COLUMBUS, Ind. — Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. is entering a multi-district lawsuit against an e-cigarette manufacturer, with officials citing ongoing vaping problems in schools — with some of those issues occurring at the elementary level.
The school board has passed a resolution approving a joint lawsuit with other school districts against JUUL. The resolution authorizes law firm Wagstaff & Cartmell, LLP to “initiate litigation and file suit against any appropriate parties to compensate the district for damages suffered by the district and its students as a result of the manufacture, marketing, sale and use of electronic-cigarettes and vaping products, and to seek any other appropriate relief.”
Superintendent Jim Roberts singled out JUUL as the case’s defendant. He said that schools across the country feel there’s been a good deal of effort to get students addicted to nicotine through vaping devices, with JUUL being “the leader in that.” He estimated that about 40 Indiana school corporations have joined the suit and expected this number to grow in the new few weeks.
The resolution includes data on e-cigarette use among youth in the United States, citing the Surgeon General’s reports that usage increased among middle and high school students 900% during 2011 to 2015 and increased 78% among high schoolers from 2017 to 2018 (going from 11.7% to 20.8%). Furthermore, in 2018, over 3.6 million youth — including 1 in 5 high school students and 1 in 20 middle school students — were using e-cigarettes.
“Those statistics are mirrored within our school corporation, and what happens with vaping keeps our administrators very busy, and that’s even down into the elementary school level in terms of what we see with that activity,” said Roberts.
The resolution states that student usage of JUUL e-cigarettes has created an interruption of the school corporation’s educational mission, has caused “diversion of substantial resources” to try to both stop and prevent usage, and poses “a significant risk to the health and well-being of its students.”
For the complete story, see Thursday’s Republic.
