Schools in Mesa eye vape detectors

Public health advocates say it’s wrong approach

The state’s largest school district is considering expanding the use of vape detectors to all of its middle and high school bathrooms, which could advance a surveillance and punishment strategy that some public health advocates say is not the right approach to addressing nicotine addiction among kids.

In September, Mesa Public Schools installed vape sensors in two bathrooms at one high school, leading to 48 students getting caught in two months, said Allen Moore, the district’s safety and security director. Now, Moore wants universal adoption of bathroom vape sensors to establish vape-free campuses and increase safety.

“A lot of the kids have expressed they don’t feel safe going to the bathrooms ... because of the other kids vaping in there,” Moore said. These concerns were relayed to him by school administrators, he said. “When these kids are in there, and they’re hanging out, and they’re vaping, the bathroom becomes like a party.”

Moore said he wants to make bathrooms safe places where students go just to use the facilities and stop kids from vaping because of its health risks.

By placing sensors in bathrooms — where there are no cameras — Moore hopes to eliminate the last place students can vape at school. The district has approximately 3,000 camera views, with around 130 to 150 cameras at each high school and a designated staff member to monitor them.

If students “find other places on campus to hide and do it, we’ll install more cameras,” Moore said. “And the message to students is going to be: ‘We’re not going to tolerate this on our campus.’ ”

The board is set to vote on the proposal during its Nov. 28 meeting.

How do vape sensors work?

The district began its pilot program in mid-September at Red Mountain High School after hearing success stories from other Arizona school districts, Moore said.

On the other side of the Valley, Peoria Unified School District recently purchased approximately 50 bathroom vape sensors “as a deterrent,” which district spokesperson Erin Dunsey said has reduced the number of vaping incidents.

The sensors are intended to detect the use of electronic cigarettes, which heat liquids that contain nicotine or other chemicals, including THC, the high-inducing compound found in marijuana.

The sensors at Red Mountain were purchased from a company called HALO and are connected to the district’s camera system. They detect e-cigarette vapor and silently alert a camera outside of the bathroom, prompting the camera monitor to dispatch a security guard to “catch the kids as they’re coming out of the bathroom to start questioning them,” Moore said. All high schools have six or seven security guards, he said, as well as two police officers.

The vape sensors at Red Mountain have been working “extremely well,” Moore said. He said that administrators receive, on average, 15 alerts a day from the vape sensors, though most don’t result in students getting caught.

It’s unclear whether the discrepancy is due to students getting away or false alerts, he said. Sometimes, many students exit a bathroom simultaneously, and it’s hard to tell who’s who.

So far, Moore said, Red Mountain hasn’t noticed a decline in vaping due to the sensors.

Students at Red Mountain weren’t told that they were installed. But Moore said that he would want students to be alerted to their existence in the future.

“I don’t want to necessarily catch them,” he said. “I want them to stop doing it.”

How many high school students use e-cigarettes?

Across the country, e-cigarette use is declining among high school students, according to the results of an annual government survey released this month. Still, a significant number of students regularly vape.

The 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey, released in early November by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that more than 2.1 million youth, or nearly 8% of students, use e-cigarettes. More than a quarter of those students use e-cigarettes daily.

Among high school students, e-cigarette use dropped from 2022 to 2023 from about 14% to 10%, translating to 580,000 fewer high schoolers using ecigarettes, according to the survey.

The survey also found that about 5% of middle school students use e-cigarettes.

What’s the punishment for getting caught vaping?

A student caught using nicotine or THC has their parent or guardian notified, and a student conference is held, according to Mesa Public Schools’ code of conduct, which outlines disciplinary responses to specific student actions.

Beyond those mandatory consequences, other “interventions” are possible, according to the code.

For students caught with nicotine vapes, the potential interventions include in-school suspension of three to six days or out-of-school suspension for one to three days. The code of conduct, though, says that for nicotine offenses, removing students from the classroom “should be limited as much as practicable.”

Students caught with nicotine vapes receive short-term in-school or out-ofschool suspensions, Moore said, “depending on the principal.” Moore said he favors in-school suspensions, where students will come to school but be placed in a separate suspension room where they’re supervised and have opportunities to study.

