An alarming increase in vaping by teens is threatening to unravel a decades-long tobacco free youth movement.
Healthy Communities of Bartholomew County’s Kylee Jones said the tobacco industry is targeting youth and adults alike with new vaping products, possibly creating even greater threats than traditional cigarettes or tobacco.
“Everything that we have done with youth smoking, combustible cigarettes, it’s completely being undone right now by e-cigarettes,” said Jones, Healthy Communities tobacco awareness coordinator.
Indiana is one of several states across the nation launching efforts to curb youth vaping amid an alarming increase in electronic cigarette use nationwide, and multiple organizations throughout Columbus are joining in the fight.
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E-cigarettes come in different shapes and sizes, though some look like traditional cigarettes.
To illustrate just how harmless many of these devices appear, Healthy Communities has created backpacks filled with a mix of household items, school supplies and e-cigarettes and vape juices to compare their appearance. Jones said the organization uses these backpacks in demonstrations, trainings and school presentations to bring awareness to the issue.
For example, a JUUL and NJOY, two types of vaping devices, look similar to a USB drive, while a Sourin Dropis is compared to a BIC Wite-Out Correct Tape or EOS hand lotion.
Other varieties of vape pens are often compared to regular pens and writing utensils. Most shocking to Jones was a UWELL Amulet Pod System, nearly identical to an Apple Watch. Many of the flavored e-juices, or vape juices, resemble candy or are marketed with names that sound appetizing to kids, like “Unicorn Milk.”
“I completely blame JUUL and big tobacco companies,” Jones said. “What adult is going to buy Unicorn Milk? Whenever I do a presentation to teens, I always tell them safer doesn’t equal safe. Our lungs were only made to breathe in air. If you’re putting anything else in your lungs, it’s not OK.”
A corporation-wide effort
Each year, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. students in grades 6 through 12 participate annually in the Indiana Youth Survey of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use by children and adolescents. The survey shows that kids are making better decisions than they ever have before, BCSC Superintendent Jim Roberts said — except when it comes to electronic vaping.
Roberts said in a presentation to the Columbus City Council in August that the corporation has witnessed a significant increase in users of e-cigarettes and electronic smoking devices among students in grades 7-12.
“Our data has improved across the board in all other areas, but it does seem clear students are not connecting electronic vaping to tobacco use,” Roberts said.
The average monthly usage of tobacco among students in grades 7-12 in 2019 is about 2.88%, according to the Indiana Youth Survey. The average monthly use of vaping devices in grades 7-12 in 2019 is about 20.4% with 10.1% of seventh-grade students reporting they vaped within the month prior to taking the survey, and 29.3% of high school seniors having reported they vaped within the month prior to taking the survey.
Roberts said school resource officers have begun issuing citations for tobacco and electronic smoking device use in schools.
BCSC school board members are considering adding electronic smoking devices, commonly referred to as e-cigarettes, to the corporation’s drug and tobacco use policy. Although consequences were already in place at all BCSC schools, e-cigarettes were not included in the corporation-wide policy.
The updated policy would classify Juuls — a type of e-cigarette — and e-cigarettes as substances that contain tobacco and nicotine, and would prohibit students from using these devices on school property.
The school board voted on the amended policy Monday. The Republic will have more on this vote.
Columbus City Council passed a similar public vaping ban in August. The citywide ban will go into effect Oct. 19.
Getting their restrooms back
When Healthy Communities learned the state was pushing for a statewide vaping public awareness campaign to focus on both prevention and cessation, Jones said the organization opened up a search for a youth coordinator — someone solely dedicated to youth vaping within the local school corporation.
Jen Morrill, a health teacher at Columbus Signature Academy — New Tech High School, was selected and she now leads a youth coalition dedicated to ending vaping.
“The kids who choose not to do this are very frustrated by all the vaping, seeing their friends making these decisions, going into the bathroom and it being in the bathroom all the time,” Morrill said.
“What we’re trying to do is look at how we can encourage students to make the decision not to and motivate them to choose not to and educate them on the dangers of it because there’s a misconception that it’s safe.”
There’s a challenge to spreading that message, though. Jones said adults can continue to tell students that vaping is not safe, but they won’t listen.
“They haven’t been listening to us because there is an epidemic,” Jones said. “Their peers are much more of an influence on them than what an adult is.”
Currently, seven teens from Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.’s three high schools serve on the youth coalition. Their challenge is to brainstorm a way to stop their peers from vaping.
