(NOTE: LAWRENCE CO. SUPT. ROB FLETCHER HAS BEEN ASKED FOR A COMMENT ON VAPING IN THE LOCAL SYSTEM AND WE WILL POST IT WHEN HE SENDS A RESPONSE.)
FRANKFORT — Seventy five Kentucky school districts ban tobacco use but far fewer ban vaping, which delivers nicotine and other substances through an electronic vaporizer. That could change under a new state law set to take effect next month.
Kentucky Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Program manager Kerri Verden told the Tobacco Settlement Agreement Fund Oversight Committee that 2019 House Bill 11 could have an impact on 22 tobacco-free districts that don’t include vaping in their tobacco-free policies, plus others.
The law, set to take effect on June 27, will ban the use of tobacco and vaping devices on public school campuses statewide beginning next fall in school districts that don’t opt out of the ban.
“Districts may have been waiting to see what would happen with that legislation before they chose to act or not,” said Verden.
Verden said the use of e-cigarette and vaping devices in Kentucky high schools skyrocketed 200 percent between 2016 and 2018. Pod-based vaping devices that are commonly used today are “very, very addictive,” she said, with some tests indicating one pod contains the amount of nicotine found in two packs of traditional cigarettes.
“This product is so addictive and prevalent, we’re at the point where when we go to the schools we’re not talking about prevention as much as we are cessation, even at the middle school age,” she said.
While the most recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data from 2017 indicates that cigarette smoking among Kentucky high school students is at the “lowest it’s ever been,” said Verden—with around 1 in 7 Kentucky youth today smoking cigarettes—increased vaping likely means smoking rates are also on the rise, she said.
“We suspect the (smoking) rate has increased substantially, largely due to the introduction of very popular pod-based electronic cigarette systems,” which came on the market in 2015, she said. Verden told lawmakers that the use of vaping devices was declared an epidemic by the U.S. Surgeon General late last year.
She then played a video of U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams speaking about the harm that nicotine and other compounds in e-cigarettes and vaping can do to the adolescent brain. In his comments, Adams said that one-third of youth who have used e-cigarettes and vaping devices have used them to vaporize and inhale marijuana. That led to comments from lawmakers on the committee, including Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson.
Webb asked Verden if THC—a hallucinogenic compound found in marijuana—has been found in e-cigarettes and vaping devices used by youth. Verden said it has, adding that she will relay that study data to the committee. Webb said that information would be of interest to her.
“That’d be the most disturbing to me as a policy maker,” said Webb. “I’d like to focus a little more on the illegal substances at this point, and I’d like to see the data on that. I think that is our immediate issue from a potential health side.”
Verden said youth can be “really creative” in using vaping devices with marijuana, and other drugs. “You don’t know what substances are in there, and it’s not even just marijuana – you can put any illicit substance in there, really, in any form.”
Also expressing concern with the use of vaping devices for use with illicit substances was Tobacco Settlement Agreement Fund Oversight Committee Co-Chair Rep. Myron Dossett, R-Pembroke. He asked Verden for data on what types of illicit drugs are being found in vaping devices and how access to those drugs is obtained.
“It really frightens me knowing that we have a younger generation that looks at these electronic devices as something … cool to have in your possession. Something like this could devastate a child,” Dossett said.
I’m not a smoker nor do I smoke vapes, however I keep seeing the the reference to these “nicotine” devices. I know, from having to buy them for my mother who successfully quit smoking after 65 years of smoking, that they do not all have nicotine. You have to purchase them with the nicotine level. Online, if you don’t select a nicotine level, they will be shipped with no nicotine; so you must select that at the time of purchase. Also we know that nicotine is the addictive substance in cigarettes but the most harmful substance to the lung is the tar from tobacco, that is not contained in electronic cigarettes. So it is kind of political; they just tell one side. Now I don’t think that kids should purchase them (18 should be the minimum age, otherwise you are saying it’s ok for some adults to purchase but not others like alcohol – you should change the age a juvenile becomes an adult to 21 if you want to go that route (and also the voting age would be good in that scenerio too, but that’s just my opinion). The article says that e-cigs can be easily used to ingest drugs – listen, if we ban everything that is easily used to ingest drugs there’s a lot of things to ban staring with straws, paper money, syringes, spoons, etc. Again, I’m not against the ban, although I’m am against an “anonymous” hotline (which sounds a lot like a communist country’s report your neighbor line) fork kids to call in manned by state employees, they should be banned at all school campuses and events, by students and adults. I think there are a lot more things to focus, one is not legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes as many states have done, do not sell nicotine e-cigs to anyone not enrolled in a cessation program (should do that for patches, nicotine gum, etc. – which are regularly abused by young people), and require schools to educate our school children (in school health classes each year) on the affects of smoking and e-cigs. I think we need to be busy tackling the diabetes issue as well – teaching our children not to drink/consume as much sugar with all the available candies, etc. Maybe we can put an age limit on buying candies without a parent present. Just adding a sugar substitute is not helpful and some reports say they may be even worse for us. Again, I’m not a smoker of anything and am not a supporter of vaping, etc. – the only thing I am saying is that I’m tired of readying/seeing all the lies because one side wants to push their agenda. Leave that to Washington – their masters at it….