‘A real problem’: Student vaping habits pose concerns for educators; Central Pa. schools look to reduce use

• By Ashley Stalnecker/LNP | LancasterOnline

Looking back, Jose De Oleo could think of only a couple students in his senior protective services class at the Lancaster County Career and Technology Center who didn’t vape.

De Oleo, now 21, said nicotine addiction took hold of him his senior year as he and friends passed one of the electronic smoking devices while they huddled in a school bathroom. He had his first puff from a vape at 13.

Now he’s trying to quit.

“It has become a real problem for me,” De Oleo said.

Educators in Lancaster County and beyond agree vaping is a “real problem” driven by a wave of e-cigarette products that have become pervasive inside and outside schools. The devices wind up in students’ pockets and backpacks — passed, De Oleo said, from hand to hand during the school day.

Initially advertised as a tool to help people quit smoking, e-cigarettes are often considered to be nonharmful by youth and adults alike. But mounting evidence from research on the effects of vaping, especially among adolescents, shows the habit poses lifelong risks.

To deter vaping and identify students who use the devices, at least 11 of Lancaster County’s 17 school districts have installed detectors, in places like bathrooms and locker rooms, that recognize the chemicals in the vapor emitted from the devices.

“The decision (to install vape detectors) came down to how prevalent (vaping) is,” Penn Manor School District Superintendent Phil Gale said. “And I’m not talking about just amongst teenagers. It’s a pandemic, in my opinion, across the world.”

WHAT ARE VAPES?

E-cigarettes, or vapes, are battery-powered devices that heat a liquid (a vape juice containing nicotine, flavorings and other chemicals) into an aerosol that users inhale. Some vapes contain THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis, which is similarly heated into aerosol for inhalation.

When e-cigarettes hit the consumer market, they were marketed in part to help smokers addicted to nicotine wean themselves off the drug, said Matt Weaver, drug and alcohol prevention coordinator for the Bench Mark Program in Lancaster. Because in some vapes the amount of nicotine content can be adjusted, and the devices don’t come with the heavy tar that’s in a traditional combustible cigarette, vaping has been marketed as a healthier alternative to cigarettes.

Prevalence of vaping

In 2024, 1.63 million middle and high school students reported using a vape in the past 30 days, down from 2.13 million youth in 2023, according to the 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey.

More than one-quarter of youth who used a vape reported using the product daily.

“Vaping has become the primary way that adolescents use nicotine,” Megan Patrick, a research professor at the University of Michigan, said. “Nicotine is a highly addictive substance, so once adolescents start, it can be difficult for them to stop.”

Over the years, marketing and the addition of flavors like strawberry, gummy bear and cotton candy to the vapor cartridges have made vapes attractive to adolescents, said Matt Weaver, drug and alcohol prevention coordinator for the Bench Mark Program, a nonprofit that offers personal training and mentorship to underserved and at-risk youth in Lancaster city.

It’s not just the marketing that attracts youth to vaping. For De Oleo, it was the buzz, a feeling of lightheadedness and dizziness, that eases stress.

Patrick, who authored a study on the reasons young people vape, said relaxation is the most frequently cited reason for vaping among adolescents. Boredom is another common reason.

“It’s important for parents, educators, and health professionals to be aware of if adolescents are vaping, why they are vaping, and what the possible consequences are,” Patrick said in an email.

That knowledge will equip them with a tool to combat what Weaver says likely will be a growing problem across the country as vapes become easier for adolescents to obtain.

Despite needing to be 21 years old to legally obtain and smoke a vape, Weaver and school administrators said students report being able to purchase the devices online, from a friend or from a convenience store that fails to check their IDs.

The good news for Lancaster County is vaping in the area is less prevalent than it is statewide, according to student reports.

Data from the Pennsylvania Youth Survey shows that in 2023, 6.3% of 10th grade students and 8.5% of high school seniors in Lancaster County reported vaping within the past 30 days, compared to 8.4% and 14.9%, respectively, statewide.

Still, Lancaster County schools are cracking down on vaping within their buildings.

Deterring vaping in schools

Cocalico, Conestoga Valley, Donegal, Elizabethtown Area, Elanco, Ephrata Area, Hempfield, Manheim Central, Manheim Township, Penn Manor and Warwick school districts all confirmed they have installed at least one vape detector in one or more of their secondary school buildings.

