US school removes doors from toilet stalls to deter vapers

Vaping is popular amongst teenagers. Photo / Getty

A US school has gone to extreme measures to crack down on the epidemic of teen vaping, removing the doors from the stalls in the boy's toilets to prevent surreptitious puffing.

Wilson High School in Alabama took the decision to remove the doors after a student was found passed out in a stall after vaping.

Principal Gary Horton told WAFF news that students were regularly sneaking to the toilets to vape and removing the doors was the best decision.

Some parents disagreed with Horton's call and believe other options should have been pursued.

"I don't like it. They take their only private place in the school that they can do their business," said parent Rachel Munsey.

"Bad vaping problem, then you need spotters in the bathroom. You need someone adult to go in there to make sure there's not any vaping going on," said Munsey.

Brandon Campbell told WAFF: "It's a little over-excessive. Maybe they need to put a monitor in the hall, like they do. Usually they have a truancy officer or a police officer at the school. Have them monitor the hallway because a bathroom is for each individual person's privacy."

Vaping is causing concern across the US as a mysterious lung disease tied to vaping claims lives.

Health officials said earlier this week that a fifth person has died of a mysterious lung illness tied to vaping. There are now 450 possible cases in 33 states and one territory, including the five deaths, they said.

Amid the surge in cases, physicians and health officials in states with the earliest and largest number of cases published detailed descriptions of the acute lung disorder in people who vape in a series of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine and described the trend as "worrisome".

Although federal and state officials said the definitive cause of the illness remains unknown, "the severity of the illness and the recent increase in the incidence of this clinical syndrome indicates that these cases represent a new or newly recognised and worrisome cluster of pulmonary disease related to vaping", according to a report by health department officials in Wisconsin and Illinois, who conducted a joint investigation of 53 patients.