Vaping has been branded the “biggest loophole in Australian healthcare history”, making its way into schools and creating a new generation of nicotine addicts, and local schools are doing all they can to fight it.
The federal government announced last week they would ban the importation of of non-prescription vaping products, including those without contain nicotine.
The government has made it easier to get prescription vapes (to help long-term smokers quit) but harder to vape recreationally.
The new laws arrived just months after an independent review into vaping revealed its alarming presence within the adolescent community.
The report indicated vapes were deliberately packaged and marketed to entice adolescents.
Beenleigh State High School principal, Matthew Morgan, said the vaping epidemic had been left for schools to handle for “far too long”.
“Vaping is a concern for all schools,” Mr Morgan said.
“So, it’s great that there is some policy coming from outside the gate and not leaving individual schools to manage this.”
Mr Morgan said Logan schools had been fighting the vaping “trend” for years, and because of the uncontrolled accessibility of the products, schools were forced to introduce their own anti-vaping programs.
“We have a vape education program that the kids who are caught with a vape work through,” Mr Morgan said.
“We connect with our well-being team, whether it be guidance officers, the school doctor or the nurse.
“The education program is about trying to support positive behaviour in our kids to take an active stance around taking care of themselves.
“But also being socially aware of the impact of their own actions to take up vaping and recognise the impact that it makes upon not only their own health, but those that are around them, too.”
Mr Morgan said it was about creating positive behaviour.
Multiple studies suggest between 15% 35% of young Australian’s aged 12 to 17 years old have tried an e-cigarette.
E-cigarettes were originally branded as pathway to stop smoking, but they have now been proven to lead directly there.