But about 50% of the students caught with e-cigarettes at Red Mountain were using them to vape THC oil, Moore said. The potential added punishments for students caught with that drug include an in-school suspension of three to five days or an out-of-school suspension of one to eight days, according to the code of conduct.

Students caught with THC also receive a civil citation from school police, Moore said. Suspensions for marijuana use can be reduced through participation in a virtual drug intervention program based on the “social-emotional research behind helping students understand the reasons behind their choices,” he said.

Since the beginning of the school year, police officers across the district have written 250 citations for student marijuana possession, according to

Moore. Under Arizona law, recreational marijuana is legal for adults 21 and over. The first violation of marijuana possession under 21 results in a civil penalty with a maximum fine of $100. The third violation results in a class 1 misdemeanor.

“We want people to follow the rules, and they need to know there’s consequences for their actions,” Moore said.

Public health groups advise against punishment for e-cigarette use

Several public health groups, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, advise against suspending students in response to e-cigarette use. They say that punitive measures are not effective ways to combat nicotine addiction among youth.

E-cigarette manufacturers created highly addictive products that are “super appealing to young people,” said Amy Taylor, the chief of community engagement for Truth Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating tobacco use among young people. According to the National Youth Tobacco Survey, the most popular brand among teens in 2023 was Elf Bar, which sells disposable vapes in bright colors and a wide range of flavors like Mango Peach and Watermelon Bubblegum.

Juul Labs Inc. has been widely blamed by states and school districts across the country, including Arizona and Mesa Public Schools, for intentionally marketing to young people and causing a significant increase in e-cigarette use among youth.

According to the CDC, a single Juul pod contains as much nicotine as a pack of 20 regular cigarettes. The FDA has cracked down on the company, and according to the 2023 survey, about 17% of students using e-cigarettes used Juul products, compared to around 57% that used Elf Bar.

Punitive measures like suspensions won’t help students quit, said the Truth Initiative’s Taylor, but instead cause more stress and anxiety that may lead students to turn back to vaping “because they think it’s going to make them feel better.”

Nicotine withdrawal symptoms include “irritability, restlessness, feeling anxious or depressed, trouble sleeping, problems concentrating and craving nicotine,” according to the CDC.

“What we’re hearing from young people is, ‘Hey, I don’t want to be vaping, but I can’t stop because I’m addicted,’” Taylor said.

Marisa Katz, a staff attorney at the Public Health Law Center, which is housed at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Minnesota and works on commercial tobacco control policy, said that punitive measures won’t solve the youth vaping problem.

Katz said that vape detectors ultimately create a “culture of surveillance.” She doesn’t view e-cigarette use as something that should be included in a student code of conduct alongside other offenses that lead to disciplinary measures, she said.

Out-of-school suspensions are especially ineffective because they isolate students and cause disengagement from school, Katz said.

But she said that any punitive measure in response to student e-cigarette use discounts the “aggressive and predatory targeting by the industry to get them addicted” and the science of addiction about the adolescent brain.

“We’re punishing these people when, at the end of the day, it’s really not their fault,” Katz said. “It doesn’t go after the root cause, which is helping someone overcome their addiction to nicotine.”

Instead, the Public Health Law Center and Truth Initiative, as well as the CDC, suggest more supportive and educational approaches.

Truth Initiative created a free curriculum used by more than 10,000 schools across the country, including 19 schools in Arizona, according to the group. The largest usage in Arizona is in the Phoenix Union High School District, where all high school health teachers have been trained on the curriculum, according to a statement from the organization.

Mesa Public Schools shared the curriculum with school counselors in October, according to Truth Initiative.

Truth Initiative also has an anonymous text messaging program to help young people quit vaping, which has reached over 600,000 youth and young adults, according to Taylor.

In September, Mesa Public Schools settled with Juul Labs and Altria Group, another e-cigarette maker, though the district declined to disclose how much it received, citing a confidentiality agreement. It’s unclear whether this money would be put toward buying more vape sensors.

The district’s complaint against Juul Labs in 2021 alleged that the company designed products to target kids and “create and sustain addiction.”

In 2021, Arizona reached a $14.5 million settlement in a consumer fraud lawsuit against Juul Labs, which alleged the company was illegally targeting young people, joining many other states that had reached settlements with the e-cigarette company.