Vaping, e-cigarette use among students on rise in Kendall County area schools, nationally

In a recent national report, findings showed vape and e-cigarette use among U.S. youth remains high, nearly 2.5 million middle and high school students, and the Kendall County area is no exception.

Officer Brian Fasnacht is one of two school resource officers (SROs) with the Sandwich Police Department.

Fasnacht said one of the SROs walks through each of the seven schools in Sandwich School District 430 every day. He said more and more kids get caught with vape devices and e-cigarettes every year.

Fasnacht said he started to see the switch to vape around 2017, and it became more prevalent as the devices got smaller, cheaper and easier to conceal.

Fasnacht said students in Sandwich mainly use the cartridge or disposable vape devices, and 95% of the time it’s a fruit-flavored device.

“I can’t tell you the last time that I took a pack of cigarettes off someone,” Fasnacht said.

Fasnacht said SROs were seeing vapes used mostly on the bus and in the bathrooms. Recently, Sandwich High School and Middle School both installed devices in the bathrooms that detect vaping.

Fasnacht said, even as the FDA tightens restrictions, he has not seen vape use decreasing, and marijuana vape devices are being found much more often since its legalization in Illinois.

Fasnacht said to combat the underage sale of vape products, his department continuously does compliance checks at retailers, but most kids said they get them from an older sibling or friend.

When the school makes the SRO aware of a student in possession of a vape device, the device is confiscated, the SRO counsels and educates the student on the dangers and the student is issued a citation.

Jay Leonardi has been an SRO with the Aurora Police Department since 2021. The Aurora PD provides SRO officers for Oswego School District 308.

Leonardi said he has not seen the use of vape devices among students declining. He attributed the switch from cigarettes to the vape devices becoming easier to acquire and use in school without detection.

Officer Alejandro Lopez works for the Plano Police Department as the SRO for Plano School District 88.

Lopez said he sees more and more vape devices in Plano schools each year and has written about 15 tickets for vape devices since he started in January.

Students who receive tickets for vaping devices must appear at the police station within the month to plead their case and pay their fines should the citation be upheld. Lopez said the fine is $55 for nicotine vapes and $250 for vapes containing THC.

Plano schools also have installed vapor sensing devices in the bathrooms, and Lopez said they are set off four to five times a week.

“I know it’s a big problem,” Lopez said. “I hear lots of kids talk about it.”

Lopez said he hasn’t seen a student with a cigarette since he started, and the vape devices confiscated from students are almost always a “cute” color and flavor.

Cathy Nevara is the public information officer with the Oswego Police Department.

Nevara said in District 308, numerous vape devices have been found and confiscated by SROs at both Oswego East and Oswego high schools in recent years, but regular cigarette use is rarely seen.

“It is an issue that we continue to work with the schools in educating students on the dangers of smoking and vaping as well as providing enforcement,” Nevara said.

Nevara said SROs have heard from some students that they are easier to use and conceal because of the lack of odor.

These accounts from Kendall County seem to mirror a national trend.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration(FDA), in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), released federal data from the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) on vape and e-cigarette use among U.S. youth.

The findings, published in Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report, show that more than 2.5 million (9.4%) of the nation’s middle and high school students report current e-cigarette use.

The report states that, since 2014, vape devices and e-cigarettes have been the most commonly used tobacco product among U.S. middle and high school students. In 2022, 14.1% of high school students and 3.3% of middle school students reported they currently vape.

Dr. Blair Wright, a Sandwich resident and pediatrician with Northwestern Medicine, started working in Sandwich at Northwestern Medicine Valley West Hospital this fall and worked in a children’s hospital in Iowa City for the past three years and has a clinic that serves Kendall, DeKalb and Will counties.

Wright said she asks every patient if they smoke or vape, and the responses she hears reflect the national data in that about 10% to 20% of the teenagers she sees have used vape devices or e-cigarettes, but the frequency of use varies.

Wright said some patients vape every day and others only use their friends’ vapes at school or on the bus. She said most of them say they are getting the vape devices from an older friend or sibling, although some reported buying vape devices online.

In one instance, Wright said a patient who was only 9 years old reported that she had been using vape devices after seeing their older siblings partake.

Wright said when she asks her patients what the appeal of vaping is she often hears that they like the novelty of trying new flavors.

In January 2020, the FDA tightened restrictions on the vape industry, banning the sale and production of fruit and mint flavors, citing their marketability toward young people.

Wright said she has not seen much of a change since the restrictions.

“As far as my practice goes and what I’ve seen, I haven’t noticed a huge difference in how many kids are saying they do it,” Wright said. “I have noticed them being more comfortable talking about it. Now, no one really seems surprised that I’m asking.”

In her three years in pediatrics, Wright said she has not seen many young people who smoke traditional cigarettes. She said of all the patients who told her they vape, none reported starting to vape in order to quit smoking cigarettes.

According to the NYTS report, vape use decreased slightly among U.S. youth from 2019 to 2020 and again from 2020 to 2021.

Wright speculated that the decline was because of quarantines and lockdowns reducing social exposure, distancing many kids from their peer groups and reducing the availability of vapes for many kids.

Wright said many parents are concerned their kids are vaping, and opening a line of communication on vaping has been a major topic at the last two national pediatric conventions.

“Pediatricians all over are working towards this,” Wright said. “Adolescent medicine groups are doing a good job providing resources and training to pediatricians on how to help families and teenagers get the resources that they need if they’re struggling with addiction and to have good, open communication, even when they’re not.”

Wright said that nicotine by itself, doesn’t seem to have long-term cardiopulmonary or cancer risks.

“The risk that we’re worried about is nicotine dependence, which leads to an increase risk of using other nicotine products like tobacco,” Wright said.

Wright said vapor exposure is not as well studied, and the long-term risks are not yet known. She said early data suggests there may be a correlation between vaping and changes in airway function such as with asthma, but the health risks of vaping are suspected to be less than smoking.

On the mental health side, Wright said among her patients who are trying to quit vaping, some reported feeling isolated from their friends, feeling shameful telling their parents and had lowered self-esteem.