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Trained Dogs, High-Tech Sensors: Inside the Fight Against School Vaping

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Trained Dogs, High-Tech Sensors: Inside the Fight Against School Vaping

Teen vaping is a concern for schools and health officials; ‘We need to do something’



Samba the yellow Labrador had 160 hours of training to learn to detect nicotine and THC.


By Talal Ansari, WSJ

March 6, 2024 7:30 am ET


A Florida county has found a new way to fight teen vaping: A nearly 2-year-old yellow Labrador named Samba.


Samba underwent 160 hours of training to learn to detect nicotine and THC, the main psychoactive component in marijuana. The sheriff’s office in Lake County, Fla., about 30 miles northwest of Orlando, got the dog late last year to combat a rise in vaping at nearby schools.


Samba began working in county schools this week. On her first deployment, Samba found two vape devices, one with THC and the other with nicotine, according to Erica Stamborski, the dog’s handler.


Some school districts are getting creative in fighting teen vaping, employing tactics such as school-bathroom sensors and stiff one-strike penalties. Though federal data show e-cigarette use dropped slightly among high-schoolers last year, teen vaping remains a serious concern among public-health officials, who say it can be highly addictive and can affect adolescent brain development.


Erica Stamborski and Samba.


E-cigarettes, commonly referred to as vapes, e-cigs or vape pens, are electronic devices that are similar to traditional cigarettes. The devices make smoke from pods that contain nicotine or marijuana, and come in flavors such as apple or strawberry watermelon. The e-cigarettes themselves often look like pens but can take many forms, including something resembling a flash drive.


Mesa Public Schools, the largest school district in Arizona, decided to go high-tech, installing vape sensors that work with cameras outside bathrooms to identify students who were vaping. When the school installed sensors in two high-school bathrooms last September as a pilot, they went off approximately 15 times each day, according to Allen Moore, the district’s safety and security director.


Moore said about five students were caught a day, and about half were using vaping devices that contained THC.


“It is definitely a growing trend that is quite concerning,” Moore said. He added: “The kids are telling us, along with the administrators, that the vaping in the bathrooms is getting out of control, and we need to do something.” The district plans to install the sensors in all of its middle and high schools.


In the U.S., e-cigarettes have been the most commonly used tobacco product in high schools and middle schools for 10 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Youth use of nicotine vaping products became a public-health crisis in the U.S. in 2018, when Juul e-cigarettes were a teen status symbol. Since then, nicotine vaping has dropped sharply among young people: In a federal survey last year, 10% of high-school students said they had used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days, compared with 20.8% in 2018.


Brian King, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products, has said there’s still more work to be done despite recent declines.


Meanwhile, marijuana vaping has climbed among teens. According to a different federally funded survey, 19.6% of 12th-graders in 2023 said they had vaped marijuana in the past year, compared with 13.1% in 2018.


Public-health officials warn that teen nicotine exposure can harm brain development and affect learning, memory and attention.


Triton Sensors, a company that specializes in vape detection, said it has installed its sensors, which start at $749, in over 700 schools and districts in all 50 states. Another manufacturer, Zeptive, whose sensors start at around $1,000, says it has sold thousands of them to schools, workplaces and resorts globally.


Triton Sensors was founded four years ago by two brothers, Lance and Garrison Parthemore, and their friend while the three were still in high school. Lance Parthemore said e-cigarette use was rampant at their school.


“I think some of the people I went to high school with are on very different paths now because of their nicotine addictions,” Parthemore said. “Some of my friends who were in honors and AP-level classes my freshman and sophomore year kind of stopped trying when they picked up those bad habits.”


The FDA, which regulates tobacco products, in February 2020 banned the sale of fruit-flavored e-cigarette refill cartridges—though such flavors have since proliferated in the U.S. market in single-use devices. Congress raised the federal minimum age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21.


Federal and public-health officials have warned that teen nicotine exposure can harm brain development and affect learning, memory and attention. They also say vaping can increase the risk of addiction to other drugs.


Ashley Merianos, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati who studies addiction and tobacco, said there are significant risks with teens using e-cigarette products.

“There is mounting evidence that vaping among teens can lead to nicotine addiction during this critical developmental period and follow them into adulthood,” Merianos said.

Wallace B. Jefferson Middle School in San Antonio.


Texas lawmakers took a strict approach to teen vaping, passing a law last September that temporarily places any student found vaping or using marijuana in an alternative disciplinary education program.


Some school officials said it was too harsh a punishment for students who otherwise obeyed the rules.


Katherine Lyssy, a director of student advocacy at the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, worried the alternative school program would be overloaded because so many students were vaping.


Leticia Rodriguez, a teacher at the Second Chance Academy.


“A lot of these kids were really good kids who had never been in trouble, who were genuinely pretty ignorant about it or just kind of following the crowd and were trying to be cool,” Lyssy said.


She created Second Chance Academy, a shorter program designed for students who commit an offense for the first time. About 300 middle-schoolers and 150 high-schoolers are in the program, Lyssy said.


Leticia Rodriguez, a teacher at the Second Chance Academy who has over a decade of experience teaching students who have disciplinary issues, said the middle-schoolers have been receptive to the program.


Monica Cabico, the principal of Wallace B. Jefferson Middle School in San Antonio, said vaping has declined slightly on her campus in the past few years but remains one of her top concerns. Many students caught vaping haven’t had many other disciplinary issues, she said.


“We’re hoping this is a one-time thing and that students are able to get the support that they need,” Cabico said.


Moore, the school safety and security director in Arizona, said he similarly hoped to avoid punishing students more than was necessary.


“I would love nothing more than after we get all these installed, if we never caught anybody,” Moore said. “And what I mean by that is if we eliminate the problem, that’s really our goal. Our goal is not to catch the kids.”

Write to Talal Ansari at talal.ansari@wsj.com


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