Teen vaping — About 10% of Weston County students vape, facing ‘laughable’ fine
Since fall 2021 students who enter bathrooms at Newcastle High School to try to covertly vape risk getting caught when they set off vape sensor alerts, NHS Principal Bryce Hoffman told the News Letter Journal. When a student exhales enough vapor, the sensors send an alert — kind of like a fire alarm — that signals the camera outside of the bathroom area to identify who entered and left the bathroom before and after the detector was triggered.
While the sensors aren’t perfect, they make it more challenging for students to get away with vaping at school, according to Hoffman. The school added sensors in the vocational building in fall 2022, he said. Teachers have also caught other students either when they were vaping or just after they vaped, trying to hide the fact that they did it, Hoffman said.
Under Wyoming state law, anyone under the age of 21 whom police find to be in possession of a nicotine product faces a misdemeanor punishable by a $25 fine, which can be worked off at a rate of $10 per hour spent in a tobacco or nicotine cessation program or performing community service, at the court’s discretion. Six months after the conviction, assuming the fine is paid for, the conviction is erased.
That’s little more than a slap on the wrist, according to Hoffman.
“The fine used to be higher and came with the student having to participate in a probation program,” he said. “The $25 fine seems laughable to the kids and does not deter them from vaping. I don’t know who is in control of those fine rates, but I’d be in favor of seeing the rates at a level that actually deterred behavior.“
Kristi Lipp, Weston County’s certified prevention specialist, said the fine is set by state statute, but local officials, in a process that requires support from a court, can make the penalty more strict.
Vaping’s extent, impact
Hoffman said 22 students — or about 10% of the student body, which had an average daily membership of approximately 220 — were caught vaping nicotine on school grounds in the 2023-24 school year. That rate dropped to 3% of the student body this year.
“I am grateful this year was better than previous,” he said.
Newcastle Middle School Principal Tyler Bartlett told the NLJ that it can be challenging to determine how accurate the survey response rate is because vaping is illegal and most students avoid telling staff about it.
“The survey responses don’t match the number of incidents that we’ve known about here over the past couple years, but I don’t know what exactly that means for our students,” he said.
He told the NLJ that he doesn’t know whether the numbers are greater or less than the assessment indicated.
“Truthfully hard to tell,” he said. “We did not have a single incident of a vape at school this past year at the middle school.”
Lipp said use rates have begun to trickle down, but vapes (also known as electronic nicotine delivery systems or e-cigarettes) remain a threat. These products create an aerosolized liquid — which is often flavored — that the user inhales, which may contain nicotine, THC products, herbs, waxes and oils.
“Nicotine is not only highly addictive, but using nicotine in adolescence can harm the parts of the brain that control attention, learning, mood and impulse control,” Lipp said. “Even vapes that claim to be nicotine-free contain trace amounts of nicotine. When the vaping liquid heats, more toxic chemicals are formed.”
Research has found that the products contain chemicals that have been linked to lung disease and cancer and heavy metals, such as nickel, tin and lead, according to Lipp. Vapes also contain toxic chemicals used in antifreeze, volatile organic compounds and ultrafine particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs, research has suggested. The products are promoted in retail stores and on social media and TV, she said.
“They appeal to youth because kid-friendly candy and food-flavored products resembling toys, food or cartoon characters are used to market them,” Lipp said.
Community efforts
Hoffman said students learn the harmful effects of vaping in health class and in a 307 Teen Challenge session, but acknowledged he isn’t sure how successful those prevention efforts have been.
The NHS principal said he believes the vaping rate is more dependent upon the groups of students at NHS. He also agreed with Lipp’s assertion that flavor enhancers and smells target kids.
Lipp said health class isn’t a sufficient prevention method and that the community would experience better results if everyone became informed about nicotine products and what resources can help people who are ready to quit.
She said 21 Wellness Coalition, a Weston County collaboration of organizations that aim to promote community health and streamline community members’ access to services they need, educates students at both Weston County school districts about vaping and nicotine
“The challenge with gauging success in prevention efforts is that change doesn’t happen overnight and it often takes years for us to see the data change,” Lipp said.
“It takes a village” to protect children from the community health issue of nicotine use and addiction, according to Lipp.
