Some UK Schools Begin Using Surveillance and Sensors to Detect and Stop Student Vaping

Today, on April 5, news reports that some schools in the UK have begun using closed-circuit television and sensors to detect and prevent students from using e-cigarettes, citing it as an increasingly serious issue. They are following the lead of many schools in the US and elsewhere that have implemented similar measures.

In a country that generally welcomes e-cigarettes as a means to reduce tobacco harm, this development comes after Tom Bennett, the government's school behavior advisor, stated that e-cigarettes pose significant health risks and disruptions in schools, urging them to confiscate e-cigarettes and impose zero-tolerance penalties.

The legal age to purchase e-cigarettes in the UK is 18. A 2022 survey by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) found that the proportion of current e-cigarette users (including occasional users) among UK children aged 11-17 rose from 4% in 2020 to 7%.

However, the report noted that the usage rate among never-smokers remains very low and is primarily experimental. Among this group, only 0.5% reported using e-cigarettes more than once a week. 2022 marked the first year ASH estimated that the number of children in this age group trying e-cigarettes surpassed those trying cigarettes.

Baxter College in Kidderminster is one of the first UK schools to install sensors on toilets and outdoor CCTV, at a cost of £4,000. Principal Matthew Carpenter described underage vaping as a national issue.

He told the BBC that the new technology has been successful, including sensors that send alerts to school management if they detect vapor: "We noticed a real reduction, from 16 cases or alerts on the first day to one or two a week."

Bates described schools adopting such strategies as a form of moral panic, often accompanied by excessive reactions that are typically meaningless and counterproductive.

However, it remains unclear to what extent students have completely stopped vaping compared to finding ways to circumvent surveillance.

Former ASH director Clive Bates told Filter that he understands the concerns of parents and teachers, given the history of smoking and the sensational misinformation surrounding e-cigarettes. But he described schools adopting such strategies as a form of moral panic, often accompanied by excessive reactions that are typically meaningless and counterproductive.

"Installing sensors and CCTV is not going to work," he said.

Like in the US, such sensors have become commonplace in schools in Australia.

"Australia has experienced the most extreme reaction to e-cigarettes of any Western democracy," said Dr. Alex Wodak, a senior drug policy reform advocate and board member of the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association (ATHRA). He described the popularity of sensors in Australian schools—some schools have even removed toilet doors to aid detection—as a media-induced illusion.

"Of course, no one wants to see young people vaping," he continued, "but most young people who vape have already started smoking."

He added that youth smoking rates are rapidly declining, while smoking rates among older populations in Australia remain stable or decline only slowly.

"Somehow, we have successfully misunderstood the issue of youth vaping," he concluded. "In this irrational, frenzied reaction, a lot has been lost."

The US has been the most prominent site of media and political panic surrounding the youth vaping epidemic. While overall usage surged a few years ago, the rate has sharply declined since 2019—similar to the UK, where the proportion of never-smoking youth vaping daily remains low.

In defending Baxter College's measures, Carpenter, like many international public health figures, cited the so-called gateway effect.

Dr. Cristine Delnovo, director of the Tobacco Research Center at Rutgers University School of Public Health, recently noted that the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey in the US not only highlighted e-cigarette usage rates (14.1%) but also recorded the lowest ever high school youth smoking rate (2.0%). This is notable considering that in 2009, around the time e-cigarettes were introduced in the US, the smoking rate was 23.2%.

"At the gateway level," she summarized, e-cigarettes do not seem to be a pathway to smoking.

It is crucial when UK public health authorities found that the risks posed by e-cigarettes may not exceed 5% of those posed by smoking.

However, in defending Baxter College's measures, Carpenter, like many international public health figures, cited this so-called gateway effect.

Further research has also indicated that without e-cigarettes, more young people would smoke. When e-cigarettes have been shown to be more effective than nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in aiding smoking cessation, it raises a familiar question: why should teenagers be excluded from harm reduction resources that work for adults?

Harm reduction advocates in the UK are similarly concerned that policies aimed at reducing youth vaping may deter adult smokers from choosing e-cigarettes.

"I hope the schools adopting this policy convey to students that smoking is more harmful than vaping," said Louise Ross, a smoking cessation veteran who initiated a pioneering e-cigarette-friendly cessation service in Leicester. She responded to the BBC's article on Baxter College, emphasizing the general importance of public information: "Talking to people who want to quit smoking and having them tell me that vaping is more harmful than smoking is really frustrating."

"There are two things they should do differently," Bates said. "First, be moderate—these products are not very harmful and can help some kids stay away from smoking. If they listed all the things that teenage parents should be concerned about, vaping would not be at the top. Second, schools should calm the hysteria and learn to discuss vaping, smoking, alcohol, and drugs in a calm and realistic manner to better understand the experimentation of teenagers and adolescents."