E-cigarette use among minors is on the rise according to the 2018 Arizona Youth Survey, a trend that Fountain Hills is not immune to.

While Fountain Hills High School Principal Cain Jagodzinski and Fountain Hills Middle School Principal James Carrick agree that e-cigarette use is not as prevalent among local teens as it is in other areas of the Valley, they also agree that its use is still growing within the community.

This year’s Youth Survey, which can be found at azcjc.gov, asked Arizona students to weigh in on a wide array of topics including everything from gang involvement and exposure to violence to dangerous driving and use of illegal substances. The survey is anonymous and this year was administered to 48,000 students from 245 schools. Participating students were from the eighth, 10th and 12th grade.

The survey is conducted by the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission, as well as the Arizona State University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Vaping

The big takeaway from this year’s Youth Survey is that cigarette use among minors is down, but e-cigarette use, or vaping, is on the rise in a big way.

Vape pens, perhaps best described as looking like futuristic cigars used to smoke a vapor that frequently contains nicotine and comes in a variety of flavors, have started popping up more frequently on Arizona school campuses. Making matters trickier for policing their use is the fact that e-cigarettes are now designed to look like everyday items a student might normally have, such as a thumb drive or pencil sharpener. Some vape products are even smokeless, making detection on campus more difficult.

Based on the most recent Arizona Youth Survey, nearly 20 percent of students reported having used an e-cigarette within the past month. Looking specifically at high school seniors, e-cigarette use climbed nearly 10 percent in the past two years, with 17.6 percent claiming they had used a device “within the past 30 days” in 2016 and 26.1 confirming use in 2018.

By comparison, only 4.8 percent of students surveyed stated they had smoked a traditional cigarette within the past 30 days.

Jagodzinski said that there has been a rise in vaping on the high school campus since last April, though he noted that other Arizona schools seem to “have more issues with it.”

Carrick agreed.

“Vaping is a major issue for all schools and it is one of the biggest concerns I have as a principal,” Carrick said. “In the first five months at FHMS, we have less than 10 incidents of vaping and/or possession of campus.

“I am not naïve; I am sure that more students are experimenting with vaping than we have identified.”

Carrick said he does not believe vaping is as prevalent in Fountain Hills as in other parts of the Valley, citing recent town ordinances banning smoking (including e-cigarettes) in public parks and work by the Fountain Hills Youth Substance Abuse Coalition as having a measurable impact.

“Efforts by the Legislature and Congress to curb the marketing of these products to minors are crucial to reducing use,” Carrick continued. “Eliminating ‘flavored’ juice will likely decrease ‘new’ use, but it may be too late for those that already started and have become addicted.”

Jagodzinski echoed that sentiment, saying habits that have already been formed may be hard for teens to break.

“Our hope is that our partnership with the Fountain Hills Coalition and our Above That Club on campus will help students stay clear of these items and quit if they have begun using them,” he said.

Concerning disciplinary action for students using vape pens, Jagodzinski said that the parent/student handbook is very clear about short-term suspension, on up to an expulsion hearing, being possible outcomes depending on using/having the devices on campus.

“Since the vaping device itself can be used with both nicotine and certain drugs, the device…can be viewed as drug paraphernalia,” Jagodzinski said.

Other findings

Substance abuse is one of the key areas schools look at when digging into the results of the Arizona Youth Survey.

While vaping has seen a spike and cigarettes have seen a decline over the past two years, other areas seem to be holding steady.

Marijuana use, for instance, hasn’t really budged. However, that should not be mistaken as a positive sign, as its numbers are already rather high.

According to this year’s survey, about 30 percent of students said they have used marijuana at some point within their lifetime, with about half that number having used within the past month.

Alcohol use is another area that has not seen much movement in recent years, but still boasts high numbers.

From those students surveyed, about 45 percent said they had used alcohol at some point in their life, with about 20 percent having consumed alcohol within the past month. A silver lining, though, is that the 30.8 percent of high school seniors reporting they had consumed alcohol in the past month was down nearly 10 percent from 39.3 in 2014.

Moving to harder drugs, numbers are decidedly low for cocaine, meth and heroin use, with 3 percent, 0.8 percent and 0.5 percent of students, respectively, claiming they had used these substances at some point in their lifetime. Use of prescription-grade pain relievers are a greater concern, with 9 percent of students saying they have taken the likes of Vicodin or OxyContin without a prescription at some point in their lifetime.

Jagodzinski said the work needs to continue, highlighting the local Coalition – with representatives from the Town, Fort McDowell, law enforcement, the faith community, concerned citizens and more – as being a major factor.

“They have been instrumental in keeping our children educated and informed while working tirelessly to keep drugs and alcohol out of the hands of young people in our community,” he said.

Carrick agreed that prevention is a community effort, but one that starts at home.

“The most effective method for curbing underage use of these devices is, and has always been, parental involvement,” Carrick said, highlighting conversations about the dangers of substance abuse and providing strategies for children to deal with peer pressure as positive examples.