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In an effort to address the dangers of vaping, Altoona Area School District held a town hall meeting Wednesday night for parents and community residents.
School officials and prevention specialists from the Blair County Drug and Alcohol Partnerships were on hand to talk about vaping, which has become a nationwide concern because students as young as the elementary level are using vapes or e-cigarette, according to Superintendent Brad Hatch.
While some people use the electronic cigarettes to quit smoking traditional cigarettes, prevention specialist Michaela Benson said many people don't realize that they contain high levels of addictive nicotine. In fact, she said that nicotine can be consumed quicker through a vape versus a traditional cigarette.
"You're getting a lot of that nicotine content in a short amount of time," she said.
Vapes are popular among students, she said, with many reporting they use vapes because their friends do and because there are more than 5,000 flavors.
Benson said the flavors are specifically marketed toward kids, teenagers and young adults.
"I don't personally believe that (a) 50-year-old who smokes Marlboro Reds is looking for a device that's mango-flavored to help them quit smoking," she said.
One of the problems schools are seeing, Hatch said, is students being rushed to emergency rooms because the vapes they use are laced with other products, like tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and fentanyl.
He said regionally there have been deaths of high school students that were attributed to hitting a vape that was laced with narcotics.
"It's not something you just hear about or read about that happened in California, it's in our region," Hatch said. "It is something that we are very aware of, which is why we are trying to take efforts to limit it and educate students on the dangers of the practices that they're doing."
Benson said it's not hard for young people to obtain vapes, despite state law raising the minimum age to 21.
"We've had first-hand accounts from students that had gone into local vendors and have not been asked for ID that have been able to purchase vaping products without question," Hatch said.
According to Hatch, students are able to find creative ways of bringing nicotine products into schools.
"We've caught kids vaping in class," he said, adding that there seems to be a general acceptance with a lot of parents who would rather see their kids use vapes instead of smoking cigarettes.
"They see it as a more healthy alternative, which could not be further from the truth," he said. "(That's) one of the reasons we need to ramp up the educational piece ... so that people understand this is as or more dangerous as providing your kid with a pack of Marlboro Reds."
Benson said, in years past, it was much easier to tell whether a student smoked a cigarette in the bathroom, but because the scent of vapes are more discrete, it's not as easily detectable.
School officials stated there are vape detectors in the high school, but they don't want students to know where they are or how they work.
These detectors are effective, according to Hatch, who said they also invite police and their narcotic detection dogs to the schools in order to put students on notice they're being monitored.
School policy states that the first time students are caught in possession of a vape, they receive a three-day suspension and can choose to either receive a summary citation or take a cessation course in lieu of the citation.
Benson concluded the town hall by saying it's important not to stigmatize students with discipline. She said there needs to be discussion with the students about addiction, which is a disease of the brain, she said.
"(Addiction) changes the way that the brain functions," she said. "Maybe that first time of choosing to try vaping was a choice, but after that, it's not."
Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.