At Mead high school, students have been buzzing about the rumored nicotine sensors in the bathroom. In an email response regarding the rumors, Mrs. Schwartz said that administration will not be discussing whether the sensors exist or not. “As an administrative team, we are not discussing the rumored nicotine sensors in the bathroom.  Let’s help our students keep their lungs healthy.”

Viewed as a bad thing to Juul, I discovered there are some unhealthy things about both cigarettes and Juul/vapes. Cigarettes, as well as Juuls, affect every organ in the body. Two hundred hits of a Juul is equivalent to  about a pack of cigarettes.

Juuling isn’t the best alternative, but if it gets you to stop smoking, it would be much better than smoking cigarettes every single day. There’s an article I was reading about kids talking about their peers even doing it in class. Elijah Luna, a sixteen year old tenth grader at Visa del Lago High School said, “They blow it into their backpacks or into their sweater when the teacher isn’t looking.” They also smell good and they look like flash drives, so they are easy to hide.

Juuls have some strong nicotine and there are some kids that even get addicted. There are hardly any major side effects,  but the small ones include bloody noses and dry mouth. There’s also been a risk of heart disease. An article from Shape.com described an eighteen year old girl who ended up in the hospital after vaping too much. She was diagnosed with “wet lung,” an illness in which someone has an allergic reaction to dust or chemicals in the vape pen.

There’s not any permanent solution for the health effects that Juuling has on teenagers besides to stop teens from purchasing them, but that is highly unlikely.

As for nicotine sensors, I highly doubt they exist at our school. It doesn’t make much sense; they would need to be replaced and it would cost the school a lot of money. On the other hand, no one really knows how far administration will go to stop Juuling at school. Mead High School may never know!