Vape Detectors: HHS’s Answer to the Vaping Problem

Photo from Pexels by Tim Mossholder.

Trinity Chang

In 2014, vaping arrived in the United States, and since then, vapes have been the most commonly used product among youth. CDC studies show that in the United States alone, middle and high school students’ usage of vapes increased by 900% during 2011-2015.

With vaping on the rise, students have been able to get their hands on vapes and have been exposed to vaping due to family, peers, social media, and the internet. With that being said, it was only so long before students would start vaping in the school bathrooms. Hamilton is no exception to this and many students have noted that there has been significant issues with students vaping in the bathrooms during class and especially during passing time. As schools are starting to become more aware of the vaping problem, they’ve finally started to act. One way schools have attempted to solve this problem is by putting vape detectors in school bathrooms to help create a safer environment and to stop the usage of vapes. Hamilton High School added vape detectors into the bathrooms at the beginning of the school year in 2022.

Many questions may appear such as: Are they reliable? The whole point of the vape detectors is to measure the air quality. The vape detectors are meant to compare the air in the area they are located to find any particulate matter in the environment. From a website by Forensics Detectors, they state that “many detectors that are able to detect the use of e-cigarettes or vaping can also detect the presence of cannabis and weed smoke.”

After conferring with Officer Estes, she reveals, “We have vape sensors or detectors in the bathrooms and monitor those as much as we can. We have attempted to section off certain times, throughout the day, certain days of the week to either be in the bathroom or present around the bathroom in an event that those vape detectors do go off. Other areas which would not necessarily be preventative, but more reactionary. If anyone is caught with a vape, there are school consequences and a citation and those range from 124 dollars or up to 691 depending on if it contains THC serum. We’re also just trying to do some extra monitoring, like getting in the bathroom during passing time or between class periods when there is activity in the bathroom.”

Many parents and students who found the bathrooms to be places they didn’t want to visit due to all of the vaping have viewed the vape detectors as a positive thing. However, the inclusion also has its detractors.

Some students at Hamilton have felt that the money put towards vape detectors could be used in other ways. Rachel Rank, a senior, stated that these detectors are a "waste of school funding when it could be going to education or any girls sports that are extremely underfunded.”

Not only do some believe that it’s a waste but it’s felt as a “…scare tactic rather than something that would work well and it opens up the opportunity for students to be accused of something they did not do,” Bella Orozco, a senior at Hamilton remarks. \

Vape detectors are designed to prevent the use of vapes; however, they may cause students who are aware to be even sneakier.

This question was asked in the interview with Officer Estes. “Yes and no,” Estes responded. “The goal is to make it harder to do in order to try to prevent it. The goal is not to see how many kids we can suspend or how many tickets we can write. That’s just the natural consequence of those things. We would prefer it if it did not happen to lead to those consequences. So yes. When you put a restriction kids are going to find other ways of doing things, but for the vast majority, we’re hoping that will prevent most kids from even trying it knowing that it could be harder to get away with it.”

Other concerns exist as well. In an article from the New York Post, it’s mentioned that students have found ways to vape in the classroom and hallways instead of the bathrooms.

Another article from WIRED claimed that “schools across the country are spending thousands of dollars to outfit their campuses with vaping detectors, only to find that the devices can’t stand up to wily teens and that policing student behavior isn’t the same as permanently changing it. Like smoke detectors, vape detectors are relatively unobtrusive. They don’t even record video or audio—they just register the chemical signature of vaping aerosol, then send an email or text alert to school officials.” In the same article, “... administrators rarely made it to the bathroom in time to catch the vapers mid-puff. ‘It was like chasing ghosts,’ says Jennifer Reece …. consulting footage from hallway cameras to triangulate which students were in the bathroom when the detectors went off. ‘That also takes up time, and we don’t always have that type of time,’ Reece says.”

Some students feel indifferent about the topic of vape detectors due to the fact that they don’t vape. Danica Joyner, a junior at Hamilton says, “As a student who doesn't vape, having these detectors doesn't affect me, but I know they affect people who do vape. High schoolers are too young to legally purchase these products and should not be vaping on school property if they own a vape because it is illegal and toxic.”

Having these detectors may lower the rate of high schoolers vaping at school or in general, and prevent major health risks because the students are vaping less overall. Aashi Iyengar, another junior at Hamilton, agrees that the vape detectors only concern the students who vape, but that “...having the detectors in school didn't affect me at all or change my behavior in any way. I can imagine, though, how the increased risk of getting caught would potentially alter the behavior of those who do vape in the bathrooms.”

Another perspective is that the vape detectors make it difficult to determine who is at fault, since cameras are not allowed in the bathrooms, and this has caused some issues with the bathrooms being open. Evan Rosenau, a freshman at Hamilton, comments, “I feel as though they have a justified use, and make sense in the context of a high school. However, I’ve heard that they’ve gotten kids in trouble who haven’t done anything and they shut down bathrooms for days, which can be rather difficult.”

Even given these concerns, many underclassmen believe that it’s important to have vape detectors and that this was money well spent. Sanjana Shankar, a freshman, discloses, “They are very necessary. While maybe not at our school, vaping is a huge threat to kids our age and whether they are doing it willingly or just by habit adults should know because sometimes they don’t realize the damage they are causing to their health.”

In a sense, there’s a pattern, many students feel as if the school is just trying to help the students and trying to prevent any further damage to students' health. Julianna Miller, an additional freshmen student claims, “The vape detectors are a smart invention because it detects if someone’s vaping in our restroom and I feel like the school was just trying to help the students.”

In another opinion, Evi Quast, a Hamilton freshman, mentions that the detectors themselves could be a path to raise more awareness and start important conversations: “Vape detectors are a good idea and they would help a lot. For example, vape detectors may help the teachers talk about it with the students and help them get help or talk about it.”

In the end, there will always be opinions on vape detectors and they will always be there to try to prevent any further damage done to the person and their health.