“BCSC obviously has policies in place and completely supports what we’re doing,” Morrill said. “The policies are there, the punishments are there for when you’re caught. We just have to, as a group, go back and motivate the kids not to.”
Columbus East High School juniors Naman Satsangi and Olivia Clark, senior Sara Law, Columbus North High School senior Zuleima Lopez, CSA New Tech sophomores Brianna Cordes and Winter Shaver, and junior Quincy East all serve on the youth coalition.
All seven students said they’ve witnessed their peers vaping everywhere from the restroom to the classroom, and they’ve had enough.
Last year, East said one of her own family members got in trouble for vaping at school. She joined the coalition to prevent others from following in her family member’s footsteps.
At CSA New Tech, a group of teens cut up an article about the first death linked to vaping and pasted pieces of the article around the large stall in one of the girls’ restrooms where many students are known to huddle in the stall together and vape.
Morrill said while it may look morbid, it’s just a small step that students are taking to encourage their peers to quit vaping. Many times, Morrill has had students tell her they avoid the restroom at school because of this very reason.
“I want to take the doors off the stalls as a teacher,” Morrill said. “It’s very defeating. It makes you question as a teacher, am I doing enough? It makes me sad to hear kids say, ‘I don’t want to go to the bathroom.’”
Law said, as a senior, she’s witnessed vaping become an even greater issue for underclassmen who think it’s cool to do.
“When they do it, they don’t know what they’re putting into their bodies,” Law said. “They don’t know how it’s going to affect them, and sure they know of stories of people dying, but they’re not caring because it’s not affecting them in any way. We need to inform them that this could be them in the hospital.”
Lung injury cases
Indiana is investigating 30 cases of severe lung injury linked to vaping, state health officials said. Eight of those have been confirmed. The majority of the Indiana cases have occurred among individuals ages 16 to 29 years. Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said more than 215 cases have been reported, with more under investigation.
The CDC said initial findings from its investigation into serious lung illnesses associated with e-cigarette products point to similar exposures, symptoms and clinical findings that align with a CDC health advisory released Aug. 30 advising the public of a severe pulmonary disease associated with e-cigarette products.
The use of e-cigarettes among young people is a rising public health crisis across the United States, with 19.2% of teens reporting they used e-cigarettes in 2018 — a 60% increase from the year before, according to Monitoring the Future’s National Adolescent Drug Trends survey.
“When I think back to when I was younger, it was cigarettes,” Morrill said. “They would bring in pictures of the black lungs and scare us into not smoking. As a health teacher, three years ago when I was trying to teach about vaping, it was really hard to find anything that actually supported that it wasn’t good for you.”
Now, Morrill said we’re seeing the damage that’s been caused by e-cigarettes.
“There are so many areas where we have an opportunity to impact,” Morrill said. “Whether it’s developing educational materials that health teachers can use so the same message is being taught to all the different students or training materials that all teachers take.”
Through the youth coalition, Morrill said she wants to give students a platform to brainstorm events and ideas to educate their peers, teachers and parents about the dangers associated with vaping.
“To think of it, we were going to be the first generation that was tobacco-free, and then e-cigarettes came out so that destroyed the entire plan,” Law said. “We need to educate everybody.”
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Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. school board members considered adding electronic smoking devices, commonly referred to as e-cigarettes, to the corporation’s drug and tobacco use policy.
The updated policy would classify Juuls — a type of e-cigarette — and e-cigarettes as substances that contain tobacco and nicotine, and would prohibit students from using these devices on school property.
“In order to protect all students from an environment that might be harmful to them, the school board prohibits the use and/or possession of tobacco by students in school buildings, on school grounds, on school buses or any school-related event,” the current policy reads.
“For purposes of this policy, use of tobacco shall mean all uses of tobacco, including cigar, cigarette, pipe, snuff or any other matter, substance or innovation that contains tobacco or nicotine.”
The revised policy would include Juuls and e-cigarettes to the list of prohibited substances.
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Indiana Youth Survey results for Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.
Mean age of first-time use of an electronic vapor product:
Grade 7: 12.09
Grade 8: 12.81
Grade 9: 13.67
Grade 10: 14.47
Grade 11: 15.37
Grade 12: 15.92
Average monthly use of electronic vaping devices:
Grade 7:10.1%
Grade 8: 17.1%
Grade 9: 19.9%
Grade 10: 22.0%
Grade 11: 24.1%
Grade 12: 29.3%
Electronic vapor devices were identified as the most used substances in grades 7-12.
Source: 2019 Indiana Youth Survey
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