Many people think vaping in Waltham High School is a problem and it is evident that vaping can engender harm to your health. It is clear that the staff and administration can and must do something to solve this problem in the best interest of the student body.

Mr. Maiorano believes doing nothing is not an option in regard to the vaping culture in Waltham High School. In his opinion, the best means to solve the problem is by disseminating information about vapings detrimental effects to the entire Waltham community. From his viewpoint, the vaping culture in our school is a very urgent problem. Some solutions he gave were: monitoring the bathrooms, and conducting assemblies to educate the students.

Moreover, Ms. Dygon, the Substance Abuse Nurse claims that vaping is dangerous and addictive, even more dangerous than cigarettes because of the strong levels of nicotine. She apprised me that vaping is hard to quit because it’s hard to measure what someone is vaping. And that educating the student body is the best way to fight the problem. Further, she stated that tobacco companies are marketing the use of vapes which should make everyone skeptical and a tad concerned. Vaping is dangerous because it’s not FDA approved and no one is checking the labels on it, which means you aren’t completely sure what you’re smoking. If you are a student that vapes and you want to quit, you can go to the nurses and receive a cessation program that will help you stop smoking.

Similitude, teachers have expressed concern over vaping. Mrs. Bailey-Herrera an English teacher said, “Whenever I let a student go to the bathroom I’m worried in the back of my mind that they’re going there just to vape.” And Mr. Diluzio, a history teacher said, “It’s frightening because no one knows what’s being put in it… I can’t remember when I was in High School there being something so stupid.” Mr. Diluzio agrees that awareness is one way to thwart the vaping culture in Waltham High School. Also, some teachers have gone through a training program of how to deal with vaping in school recently this year. In short, vaping is a serious problem and it’s best to not use it.

In a survey that 61 students participated in about vaping 86.9% of students asserted that they thought vaping was unhealthy. Also, students who vape and tried to quit were mostly successful but 31% were unsuccessful, I hypothesize this is due to the addictiveness of vaping. Unfortunately, only 54% of students who took the survey knew about cessation programs in Waltham High School, 46% didn’t know about them. The best means to quit vaping is probably to take one of the cessation programs offered by Waltham High School, so it’s certainly an unfortunate thing that a chunk of the students didn’t know about them.