“Nicotine companies spend billions of dollars targeting our kids and convincing them to be their next lifelong nicotine users,” she said. “It’s very similar to how the tobacco companies targeted kids in the past with marketing strategies like Joe Camel. This makes it an uphill battle to educate kids about the dangers of vaping.”
Hoffman said that he believes vaping isn’t a good habit, but a lack of long-term studies means it’s impossible to know for sure how harmful vaping is to students.
“I encourage parents to talk to their children about vaping and to discourage their children from doing so,” he said. “There is so much unknown.”
Lipp said community members who want to help prevent and end vaping can learn the dangers of vaping using resources, such as Operation Parent’s “The Parent Handbook” – which any adult can learn from. Such resources are available through the 21 Wellness Coalition’s website, 21wellnesscoalition.org. Lipp said that the Wyoming Community Prevention Grant and the Centers for Disease Control’s Drug Free Communities grant, which fund the coalition, each have “a dedicated focus on addressing underage vaping.”
Lipp said that the organization’s focus is informing parents, caregivers and other adults in the community about the dangers of nicotine use for young people and helping adults talk with young people about it. The organization also helps youth and adults who are ready to quit to obtain cessation aid.
People can contact the organization or Lipp to receive an elementary school version or middle school/high school version of the book, which includes information that can help adults have effective conversations about vaping and other drug use.
Bartlett said NMS is working with Lipp and 21 Wellness Coalition on drug and alcohol awareness and seeks to have open, informative discussions during advisory and health class about how students can make good choices.
“We are always concerned about the health and safety of our students, whether it’s vaping or any other harmful threat that they might encounter,” Bartlett said.
The school has shared the middle school/high school version of the “Parent Handbook” with interested families. More copies are available at the school’s office, he said. The school is both supporting teenagers and open to ideas on how to help them, according to Bartlett.
“Helping teenagers become the best versions of themselves still takes a village — just like it has for centuries,” Bartlett said. “I’d encourage everyone who cares about young people to check on them, have open and honest conversations with them, and work together to help them navigate all the different issues they encounter through this challenging time in their lives.”
Clark Coberly, Weston County School District No. 7’s superintendent, told the NLJ that there were “a couple of cases early on” in the 2024-25 school year of school-related vaping, but less than in the previous two school years. He said the district has various ways to catch students vaping and has “allocated some resources to help us monitor potential vaping use.”
He also said the district is teaching students about the dangers of vaping in health class. According to Coberly, helping children make healthy choices includes doing everything possible to reduce vaping.
“If they make poor choices and we catch them, they’re into it, but we don’t go just kind of doggedly look for kids to make mistakes, but when it does happen at the school, we’re going to crack down on it,” he said. “We trust kids to do the right thing, but, at times, they’re going to make poor choices.”
He said that he believes he knows more adults than kids who vape, and he believes that is contributing to the problem.
“It’s poor role modeling for the youth in our community,” he said. “I think we all have an obligation to help support a safe and healthy community and learning environments for our students.”
Weston County by the numbers
When they took the 2024 Wyoming Prevention Needs Assessment, many students reported vaping. According to the 2024 assessment figures, in Weston County, 6.43% of sixth graders had vaped in the past 30 days, up from the 3.19% in 2022; 14.77% of eighth graders reported vaping in the past 30 days, down from 16.39% in 2022; and 18.52% of sophomores reported vaping in the past month, down from 21.91% in 2022.
There was one significant victory to celebrate in the data. In 2024, 3.94% of seniors reported past-month vaping, a big drop from 24.51% in 2022 — and well below the state level that year for that class.
Overall, in the month before taking the 2024 assessment, 11.48% of students in sixth and eighth grades and 11% of students who were sophomores or seniors reported vaping.
Across the state, in 2024, 19.05% of seniors, 15.23% of sophomores, 6.61% of eighth graders and 3.2% of sixth graders reported that they had vaped in the past month. In 2022, 28.12% of seniors, 21.12% of sophomores, 10.05% of eighth graders and 4.44% of sixth graders reported vaping in the past 30 days.
The assessment, administered to students in grades six, eight, 10 and 12, is sponsored by the Wyoming Department of Health and conducted by the University of Wyoming’s Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center.