According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 16.2% of twelfth graders currently use e-cigarettes. Upper School Counselor Binita Donohue estimates that usage among Parker seniors is about equal to national usage.

“Probably the use at Parker is consistent with national use,” Donohue said. “In the last five years there’s been a pretty big spike, even in the last three years, and in the last six months things are beginning to change.”

According to Donohue, in the last half-year e-cigarette companies have made a conscious effort to refocus their target market away from teens. “Juul in particular, they’ve for sure reduced their advertising towards teenagers,” Donohue said, “and I have noticed that has had an affect on the student population.”

In December of 2018, Juul, an American electronic cigarette company popular among Upper Schoolers, stopped the sale of its flavored pods in more than ninety thousand U.S. retail stores and disabled its smaller social media accounts in response to warnings from the FDA.  

“When I talk to health counselors at other schools, in both public and private school health systems, they’re noticing the same sort of spike and then drop in reported use,” Donohue said.

An anonymous sophomore girl agrees with Donohue’s observations. “People are for sure still Juuling,” she said, “but it seems to be less of a phenomenon and more of a ‘if you started before you probably still do it’ thing. I don’t feel like more and more people are doing it every day anymore.”

Donohue believes that the appeal of e-cigarettes lies largely with the social ‘clout’ that surrounds owning and using them. “People aren’t even necessarily buying them because they like the feeling,” she said. “It’s possible it’s partly that, and partly because it has become a social norm.”

One anonymous junior girl bought a Juul at the beginning of her sophomore year for this reason. “I paid $100 for one at the beginning of sophomore year because it was really popular at that time and a lot of people were doing it,” she said.

Although she didn’t often use her Juul, she held onto it for social purposes. “I would bring it to parties because that’s what people did,” she said. “It was cool, and it was a flex. It said that I was cool enough and mature enough to be able to vape. I did it a few times on my own, and I realized I really didn’t like it.”

“It made my throat hurt, and had no affect on me,” she said. “I was really only doing it because the media made it look cool, other people made it look cool, and there was a lot of social pressure. Some people say the buzz is unmatched, but I really didn’t agree with that. It’s not worth it to build up an addiction to something because it’s cool and that’s what people are doing.”

In addition to in-school peer pressure, Donohue believes the marketing of e-cigarettes, which often targets adolescents, convinces students e-cigarettes are “age appropriate.”

“The way Juul in particular markets e-cigarettes, making it look like this cute little fancy thing, reminds me of forty years ago when cigarette companies were marketing to women,” she said. “They feminized the use of cigarettes, and usage among women spiked. It’s a strategy. They’re out to sell their product, and that is intersecting with thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds who are curious about substances.”

The stigma surrounding e-cigarettes is virtually nonexistent, according to one anonymous senior boy. “Of course you see it at parties,” he said, “but you also see it in the school bathrooms, in the street, in back corners and hallways, that kind of thing. It would be concerning to see somebody drinking at home alone or at 12 p.m. on a school day, but hitting a Juul is completely normal.”

The junior girl agrees. “My older friend, a junior at the time, took me to buy my Juul a random Saturday,” she said. “After, we went to school and I learned how to Juul in the Parker locker room.”

Parker counselors do not feel that in-school e-cigarette usage is a widespread problem. “I don’t see e-cigarette usage within the school building myself,” Donohue said. “Fortunately, we’ve never found cartridges or anything like that. That’s not a conversation we have to have in this building.”

Education on e-cigarette usage through Parker’s health curriculum comes mainly through the Freedom from Chemical Dependency (FCD) program. As part of this program, recovering substance abusers visit ninth-grade health classes, senior seminar, and junior and sophomore Graderooms to discuss substance abuse from a more personal perspective.

The conversation surrounding e-cigarettes started two years ago, according to Donohue. “We asked FCD to address Juuls, because two years ago there was an uptick in students who indicated on a form they would like to hear more about e-cigarettes,” Donohue said. “We asked FCD to target it, and I think that’s made a difference. I hope that’s made a difference.”

The biggest misconception surrounding e-cigarettes, Donohue believes, is the idea that they are not harmful to the body. “The chemicals and what e-cigarettes do to your body is actually scary,” Donohue said. “There’s kind of this myth where people think, well, e-cigarettes don’t have tobacco, so it must be safe. But in reality, nicotine is highly addictive, and nicotine addictions are some of the hardest to break. Students need to know that.”