MCHS Security Guard, Asusena Gonzalez, walks by the second floor bathroom and smells an unusual scent of cotton candy. Gonzalez walks in to check if everything is up to par, but finds smoke spewing out of the handicap stall. Two students are vaping in the stall with the door locked.
Vaping in high schools has been an ongoing issue for most high schools in America. Students typically are in the bathroom when they vape, as it gives privacy, so they can go undetected. Most schools have tried to avoid this by having security stand outside bathrooms and having vape specialized smoke detectors put in.
Vaping is terrible for not only the user’s body, but also others surrounding them because of second-hand smoke. People can inhale the fine particles in vape aerosol containing nicotine and toxic substances, which may have health risks. In general, those who vape are more susceptible to mental health issues.
“I feel,” Gonzalez says, “the crackdown on hall passes has incredibly impacted the amount of students vaping in the bathroom.”
According to FDA.gov, there was a decrease from 2.13 million, or 7.7%, of youth vaping in 2023 to 1.63 million, or 5.9%, of youth vaping in 2024. This decline was largely driven by reduced e-cigarette use among high schoolers going from 1.56 million to 1.21 million.
According to FDA.gov, “The number of youth who used e-cigarettes in 2024 is approximately one-third of what it was at its peak in 2019, when over five million youth reported current e-cigarette use.”
MCHS dean, Jordan Deener, believes vaping has decreased in MCHS compared to last year. The security staff, along with the deans, would stand by the bathrooms known for vaping, limiting the amount of students with access to the bathroom at one time.
“In the past, we’ve installed vape detectors that could differentiate between nicotine and THC. They would go off frequently, and they were accurate,” said Deener, “but it’s also a hard problem to constantly chase around, so we’ve tried deterrents, and we’re looking at more deterrents to keep kids from doing it, but it’s just a hard problem to solve.”
In the 2022-2023 school year, there were 69 drug policy violations in MCHS. In the 2023-2024 school year there were 47 violations, showing a decrease in usage among teens.
Deener along with the security team feel proud of themselves for helping several students with their addiction. Vaping kills and the students who vape understand that, now that they have been educated on the issue.
Security can walk by the bathrooms without smelling unusual scents and spewing smoke. They feel as if they saved many lives.