Say goodbye to the old and hello to the new, infamous trend. Cigarettes are out and vaping is in. This growing national problem is taking a toll on students.Those teenagers that take part in vaping may produce growing medical issues and hinder their success in school. This major issue hits home as well. The rate of teens who vape is rapidly increasing in Bethpage High School. 

There may not be official evidence yet, but the growing number of permanent consequences related to vaping shows that it is not safe. While some of these long term effects are still unknown, one of the school nurses at Bethpage High School stated that, “ …we have had the first death in New York state, it was a seven-teen year old student who had been vaping for a short amount of time, just a few months and he passed away this week”. 

People’s lives are now being stripped away due to what started as a silly trend among teens. You would think that humans could be conditioned to stop, but people, especially malleable teens, are a species of free will. This exercise of our free will, however, could damage us severely in the end. 

Vape users are aware that vaping does have side effects “…that [may] cause some long term illness and death, damage to the lungs, but [doctors] are still not sure of the trigger or what may cause it,” says one of the nurses at BHS School. In order to prevent more deaths from happening in New York, many schools are trying to bring awareness to the threats imposed by vaping. 

Even with these warnings students still decide to vape. Ms. Villanueva, the French and Spanish teacher, believes that students continue to vape because “…the device is so easy to have on you at all times, so it’s kind of hard  to avoid but it obviously does not make it ok, but it is probably the convenience.” Producers such as Juul designed the device to be small and portable, giving students an easier way to sneak the product into class. 

The stubbornness of student vapers has forced high schools and even middle schools to enforce new rules. Some of these rules include limiting access to the school restrooms. Bethpage High School itself does its best to inform parents of the consequences of being caught vaping through a special presentation. But certain teachers feel they should try and do their own part in helping students. Numerous teachers stated that they would take away a student’s vape so that they can prevent the student from hurting themselves even more. 

With these growing concerns come the factors of whether or not a student will choose to listen to these warnings. At the end of the day teenagers are still just kids and they will continue to do what they think is right. But they must be mature and understand that things can harm them. If teens realize the dangers of vaping, we will have less of a chance of having our lives stripped away. If students choose to listen now, they will achieve a healthier life and a brighter future.