Sydney youth warned life of gang crime starts with vaping in toilets

The life of a gangster starts with vaping in the toilets— or that’s what a southwestern Sydney school student has claimed in an impassioned speech to peers.

A tiny toke on a vape in the school dunnies is a slippery slope to a lifetime of gangster drug crime, a student from one of Sydney’s biggest Islamic schools has warned.

The Malek Fahd student decried the practice during a sermon at Friday prayers last month while also expressing dismay about school students laughing while watching graphic beheading videos online.

It comes after scores of Sydney criminals, many of whom are Middle Eastern, have been gunned down in the past year amid spiralling gang wars — something the unnamed student wanted to address.

“We hear Muslims killing Muslims,” the student from the school in Greenacre said.

“There are three actions which the current generation did in their youth which have caused their future destruction and the first one is acting like a gang member and normalising drugs.”

Students were given the stark warning last month.

“I mean the current drug traders weren’t smoking the worst drugs all their lives. It began with something small like a vape.

“Brothers who hide in the bathroom smoking vape are thinking that their popularity is being lifted, and increased because they can please the Shaitan (evil spirits) and this is something that is seen as praiseworthy.

“So what we perceive as a minor action in vaping and normalising drugs … it will develop into something worse and have enormous consequences in future generations.”

The unnamed student also said openly watching violent videos was also likely to lead to a life of crime.

“We see youth openly watching brutal videos because somehow people find pleasure in watching people become decapitated, in being tortured,” he said.

“I’ve seen this myself … I have seen some boys watching some of these videos and finding it funny. They actually find it entertaining, it makes you question their psychological state, because how can one be so desensitised to something that is so disturbing?”

Vaping is increasing in NSW schools, with police reporting primary school aged kids in the Campbelltown reason are also vaping.

Vaping has surged in popularity in the past four years alone among adults, with 468,000 admitting to puffing away on one in the past year, compared to just 72,000 in June 2018.

The NSW Population Health Survey estimates one in 10 young people aged 16 to 24 are now vapers, a figure which has doubled in the past two years. Things aren’t much better in schools, with police in the Campbelltown district saying primary school kids are also vaping.

Meanwhile The Department of Education has seen a 771 per cent increase in reports of vaping to its incident support hotline.

Malek Fahd Islamic School. Picture: James Gourley

In response to questions about vaping, Malek Fahd Islamic College principal Zachariah Matthews said the school proactively addressed behaviour matters appropriately within our School community.

“Malek Fahd Islamic School manages student behaviour using a positive, strengths-based, relational, and transformative approach,” he said.

“As an Islamic School, this approach is faith informed and guided by values such as compassion, care, fairness, and respect.”