The Bernards Township public school district is doing something so dramatic and unnecessary it should bother parents everywhere. They have decided to crack down on students who vape by treating vaping and electronic cigarettes as if they are hard drugs. If you're caught with a vaping device, it will be considered drug paraphernalia. Students will "experience drug screening, counseling and discipline."

Talk about overstepping. Talk about a complete break down of logic.

Kaitlin Cartoccio, a health educator in Bernards, supports this draconian policy on vaping and e-cigarettes because, "They haven't been around as long as obviously cigarettes or cigars or other combustible smoking devices. And that's probably the most important thing: that they haven't been around and not a lot of research has been done on the long-term effects of e-cigarettes."

So we are going to admit we don't even know if this is harmful and yet treat it like a hard street drug? Really? Has anyone in Bernards even done their homework on this? A study published in August by the University of Michigan finds most teenagers are not even using e-juice with any nicotine in it at all. They're just doing it for the flavors. In fact vaping of nicotine is done by only 22% of 12th graders, 20% of 10th graders, and only 13% of 8th graders according to this study. So you don't even have the argument that nicotine is still an addictive substance even though vaping isn't giving you the cancer causing agents cigarettes do. I also wonder if a student is caught smoking regular cigarettes, which actually kill over 400,000 Americans every year, are they also subject to forced drug screens and drug counseling?

How about let parents be parents and stick to your job of educating kids instead of playing mommy, daddy, and doctor all in one?

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