As a sophomore in high school, I am far from oblivious to the world around me. I have never been interested in drugs, alcohol, smoking, or anything like that, but from what I can see, not all my peers feel the same way.
Every morning, 10 minutes after the first bell has gone off, the same kid walks into class. He’s never on time. He walks with a strange sort of waddle and never chooses to sit in his assigned seat; he sits where he wants to. But he doesn’t choose a seat next to his friends or somewhere it’s easier to cheat, he just sits at a lone desk, next to mine, sort of aimlessly staring around vacantly. As he sits next to me, I frequently notice an oddly familiar odor that makes me think of room freshener or cleaning products. He tends to drop his backpack on the hard floor, with very little care for the Chromebook housed inside. The loud, thunking noise can be heard by all since class started long before he got there. He’s barely there in body and even less in spirit.
I can’t tell you whether or not he vapes every morning before coming to school, nor can I tell you if he sneaks a vape inside and hits it in the bathroom before first period. I hardly know the guy, but I’m left questioning. Is this just how he is? Is there something deeper to his story that I just don’t know and never will? Or is he like so many of the kids around me who can’t seem to make it through the day without an unusually long bathroom break, presumably to vape, at some point? Hard to say. What role does flavored tobacco play in this?
I understand why people my age try drugs and why they are so popular. I think people begin vaping because they are attracted to the colorful designs and tasty flavors. I’ve even thought about what it would be like to taste a vape. Everyone else seems to. What do they see in flavored tobacco that I don’t?
When looking online at vape flavors, I saw blue raspberry, pineapple, candy, custard, cherry, watermelon, dessert, etc. Methanol seems to be the only widely used flavor for cigarettes. This makes me think that vapes and cigarettes are being marketed to two very different groups. These flavor choices are clearly targeted at children.
I also don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out which one of those two options sounds more enjoyable to a teen. Cotton candy or burning matter?
Obviously, children have been taught about drugs and alcohol. I’m sure that most kids under 10 can tell you all about mommy drinking wine. I get that it’s an acquired taste. I don’t think a lot of kids pick up drinking wine though. But I think that if you handed a 7-year-old a strange-looking pen thing and told them it tasted like their favorite flavor of candy, they would immediately want to try it. There are plenty of candies that come in plastic dispensers, just like vapes. Our drug and alcohol education hasn’t really kept up with current trends.
Basically, if you haven’t figured out what I’m trying to say yet I’ll just come out and say it: tobacco companies are making vapes specifically designed to appeal to young people in hopes of profiting off young and naive children using tasty flavors allowing them to disguise the real problem in all of this, the drug, the chemicals, and the high potential for addiction.
I don’t want to scare parents or make people shield children from everything in the history of the entire world, but what I want to get across is that your children are not exempt from the power of the public eye. While there are many fighting against drugs and alcohol, a lot of people seem to turn their backs on the problem of vaping because “it doesn’t affect us.”
Well, guess again. Vaping is hugely popular in schools, and every single kid knows something about it.
The thing is, even when you don’t know exactly what’s up, you know something is up. Just yesterday, I walked into one of the most frequently used female bathrooms in my school. I immediately regretted that decision when I realized that the already small bathroom had become the “watering hole” for a group of students. Many had gathered around the mirror, one was applying mascara, and the other was fixing her hair, and the rest of the group had decided to crowd around the door and chatter. Getting by them was a chore.
It’s not surprising to find girls in the bathroom together. I’ve found that girls love to go to the bathroom in pairs, and more often than not when you walk into a bathroom you’ll see at least two girls who seem to know each other, talking about drama.
Girls like to go to the bathroom together, fine. But there’s no reason for two people to be in a stall together. So, why is this relevant? During my encounter with the girls yesterday, I noted the 2 pairs of shoes in one small stall. What were they doing? The fruity smell and faint vapor clouds clued me in.
If you need evidence that vaping has gotten into our schools, just hang out in a girl’s bathroom. If you really want intel, go during class because that’s when the real action takes place.
