JUUL’s nicotine e-cigarettes were a major consideration during the Tuesday, April 12, meeting of the Greenbrier County Board of Education.
Board vice president Mary Humphreys moved to approve a resolution declaring JUUL’s e-cigarettes a “public nuisance” for the students and schools. The board unanimously approved it after being presented with information in executive session.
“We’re very, very concerned in Greenbrier County by what is going on with the vaping situation with our students,” said board president Jeanie Wyatt. “We’re joining many, many counties in the state of West Virginia. Hopefully all 55 counties will get behind this. I don’t know if [the public] realizes what we’ve been dealing with in the situation in our schools and being disrupted. It’s very scary. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some help with this, educate our students, and fight this epidemic that’s occurring in our schools.”
As explained by the Centers for Disease Control, “e-cigarettes are electronic devices that heat a liquid and produce an aerosol, or mix of small particles in the air. … The use of e-cigarettes is unsafe for kids, teens, and young adults. Most e-cigarettes contain nicotine. Nicotine is highly addictive and can harm adolescent brain development, which continues into the early to mid-20s. E-cigarettes can contain other harmful substances besides nicotine.”
JUUL is a major manufacturer of e-cigarettes and has come under recent scrutiny for its marketing practices.
“Greenbrier County School board has received information that indicates that JUUL has violated federal laws and regulations by engaging in deceitful practices in designing and promoting products geared toward teen and adolescent users,” reads the resolution. “Upon information and belief, JUUL has engaged in deceitful practices in designing and promoting its products so that they are attractive to children. Everything about the product’s design, from its size and appearance, the unique nicotine and flavor chemical formulation, and aggressive social media promotion, have been directed to teens and adolescent users. JUUL’s conduct has exposed a new generation of children to record levels of nicotine addiction. Local communities are being impacted and incur a multitude of costs in order to address and prevent the youth vaping epidemic. The Greenbrier County school board is now faced with the challenge of how to remedy the situation.”
This declaration acknowledges the school board’s costs in creating prevention programs for local students. This is to combat the current demand for these products, allegedly fueled by marketing the company itself created.
“The Greenbrier County school board has expended, is expending, and will expend in the future, county public funds to respond to the serious public health and safety crisis involving nicotine abuse addiction and morbidity in Greenbrier County,” reads the resolution.
According to the resolution, vape use has dramatic increased in several ways between 2017 and 2019:
– E-cigarette use by high school students doubled from 11.7 percent to 27.5 percent.
– There are 5.2 million kids that used e-cigarettes in 2019, an increase of over three million in just two years.
– Nearly more than one in three, 35.7 percent, of West Virginia high school students report current use of electronic vaping products, a 150 percent increase.
– Over 60 percent of West Virginia high school students, 62.4 percent, reported having tried electronic vapor products, up from 44.4 percent.
– Many of the students noting frequent use of vaping products, over 20 days a month, increased from 3.1 percent to 16.7 percent.
Wyatt also noted “so many of our students are buying these locally and they’re underage. Every time we have [a vape pen] involved in an expulsion hearing, we ask the child where they got it. It’s a very sad thing, and our police are doing the best they can to try to stop it, but it’s more like candy to those students than something they think is going to harm them.”
The declaration also comes on the heels of the Greenbrier County Commission entering a lawsuit against the vaping manufacturer JUUL. In November 2021, attorney Rusty Webb of the Webb Law Centre in Charleston approached the Greenbrier County Commission with a request the declaration be made and for the county to join in a lawsuit against the manufactures of the nicotine-based vape pens.
“You all are part of the opioid case – I know that because I represent the 45 counties and cities in West Virginia and I meet regularly with your attorneys,” said Webb. “This JUUL lawsuit is taking the exact same theory that we’re using the opioid cases, public nuisance, and applying it to the [second] epidemic that is now vaping in West Virginia, primarily with teenagers and young adults. What we’re going to do is apply the same law that we’re applying in the opioid cases to sue JUUL, which has been done around the country, primarily by boards of education.”
To read more about the county’s lawsuit, see “JUUL’s Nicotine-Based E-cigarettes Declared A Public Nuisance In Greenbrier” at wvdn.com/23054/.
In other business:
– An audit report was approved by the board. Chief School Business Official David McClure noted the results show no incidents of noncompliance and that the school system was a “low risk auditee.”
– A right-of-way for the new turning lane in front of Lewisburg Elementary School was granted to the West Virginia Division of Highways.
– A new social studies book was approved for elementary school students.
– New policies will be available for comment for 30 days on greenbriercountyschools.org.
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