Vaping Becomes Major Concern at Oxford High School

Photo credit Lindsay Fox at EcigaretteReviewed.com.

Oxford School District officials are concerned as more high school students are vaping e-cigarettes than ever before. Their biggest fear: Students, as well as parents, don’t know about the health risks.

“We really want parents to be aware that there are dangers associated with [vaping],” Superintendent Brian Harvey said in a board meeting Thursday night. “It is not just free of risk. It’s an issue that we’re dealing with at the schools every day.”
Bradley Roberson, the principal of Oxford High School, said e-cigarettes used to be easy to identify, but now there are so many brands and styles that several are hard to spot.
“I confiscated one just the other day that looked like one of those little phone chargers,” Roberson said. “I wouldn’t have even known that it was a vape.”
Roberson said he plans to raise awareness by printing a story in the weekly Oxford Charger.
While nicotine is banned from OSD campuses, Roberson said he’s most concerned with the e-cigarettes that do not contain nicotine.
“That’s the ones that kids think are not dangerous,” he said, “when, in all actuality, they are. It does still cause damage to your lungs, just not in the same respect as nicotine.”
Suzanne Parker, an Oxford Intermediate School Information & Communication Technology teacher, said raising awareness of the dangers of vaping is priority number one for the district.
Roberson added, “It’s something that we really need to get under control as fast as we possibly can.”

By Randall Haley, associate editor of HottyToddy.com. She can be reached at randall.haley@hottytoddy.com.