Foothills School Division has snuffed out any loopholes for vaping on any of its properties.
Vaping – the use of e-cigarettes — has joined tobacco, chewing tobacco and other smoking products on the division’s forbidden list at Foothills schools during an adjustment to administrative procedures at its school board meeting on May 4.
Although it’s now officially on the list, vaping has not ever been allowed at Foothills Composite School and Black Diamond’s Oilfields High School.
“We have kids that vape and we have caught a few who have tried vaping in the school,” said Scott Carey, principal of the Grade 7-12 Oilfields. “The policy is good because it gives consistency to what is already in practice.
“I always talk about time and place with the students before we get into whether they can or cannot vape.
“This isn’t the time or place to vape, it’s not the time or place to have a cigarette, it’s not the time or place to have liquor…
“That’s the way I look it. The new policy gives us consistency to do what we are doing.”
My.Health.Aberta.ca defines e-cigarettes as “battery-operated devices that have cartridges with liquid chemicals in them.
Heat from a battery powered atomizer turns the chemicals into a vapour that is inhaled by the user (called vaping). E-cigarettes look like regular cigarettes. There are other electronic smoking products that look like cigars and pipes.
Its website states: “Given that e-cigarettes don’t seem to create the 7,000 chemical (69 of which are known to cause cancer) found in cigarette smoke they are likely safer than smoking a regular cigarette; however, that doesn’t mean they are safe to use.”
At Foothills Comp, administration has taken the same approach as Oilfields - vaping has not ever been allowed on school property.
“It is a popular activity among our kids, but we have been treating vaping from Day 1 like a tobacco product,” said Foothills principal Vince Hunter. “Right from Day 1 our kids have been great about appreciating the fact it doesn’t happen inside or on school property. We were already doing it when they banned it.”
He said just like smoking they have caught the odd student vaping.
Students using tobacco products at the Comp must be off school property as a result many are using the “smoke pit,” which is just off school property.
“We do supervise it and get kids to keep it clean,” Hunter said. “The reason we allow it to exist is because in the past students would go stand out on the berm, which isn’t school property, but all the homes across the street would have to contend with that.
“We said you can stand behind the school where you are more out of sight and it is easier for us to maintain the cleanliness of it.”
The area is behind the school, edging closer to the Pason Centennial Arena.
Carey said attitudes towards vaping remind him of the old radio show he listens to while relaxing. The old advertisements promoting smoking as a way to relax – it being a healthy-life-style.
“It makes tobacco sound as if it is the healthiest thing in the world,” Carey said. “I tell the kids this (vaping) is new. Who knows what science is going to find 40 years from now, but any time you go out of your way to put super-charged chemicals in your body...”
He said punishment for smoking is based on the student’s activity or if he or she is a repeat offender.
“Is it the kid who is lighting a cigarette as he leaves the school or is the kid doing the ‘smoking in the boys room thing,’’’ Carey said.
Carey has suspended students for smoking cigarettes in the past.
Scott Morrison, Christ the Redeemer Catholic Schools superintendent of schools, said it does not have a divisional administrative procedure concerning vaping.
“But most schools are treating it like smoking, so it cannot be done on school property,” Morrison said.
That’s the case at Holy Trinity Academy.
Vapes are not allowed anywhere on school property,” said HTA principal Carmen Ostafichuk. “A couple a students have tried vaping, were caught, the vapes were confiscated and parents called.”
Tim Stobbs, Okotoks municipal enforcement manager, said at present there are no bylaws against vaping.
However, if there is a nicotine substance in the e-cigarettes it would fall under the Alberta Tobacco and Smoking Reduction act, which makes it illegal for anyone 18 to smoke the product.
