High school principals are noticing more Year 9 and 10 students taking up vaping around the Whanganui region.
High schools around the Whanganui region are dealing with a rise in vaping among younger students, but principals say there’s no easy way to address the problem.
Rangitīkei College principal Tony Booker said there was a concerning increase in the number of 13 and 14-year-old students vaping at high school.
“What is changing and becoming more obvious is that it tends to be younger people, and less older students,” Booker said.
“That’s certainly the feeling we’ve got.”
Ruapehu College principal Marama Allen said there used to be a handful of students who would smoke cigarettes, but now the number of students who were vaping was significantly more.
The school was looking at redesigning student bathrooms to prevent unsociable behaviour and students gathering in the cubicles to vape.
“We’ve found those students who are highly addicted to vaping try to duck out of class regularly to go to the bathroom or outside to vape.
“It’s really concerning for their health and learning.”
Cullinane College principal Tony McBride said vaping presented a new challenge as it could be done much more discreetly than smoking.
“We maintain a strong staff presence around the grounds at break times, and along with 24-hour CCTV coverage, in order to do our best to deter students from vaping at school.”
Installing vape detectors in student bathrooms in 2023 had an immediate impact in reducing the number of students congregating in these areas to vape.
Booker said their school had tried focusing more on disciplinary action such as students being stood down for vaping, but had found it was “genuinely ineffective”.
“It tends to be the same people coming back again and again, so we weren’t addressing the underlying reasons for why people vape,” he said.
“It may be something that’s supported at home, or they might not know the risks, and it might be to cope with anxiety or stress.”
McBride said the most important thing was for there to be communication between the school and home to try to break any addiction cycle, although this was not easy.
Some vapes had nicotine levels of 50 mcg which was much higher than a cigarette, McBride said.
“It would be surprising if withdrawal symptoms were not contributing to some negative classroom behaviours,” he said.
Booker said they now focused on a more educative approach and used referrals to counselling services through Health New Zealand. Cullinane College and Ruapehu College also connected their students with councillors and addiction support services.
A complaint had been put forward by Ruapehu College to the Ministry of Health about shops in their area that were known to sell vapes to underage students.
“I feel we’re doing everything we can, but it would be a lot easier if young people couldn’t access vapes in the first place,” Allen said.
“We’ve been told by students that they just buy them online, and they only need to tick a box to say they’re over 18.”
Asthma and Respiratory Foundation medical director Bob Hancox said vaping could cause irritation of the airways and bronchitis, but the long-term health impacts were not yet known.
He said that vaping may help some people to reduce or quit smoking, but in a lot of cases it simply transferred the nicotine addiction and patients may revert to cigarettes.
Clever marketing tactics such as using bright colours, fruity flavours and appealing names had allowed vaping companies to mirror campaigns used to advertise cigarettes to young people, he said.
“We now have a whole generation of young people who are addicted to nicotine when they never needed to be,” Hancox said.
“The potential harm of this is what we’re going to be dealing with for many years to come, when it was entirely preventable.”
Booker said cigarette smoking had dropped right away in schools, and the rise of vaping instead was disappointing.
“That was a major oversight at the time, not to address it [vaping] much earlier on, when it was still being talked about as e-cigarettes to get you off smoking,” he said.
“The whole marketing of it was allowed to continue for too long, and I think in a way the horse has bolted.”
Allen said New Zealand should follow suit with Australia and ban vape sales online and in retail stores, to make them only accessible by prescription or by purchase at a pharmacy.
“Something could have been done a lot sooner,” she said.
Hancox said it would be difficult for schools to lower the number of students vaping without further legislation to prevent access to vapes, more regulation of vaping companies and shops, and efforts to reduce the appeal of vapes to young people.
“To stop vaping - that all has to be part of the package.”
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.
The tap water in Marton is adversely affected by bacteria and fungi in the local soil.