A kid in the back of the classroom leans down. He inhales something from inside his backpack and a small plume of vapor rises above him. While the teacher seems to be oblivious to this action, it reflects a rising trend in high schools around the United States, including ours: the use of electronic cigarettes. Due to their recent emergence, school administrators and health officials alike don’t know how to approach the device: healthy alternative to smoking or faux-drug abuse? 

E-cigarettes emit a nicotine solution vapor that mimics the smoking experience without most of the chemicals and carcinogens found in traditional tobacco cigarettes and are thus advertised as a safer alternative to smoking for people who need help quitting. The Electronic Cigarette Store, a local business with two locations off Manchester Rd., makes use of this information to promote its products to potential customers. According to its website, electronic cigarettes “provide a healthier alternative to smoking” and allow users to “avoid the 4,000 harmful toxins found in regular cigarettes and tobacco.”

“I bought my e-cigarette in November, simply out of curiosity, but since then it has become a habit, and I vape daily,” senior Clark Canepa said. “Vaping simulates smoking without the harmful effects of tar and other chemicals in cigarettes. I personally choose to vape over smoking because I need my lungs to be healthy for the military.”

Although the benefits of e-cigarettes are clear to Canepa and other proponents, the policy surrounding their use at school is much less cut and dry. Since the devices can be purchased with or without nicotine, they are difficult to classify under current policy and thus difficult to regulate on school grounds.

“Electronic cigarettes are a fairly new product and are not specifically mentioned in current Ladue School District Board of Education Policy,” Principal Brad Griffith said. “At this time, it would be treated identically to a tobacco-related incident. There is precedent in district policy for the possession of ‘look-alike’ items to be treated identically to possession of the actual product. This may be particularly important in the case of electronic cigarettes, which may or may not be being used for illegal substances.”

Ladue also has the option to treat e-cigarettes as nuisance items. According to the Student Discipline manual from the Missouri School Board’s Association, revised in 2010, “items that fall outside the purview of ‘objectionable items’ may be confiscated and later returned if their presence or use creates a disturbance to the maintenance of an atmosphere for orderly learning.”

“Similarly, ‘nuisance items’ are addressed in the policy as items that can be confiscated and electronic cigarettes also fall into this category for the same reason,” Assistant Principal Elizabeth Grana said. “The electronic cigarettes may potentially be being used to administer an illegal substance.”

Despite Ladue’s restrictions and many other schools’ bans of e-cigarettes on high school campuses, the Federal Drug Administration has not yet defined usage standards for the devices. According to Boomer Gutknecht, the owner of the e-cigarette shop Vapor Exchange in the Delmar Loop, no national laws banning or regulating the purchase of e-cigarettes currently exist.

“We card everyone that comes into Vapor Exchange,” Gutknecht said. “We abide by the regular tobacco law, the ID rule. But there is no law that states you must be 18 to buy an e-cigarette because let’s say you get no nicotine in it, is it a tobacco device then? It’s just a device.”

Because of this, public health analysts have noticed an increasing trend in overall usage. Specific to the teenage demographic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in September 2013 that the percentage of high school and middle school students who have tried an e-cigarette has more than doubled from 2011 to 2012, totalling to more than 1.78 million students in 2012 nationwide. Despite this alarming statistic, Gutknecht has found that Vapor Exchange’s customers do not fit a certain mold.

“There’s no demographic for the type of people that smoke,” Gutknecht said. “Any shape, size, color, race. I can’t even pinpoint it. There’s an increase across the board. Fourteen percent of people who smoke cigarettes are moving to e-cigarettes each year. People as young as 18 all the way to a 90-year-old person can be found at my store.”

Unfortunately, this rise in popularity does not come without a cost. Though the research on the health effects of e-cigarettes is currently limited, many organizations such as the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids have openly declared opposition to e-cigarettes. Despite e-cigarettes’ advertisement as a “safer alternative” to traditional tobacco cigarettes, many have raised concerns about the addictive power of nicotine, especially for younger users.

According to a November 2013 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s School of Global Public Health comprehensive review of all recent e-cigarette research, issues such as “effective public health messages, perceived health risks [and] validity of self-reports of smoking cessation” still require further study. The report also states that there have not been enough longitudinal studies conducted to ensure that conclusions about these devices are accurate.

However, the uncertainty surrounding potential health risks has not seemed to deter Ladue students from using e-cigarettes. Many students have witnessed their fellow classmates taking a puff from their backpack during class or lunch. According to Carl* (whose real name has been kept secret to protect his identity), many of his classmates have openly passed around an e-cigarette when their class had a substitute teacher.

“We had a sub in class, and there was a person in the class who decided it would be a good time to bring out an e-cigarette and start vaping,” Carl said. “It was one of the substitutes who everyone assumes is kind of ‘out of it’ all the time, and obviously he wasn’t out of it because he saw her.”

After the incident, the administration did get involved in disciplining those involved, though Carl does not know exactly who tipped them off or how they approached the situation. However, he does believe they acted swiftly and professionally in handling the consequences of violating a school policy.

“We are aware of their limited presence within the school during this school year,” Griffith said. “They are addressed on a one-to-one basis with the students involved, as required. At this time, they do not represent a significant issue or disruption for our school.”

Although Carl asserts the entire situation would never have happened if the classroom teacher had been present, he has seen other students vaping on school grounds elsewhere. Unfortunately, much of this activity occurs during lunch hours or when the attention of teachers is distracted elsewhere, making it difficult for teachers and administrators alike to discipline students.

“I’ve seen it happen in PE class before,” Carl said. “Everyone’s just so spread out during PE that the coach can’t keep his eye on everyone the whole time.”

Carl’s experience remains an isolated incident among the student body. In fact, many are even unaware of the activity on school grounds. However, his observations do demonstrate the increasing presence of e-cigarettes at Ladue. He personally believes that majority of frequent e-cigarette users generally hold themselves above the school’s policies.

“The person who vapes at school usually thinks that they’re cool, like breathing the vapor into their sleeve or blowing it into a water bottle,” Carl said. “They try to be discreet. I remember that when [our teacher] found out about it and told everybody, people were asking in the hall. They had no clue what was going on, saying ‘What happened? What was that all about?’ So I do believe that they go relatively unnoticed.”

Simply because of the nature of e-cigarette’s vapor, which has a less distinct smell and appearance than the smoke from tobacco products, the devices are more difficult to detect for school administration. Nevertheless, the administration is working hard to enforce and revise policies in order to effectively address the issue.

“Clearly, regardless of whether it is termed a ‘look-alike’ or ‘nuisance’ product, it would be disruptive to the classroom and school environment for a teacher or an administrator to take time to ascertain the substance being vaporized by the electronic cigarette,” Grana said. “As with any student behavioral issue, we encourage teachers to report information directly to an administrator. Administrators will investigate and determine an appropriate course of action based upon school and district policy.”