There’s a running joke in my school that almost all of the students know about. We have two lobbies in the school: the Main Lobby, where people walk into school past security and can get into the main office, and the Guidance Lobby, where a lot of students tend to eat lunch. This lobby connects to the guidance office, which is where it gets its name. However, it has become a running joke among my peers to refer to the Guidance Lobby as the DL: The Drug Lobby. Because this is where most of the drug deals in my school take place. This is where kids sell nicotine vapes, THC vapes, and whatever else.
I have never seen a drug deal happen in this lobby, and I eat lunch there every day. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
I tend to try to walk under the radar, so I am not privy to some information. I can’t tell you where students are getting their vapes or how much money they’re selling them for. However, that being said, I am not naive either. Vapes are very easy to acquire just like cigarettes and alcohol.
I was curious so I decided to ask one of my teachers firsthand what her experiences with her students and vaping had been.
The teacher I spoke with has been teaching for over 28 years, so I figured she might have answers to my questions. I didn’t record anything so I’ll just summarize what she told me.
This teacher of mine almost always ends up using the girl’s bathroom instead of the bathrooms reserved for teachers. This means that when she walks in, she can very easily tell when people are vaping. Also, as a teacher, it is obvious to her when students go to the bathroom for a long time during class and then come back “glazed” or “different,” as she put it.
When I asked if she thought things had changed in recent years, she explained to me that she believes students have gotten more sneaky, so it’s hard to tell whether or not the problem has gotten worse, better, or stayed around the same. But she also told me she thinks the consequences of vaping and the harm it does to students are much more publicized than before. This led her to believe that either kids have been driven away from vaping or they have simply become much better at hiding their addictions.
As I suspected, my teacher was, for the most part, aware of students vaping and could identify the signs of use almost immediately.
The 7 years of our life we are given to be a teenager are so much different than when your generation was growing up.
This isn’t even mentioning things like school shootings, run-hide-fight drills, bulletproof vests, and soundproof shoes for children in elementary school. That’s an entirely different topic. Vaping has infiltrated schools, a place where I am supposed to be safe.
I am no stranger to the real world and I am very aware that life is not cupcakes and rainbows after high school. But I also don’t think adults nowadays understand me when I say high school is so much worse than it was when you were growing up. There are so many problems in schools today that I could go on about for days. Flavored tobacco is just one.
As for prevention, a small poster in a hallway is doing nothing for my peers. My fellow classmates are not stupid, most people do not vape without knowing what it can do to you, so constantly repeating the same repetitive health warnings is not doing anything.
Stop telling us vaping is bad for us and expecting us to just stop. People don’t vape just cause. (Most of the time) Usually, there is another issue under the surface. Tell us alternatives, give us help, show us there’s another way. But an ad about how vaping is ruining lives is not helping anyone, it’s just scaring kids and parents.
At this point, to be uneducated is to be complicit, so educate yourselves about vaping and flavored tobacco. Educate your children, and support us as we try to bring awareness to problems that have surfaced in our world in recent years. We’re teenagers, we need to be protected, not targeted. What do you think would happen if a class of 5th graders got their hands on a bunch of weird-looking objects that tasted like candy but actually held addictive and possibly life-threatening drugs inside?
Kids are not the ones making these products, it’s adults who have chosen money over the well-being of my generation, and I’m tired of it.
Parents, we need your help. Don’t beat it into your kids never to vape or use flavored tobacco, educate them why vaping is wrong and help them quit. Be honest- that is what we need from you. That is all we’ve ever needed from you, the truth.
Pin this post and be sure to follow Vermont Moms on Pinterest!
Vermont Moms Insiders get exclusive content, so sign up today!
If you’d like to learn more about flavored tobacco and get support to quit, check out:
- Flavors Hook Kids Vermont
- 802 Quits
- Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
- American Lung Association
- American Heart Association
For more about flavored tobacco use in Vermont:
