LSSD gives e-cigs the boot

 ECIGCLICK.CO.UK/FLICKR 

E-cigarettes have exploded in popularity in recent years.

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record 

Anyone who thought they could puff on an e-cigarette on school property in the Lord Selkirk School Division (LSSD) will have to think again. 

LSSD recently followed suit with other school divisions across the province and barred the use of e-cigarettes on all school property.

“We just feel that it’s something that we don’t want to encourage. We don’t want to encourage youth to be smoking in any way shape or form, we don’t think it’s consistent with a healthy lifestyle,” said LSSD superintendent Scott Kwasnitza.

School administrators brought concerns about the electronic smoking devices to Kwasnitza last year.

“We had a couple of incidents late last spring where students were using e-cigarettes and we discussed it with the administrators and we decided to consider it a smoking violation.”

The school division already had an existing no-smoking policy in place and added vaping as a prohibited activity earlier this year.

Kwasnitza said the division isn’t seeing an increase in students who use the e-cigarettes.

But a recent study in Quebec by the Canadian Cancer Society found one in three high school students had tried using an e-cigarette.

A spokeswoman for Manitoba Health said the province currently has no statistics on youth who use the devices. 

In 2009 Health Canada issued a public advisory warning Canadians not to use the products, but ever since then the agency has remained relatively mum about the new trend.  

A spokesman from Health Canada told the Globe and Mail last September the government doesn’t have any plans to do anything about the e-cigarettes.

The World Health Organization said last summer it was too early to say whether any of the compounds in e-cigarettes could cause long-term health problems, like cancer. 

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices, which use a heating element to vapourize flavoured liquid.

Most of the devices are made with metal but some look like normal cigarettes. The products are marketed as being a much healthier way for someone to get a nicotine fix and many users swear by the devices.

But not every e-cigarette contains nicotine and it’s actually illegal for nicotine juice to be sold in Canada despite the fact the products are available in stores across the country and sold online.

Kwasnitza said the division’s no-smoking policy is in line with many other school divisions across the province.

-- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition January 22, 2015 p.13