AHS focuses on educating parents on risks of vaping

Many of whom, Michelle Sauve, with Addiction and Mental Health Services of Alberta Health Services, says don’t understand the risks are involved.

“In the early days of electronic cigarettes, it was thought that they were harmless vaping devices, water vapour. And we know that’s just not the case. There are many harmful chemicals in the devices,” she continued. “It’s different for every child, but we do know that they’re the target. These companies are seeking them out and in the early days were using social media to find their users.”

With stories of people falling ill and even dying across North America, it has parents concerned for the health of their children.

“As a parent, one of my children smokes and now they vape. And myself, I didn’t feel that it was any healthier or safer to be vaping than smoking,” said one mom at AHS’s lasted vaping information session.

AHS is hopeful that more parents will get out and learn more about vaping to make sure that their kids have all the facts.

“We know that as kids transition through transitional points in their lives, like elementary school to middle school and middle school to high school, those are points in their lives where they might be vulnerable to peer pressure,” said Sauve. “And so making sure their children are armed with refusal skills and the confidence to be able to navigate their world successfully will help them to maybe avoid some of those substances throughout their school years.”

Sauve is also hopeful that more people stop using the term ‘vape’ and instead use ‘e-cigarette.’

“We believe that the term vaping sort of makes it sound a little bit harmless. Maybe even fun when it’s used as a verb like ‘I’m vaping.’ It’s connected to the vapour myth that we know is not the case,” she explained. “And so when you say electronic cigarette it puts the device in the place it deserves to be. Which is that it is an electronic nicotine delivery system.”

It isn’t just about lung health though.

For dental hygienist Marianne Reeder, she says their seeing dental evidence of vaping, similar to cigarettes, in kids as young as ten years old.

“It’s irreversible and it affects the teeth but it also affects the soft tissue, our gums. Some people think of the teeth as ‘oh the stains’ that is caused by it. But it’s affecting their tissue. So they are probably going to enter into periodontal disease a lot sooner than the previous generation because of vaping,” she said.

Medicine Hat Public School Division has joined the effort against e-cigarettes.

With the help of AHS, they’ve created a new substance policy that includes vaping.

It will ban both students and staff from vaping.

As well, rather then focussing on just discipline it will also be about supporting those students.

by Hayley Ferguson

AHS focuses on educating parents on risks of vaping

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