In the past decade, there has been a “youth vaping epidemic” among teenagers. For many middle school and high school teachers, vaping impacts their students on a daily basis and makes it harder for educators to teach. The FDA found that 13.4% of high school students use tobacco products, with 2.06 million middle and high school students reporting that they use e-cigarettes.

These statistics are worrying, but they include an encouraging trend: nearly two-thirds of students (65.3%) reported that they were “seriously thinking about quitting” the use of all tobacco products.

Every day, schools have a real opportunity to help students reduce their tobacco use, and automatic vape sensors can be a powerful tool in this endeavor. This article explores how vape detector work, how vape sensors can be combined with smart security cameras to capture actionable evidence, and how this technology helps schools combat underage vaping and protect the well-being of students.

How can schools combat student vaping?

The first and most challenging step is detecting when and where vaping is happening on campus.

Manually monitoring students isn’t efficient—there are too many students per educator. Teachers have enough on their plates, and students are finding ways to stay out of sight when vaping.

Privacy is also a concern; many students vape in the restroom, and many vapes are easy to hide. Some, like JUUL, are designed to look like a USB flash drive and produce no strong odor. It’s challenging to enforce vaping rules while properly respecting student privacy.

Vape sensors are a powerful technology that can help schools quickly detect and deter student vaping on campus. Vape sensors are most effective when they’re part of a unified physical security platform that integrates multiple aspects of school security, including video surveillance, access control, and alarm monitoring.