Aggressive marketing and evolving technology has left schools battling a vaping "epidemic", but one school has installed high-tech hidden detectors to help pupils break the habit. Columba College principal Pauline Duthie said the school installed hidden detectors in bathrooms after rising concerns about pupils inhaling addictive nicotine in a propylene glycol/vegetable glycerin mist. The school had been dealing with the issue for years, but there had been no vaping incidents at school since the detectors were installed during the most recent school holidays. Otago Girls' High School principal Bridget Davidson said schools had been left on their own to invent a response to the vaping "epidemic". Steps that would make a difference would be to disallow window displays of vaping products, regulate social media advertising, restrict sales of vaping products to R18 specialist vaping stores and make the product packaging less appealing.

Source: New Zealand Herald June 18, 2022 05:58 UTC