make wise decisions, including to say no to drugs.

“I feel very good about the direction we’re going,” Hanson said.

Both the school system and the city are working with the Help the Hills Coalition, which raises awareness and education about substance abuse. The coalition has a student group at the high school that speaks to their classmates and younger students about issues, as well, Freeman said.

Lindy Walker, who is co-chair of Help the Hills, echoed Freeman’s comments, saying vaping has become an issue everywhere and has become widely accepted as normal.

Parent events have been held, including one in March at Samford University, educating parents about the dangers of vaping. There are also plans to hold a student conference in 2020, with leaders putting educational information in front of students so they can learn about vaping for themselves, Walker said.

Help the Hills is also working to “identify legislative gaps” in regards to e-cigarettes, Walker said, helping lawmakers find ways to regulate or otherwise address the problem.

House Bill 41 was introduced in the state legislature this year, and seeks to further regulate the vaping industry by outlawing the advertisement of such products near schools or other areas where children are prevalent or advertising the products as a healthy alternative to smoking. 

The bill would also require retailers to obtain a tobacco permit and post warning signs about the dangers of vaping, prohibit the sale or transfer of vaping products to minors, require the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to regulate sales like sales of tobacco products and prohibit the use of the products around minors.

The bill passed the House unanimously and was in a Senate committee as of mid-April.

Vestavia has a no-smoking ordinance that bans any kind of smoking, including e-cigarettes, inside city limits, with the only exceptions being private residences.

Editor's note: This story has been updated from the print version to include comments from JUUL Labs.