Vapes Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Annual Anti-Tobacco Summit Aims To Slow Nicotine Use In Teens

An annual event is set to educate more than 600 youth from across West Virginia about the dangers of nicotine use.

West Virginia’s Raze will host the 2023 Raze Youth Summit on Oct.18th at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.

Raze is a teen anti-tobacco campaign funded and facilitated by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, the Center for Disease Control Prevention and the American Lung Association (ALA).

The event will include educational sessions on building strong mental well-being, a crucial aspect to remaining tobacco-free, according to the ALA.

Chaste Barclay is the Director of Health Promotions at the ALA and oversees youth programs in West Virginia, among other states.

“What a lot of teens, and even parents and grandparents that maybe aren’t as familiar with the products, know that in one vape pod, you have the equivalent of the amount of nicotine is the equivalent of 20 cigarettes,” Barclay said. “So the level of nicotine is quite high. And with teenagers their brains are still developing, it alters their brain chemistry, it makes them more susceptible down the road to other addictions and potential issues with that.”

Additionally, attendees will gain insights and strategies to help effectively navigate peer pressure.

Raze Advisor Eugenia Reesman from East Fairmont High School in Pleasant Valley said she is continually inspired by the passion and dedication of her crew members.

“The summit provides a platform for these remarkable students to drive positive change and equips them with the tools they need to lead tobacco-free lives through education, empowerment and innovation,” Reesman said.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

State Officials Aim To Stop Vaping Before It Starts

A new initiative aims to curb rates of vaping among West Virginia’s teenagers.

West Virginia State Health Officer Matthew Christiansen announced the “West Virginia’s clear future, don’t let vaping cloud it,” campaign, a statewide initiative to stop kids from trying electronic cigarettes.

The initiative will offer CATCH My Breath vaping prevention curriculum to every county in the state over the next three years.

The first year of the program will focus on middle schools, as data indicates the optimal time to prevent e-cigarette experimentation is by the age of 14.

The 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that a total of 50.1 percent of U.S. high school students had used an e-cigarette product in their lifetime, and 32.7 percent had used an e-cigarette product in the past 30 days.

“In 2021, almost half of high school students reported either current or past use of e-cigarettes and vaping products,” Christiansen said. “This has really become a new addictive product on the scene that we’ve known that we have to really address and get to the bottom of.”

The announcement was made during Gov. Jim Justice’s weekly media briefing with State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt.

According to a study from the National Library of Medicine, teen use of cigarettes has declined greatly. However, adolescents’ use of alternative tobacco products has risen rapidly, largely due to the popularity of e-cigarettes.

“I truly believe that our students think that vaping is safer than cigarettes and that it’s not going to do the damage to their health as they do with cigarettes because it is so new,” Blatt said. “My goal, my hope is with this program and our partnerships, that we’ll be able to inform our students of the health risks, and the dangers of vaping and be able to catch a lot of those middle school students before they do get addicted to these various things.”

Teachers and counselors will need to agree to serve as facilitators of the CATCH My Breath program and receive a free two-day, six-hour, online learning course to prepare them to present the curriculum. They will then act as facilitators to deliver four 40-minute sessions to students over a four-week period.

The DHHR’s Division of Tobacco Prevention is working in collaboration with the American Lung Association and Partners in Health Network to identify and contact schools. Other partners include the Pallottine Foundation of Huntington, West Virginia and the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

County Board of Education Proposes E-Cigarette Ban

A West Virginia board of education is listening to public comments on a policy revision that would ban e-cigarettes and all substances containing nicotine from property that the school system owns or operates.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the Kanawha County Board of Education put the changes out for public comment Monday. School system General Counsel Jim Withrow says concerns were raised regarding e-cigarettes or vapes that don’t contain tobacco, but have nicotine.

The school system currently has a 1997 policy in place, banning tobacco. The proposed changes would add nicotine and e-cigarettes to the existing tobacco prohibition policy. It would also ban substances containing nicotine from all property that is owned, leased or operated by the school system.