Vape detectors recognize the chemicals released from vaping, cigarette smoke or THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis. They then alert district administrators or school resource officers via text and email. Because the sensors don’t record video and rely solely on smell and sound, they can be used in private areas, including school bathrooms, while still respecting student privacy.

School administrators typically install cameras outside bathrooms to monitor who entered the bathroom before a sensor was triggered. Because cameras aren’t in the bathrooms, school administrators must interview whoever was in the bathroom when the alarm was triggered.

That can cut into learning time for students who are innocent and, for that reason, Gale said some students have begun using the Safe2Say Something anonymous tipline run by the state attorney general’s office to notify administrators of vaping by other students.

Rather than risk getting pulled into an interview for the actions of another student, they report the student before it comes to that.

“There’s some that are saying, ‘Hey I want to walk into a bathroom and not have to worry about the person,’ ” Gale said. “I’m proud of our students for doing that. I’m really pleased that they are saying, ‘Hey, not here, please not here.”

And, Gale added, there’s the distraction for the student who is vaping.

“If they’re not using it, they’re thinking about it,” he said. “It’s the distractibility, the pull of attention away. … If you’re addicted to it, it’s so problematic.”

Discipline for students caught vaping ranges from a call home to their parents or guardians to suspension and expulsion, depending on the number of repeat offenses. While students are more likely to be using a vape that contains nicotine, school resource officers are able to test the liquid in a device to determine whether it contains nicotine or THC.

Being caught with a vape that contains THC could result in police involvement.

“Our overall goal in using the (vape-detecting) devices is not just to assign consequences to those caught, but also to help our students make healthier choices and create a safe learning environment for all,” Elanco Superintendent Michael Snopkowski said in an email.

When a school can prove that a student possessed, used or sold a vape, it’s reported to the state Department of Education as part of the annual Safe Schools report.

Reports of vaping infractions in Lancaster County schools have more than doubled since 2019, hitting a peak of 600 instances in the 2022-23 school year, compared to just 121 in 2019-20. There were 596 reports in 2023-24. Nearly 70,000 students are enrolled in the 20 Lancaster County schools included in the annual report.

“Once the restrictions (of the pandemic) started to lift, I think kids were just looking for any level of outlet that was going to make them feel something,” said Weaver, of Bench Mark.

Preventing vaping in schools

While vape detectors can help educators identify students who are vaping and may deter some students from vaping in school, Weaver said education on the consequences of vaping is key to preventing students from picking up or continuing the habit.

“A lot of kids, whether they do it or not, don’t view (vaping) as a negative thing or as bad as other things that they could be doing,” Weaver said. “And so when we have that perception of harm that is lowered, it inherently increases the risk for somebody at least experimenting or progressively using more and more.”

Vaping has been linked to fatal lung injuries, disease and acute respiratory illness. For instance, the chemical diacetyl contained in the liquid of some vapes can scar tiny air sacs in the lungs, producing a dangerous condition called “popcorn lungs.”

And vape users aren’t immune to the known risks of nicotine, including its negative impact on brain development.

“Newer research is showing that our brains are even still developing into our late 20s, early 30s,” Weaver said. “But when we’re engaging in vaping behaviors and adding that nicotine, that increase of dopamine into the brain, it’s really shifting and changing how our brain is developing. It’s not developing the synapses and the certain connections that are made during natural human development are not occurring.”

Weaver said he’s in conversation with several Lancaster County school districts, including the School District of Lancaster, Penn Manor and Manheim Township, to establish evidence-based prevention programming in the upcoming school year.

Students who are caught vaping or possessing a vape would be recommended for the program, he said, and could start learning from the 12-lesson curriculum he offers at any time during the school year.

The hazards of vaping also can be taught in health education curriculum, as early as middle school. Parents shouldn’t shy away from the topic either, Weaver said.

“What’s really cool about prevention is that too young is never too young,” Weaver, a parent of two elementary-age children, said. “Certainly, I’m not going to be having a conversation with my kindergartner about vaping, but I would have conversations about what’s healthy and appropriate to put into your body, and what’s not appropriate.”

De Oleo, who’s stopped purchasing vapes in the hopes of quitting, wishes he hadn’t picked up the habit. After using vapes for a while, he said he no longer even experiences the buzz that got him addicted in the first place.

“It’s not worth it,” he said.