Manchester City Schools will be holding anti-vaping events this week, with the primary focus on providing educational materials to their students and making them aware of dangers present in vaping.
Students at Westwood Middle School will be asked to sign a pledge that they will not vape.
The event comes in conjunction with numbers provided by the Coffee County anti-drug coalition, which conducted anonymous surveys of 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th grade students across the county conducted in November of 2018.
The survey found that among 12th graders, 66% admit to having used e-cigs with nicotine within the past 30 days. Of the entire survey group, 40% admitted to having vaped nicotine in the past 30 days.
Fifty-seven percent of 12th graders and 28% of 10th graders bought e-cigs from the store.
The study also discovered a high percentage of RX misuse, particularly among 10th graders at 14% and 12th graders at 15%.
While vaping is on the rise, there have been significant drops in use of regular cigarettes, dropping from 20% in 2012 to 8% in 2018. Alcohol and marijuana use also decreased. There were also drops in what students saw in perceived risks, including a drop of perceived risk in illicit use of RX drugs from 81% to 48%.
