Victorian schools install vape detectors to stamp out illegal craze

Desperate Victorian schools are going to new lengths to stamp out illegal vaping, installing sensors to nab young students.

Victorian schools are installing vape detectors to stamp out the illegal craze.

Andrew Wilmot from Cloudifi said six Melbourne schools had recently installed Verkada environmental sensors to detect vaping in toilets.

It comes after the Herald Sun last month revealed children as young as 12 are brazenly buying black market vaping products because of a legal loophole.

“Their environmental sensor detects temperature, heat particulate matters and volatile organic compounds, which is one of the things that is in vape smoke,” Mr Wilmot told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“There are also cameras at the exits of the bathrooms so they can identify who is coming and going from the bathroom — obviously you can’t install camera in the bathrooms but you can see who is going in and out while the vaping sensor is going off.”

He said several schools had contacted the company in the past month for a quote.

“The sensors are installed mostly in private schools but we’ve received a lot of inquiries from government schools who are planning to include them in this financial year’s budget.

“The sensors are a good preventive measure and schools have a duty of care to the students to make sure they aren’t exposed to nicotine.”

A price list for illegal vaping products.

Illegal vaping products. Picture: Alex Coppel

It is illegal under state law for anyone to sell or supply nicotine-containing e-cigarettes, but individuals are able to import up to three months’ supply for their personal use with a prescription.

Quit Victoria director Dr Sarah White said vaping was known to cause local irritation and damage through the respiratory tract due to an accumulation of exposure to the chemicals including nicotine, which can cause long-term effects of the cardiovascular system.

“I think schools will increasingly consider installing things like this because they can’t shut down the retailers doing the wrong thing,” Dr White said.

An Education Department spokeswoman said smoking and vaping was banned in all educational facilities in Victoria including schools within 4m of any entrance.

“Schools are legally required to display ‘No Smoking’ signs at all entrances,” she said.

IMPACT OF VAPING ON TEENS STILL NOT CLEAR

Researchers fear they don’t yet understand vaping and e-cigarettes’ impacts on young people, as the products spike in popularity among teens across Australia without enough medical data to track their effects.

A new study from Monash University’s School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine monitored more than 500 people’s smoking and breathing habits, uncovering higher rates of asthma symptoms and irregular breathing patterns in those who smoked e-cigarettes.

While the sample tracked breathing patterns of over 18s, Professor of clinical epidemiology. at Monash University Michael Abramson said younger people in the sample were more likely to have vaped or smoked an e-cigarette.

Prof Abramson said the trend was “a great concern” because the popular nicotine products were so new compared to cigarettes and tobacco, so the long-term impacts were not yet fully understood.

“The use of electronic cigarettes and vaping is going up, particularly in young people,” Prof Ambramson said.

“Young people like trying risky things, and we don’t yet know what the consequences of this will be,” he said.

“These products have not been on the market anywhere near as long.”

People who smoke e-cigarettes and vapes were found to ahve accelerated tightness of the chest, a sign of aging and asthma.

Recent data from the Cancer Council found a 52 per cent drop in the number of people who smoke tobacco products between 1995 and 2019, but the popularity of vaping was on the rise.

The Alcohol and Drug Foundation reported the number of people who had tried vaping rose from nine per cent to 11 per cent between 2016 and 2019.

Prof Abramson said another concern out of the study was how people who smoked e-cigarettes and vapes had accelerated tightness of the chest, a sign of aging and asthma.

“The lungs become less stretchy as people age, so maybe it accelerates ageing,” Prof Ambramson said.

“We found the lungs to be less stretchy, and that that clearly needs to be followed up.”

The findings come after the Herald Sun revealed stores across Melbourne were illegally selling nicotine vapes to teenagers and young people over the counter.

Prof Abramson said the investigation pinpointed how the products remained largely unregulated while people of all ages lacked understanding of what they were ingesting, much like before cigarettes were regulated.

“People who take up smoking tobacco in their teenage years and never achieve the maximum predicted lung function,” Prof Abramson said.

“Somehow this whole thing has slipped under the radar.

“It just appears to be like the Wild West all over again.”

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