Minnesota School Nurse Says Vaping Is 'Skyrocketing' Among Students
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – For the first time ever, e-cigarette use will be among the topics in a national school resource book, focusing on protocol with vaping among teenagers.
The Centers for Disease Control's youth tobacco survey shows more than one in four teens are using e-cigarettes.
Minnesota school nurse Sue Nokleby will write the vaping section for the National School Reform Faculty's Resource Book. It a topic she's familiar tackling from previous generations.
"I used to work with tobacco prevention, and it was really great to see the rates of students and smoking go down," said Nokleby, who works at District 287 in the west metro. "Now all of a sudden, it's skyrocketing with vaping."
She recalled the first student who she recognized with a vaping cigarette, noting it looked like an actual cigarette. The devices now look like USB drives, pens, and eye droppers.
Nokleby says schools like Ann Bremer Education Center, where she works, have tight security, like metal detectors. However, vaping devices often don't have enough metal to trigger the detector, and faculty don't check the pockets or bodies of students entering campus.
"At some point you have to realize you may catch them as they pull them out or something," said Nokleby, addressing the challenges with enforcement. "I think the awareness at school is really important—the importance of what these devices look like."
