Good things happen when young people are informed and empowered. The students at Oregon High School in Wisconsin discuss their initiative to educate the community about the health and environmental risks of e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches. Gavin Smith and Tim Grice are high school seniors and are joined in the discussion by Amy Miller, Community Education Director & Advanced Learning Coordinator, and Cynthia DiCamelli, Family Resource Coordinator, both at the Oregon School District. Additional information about all of the coalition initiatives can be found at https://oregonareacares.org/
The views and opinions of the guests on this podcast are theirs and theirs alone and do not necessarily represent those of the host or Westwords Consulting.
We're always interested in hearing from individuals or organizations who are working in substance use disorder treatment or prevention, mental health care and other spaces that lift up communities. This includes people living those experiences. If you or someone you know has a story to share or an interesting approach to care, contact us today!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
Welcome everybody.
This is Avoiding the AddictionAffliction, brought to you by Westwords
Consulting and the Kenosha CountySubstance Use Disorder Coalition.
I'm Mike McGowan.
Those of you who listen to thispodcast regularly know that I
speak to and work with thousandsof school students every year.
More than occasionally, I meetstudents, so exceptional, articulate,
(00:33):
and informed that I can't helpbut feel hopeful for the future.
I have a couple of those studentsand their advisors with us today.
Tim and Gavin are high school juniors.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Oh, correction, right?
Did you say today's first day of summer?
First day of summer.
We're seniors now,
High school seniors, congratulations.
At Oregon High Schoolin Oregon, Wisconsin.
(00:54):
I met them and their advisors,Cynthia DiCamelli and Amy Miller
during a workshop in the fall.
They impressed me with their knowledge,their work, their conviction.
I wanted to share thatwith all of you today.
Welcome to all of you.
This is, this is great.
Cynthia, let me start with you.
Talk about your organization.
It's called Oregon Area.
Oregon, sorry, Area Cares.
(01:15):
Correct?
Yeah.
And I say it wrong becauseI lived in the state
Oh!
Of Oregon.
(laughs) So bear with me.
And all of you Wisconsinites bearwith me, but I don't say it right.
So Oregon Area Cares grew out of workthat Amy and I started doing back in 2009.
(01:36):
Part of what prompted us to do this isthat I had spent the previous nine years
on the school board here in Oregon andone of the less felicitous roles of
school board members is to sit in with.
Sitting on expulsion hearings and wewere seeing an extraordinary number of
(01:57):
expulsion hearings over those nine years.
And a great many of them had to do withkids having alcohol, mostly in those days,
with them in school or going home at lunchand using alcohol over the lunch hour and
coming back to school under the influence.
As a school board we didn't wannajust say, bang you're expelled.
(02:19):
We wanted to do something to give kidsmore help to get over that problem
and figure out how to help them.
And so we, it was really justthe very beginning of trying to
understand why kids were misusingalcohol, misusing other substances.
(02:40):
And I might point out that inthose days at the very beginning
of my tenure on the school board,nicotine was not even on our agenda.
Right.
Because you could stilluse nicotine at 18.
So one of the things that we decidedwe wanted to, well, one of the things
that the school board wanted to do wasform a committee to figure out what
was causing those kinds of things andhow to prevent those substance uses.
(03:05):
So we actually started offas a little ad hoc committee.
We brought in some community members.
We had teachers, we had a varietyof people in this group, and we
tried to figure out what was goingon and started just talking about
how do we get the message out.
One of the very first things wedid, which was back in the dark
(03:28):
ages it feels like, was a ParentsWho Host Lose The Most campaign.
Yep.
And it actually was pretty successfulbecause one of the things that it
ultimately led to was our community beingone of the very first in the state to pass
what's called a social host ordinance.
Ultimately it was overwritten by thestate social host ordinance, but we are
(03:52):
still one of the few states, even in thecountry that has a social host law that
restricts how alcohol is provided tochildren outside of your family members.
Amy, when you started the, I mean, that'sa long time, that's 16 years ago, right?
So, you have now working with kids,when did you all decide to bring kids
(04:14):
into the fold, students into the foldto work on projects and to empower them?
Well, all along the way we've workedwith youth because you and I both know
as working in education and I come witha background in education, that to make
positive change and to lead the work.
If it is led by youth, the changeis gonna happen so much faster
(04:37):
and more people will listen.
The change will be wider.
So we started this specificproject with students that have
already graduated from Oregon.
Yeah.
We started in August of 2023 andwe met over the summer and it
was students that were interestedin coming in in the summer.
And one of the first things we didwas we talked about misperceptions.
(05:00):
So the idea of we can'tchange others behavior.
We need to change our own behavior,but what we can do is think about
what areas in the school does thisspecific group of students feel that
there are a lot of misperceptions.
And we did a post-it note activity and weprobably had 60 post-it notes of different
(05:23):
areas that this specific group of youththought there were misperceptions.
And when they narrowed it down,it narrowed down to alcohol
and nicotine were the top two.
So then from there it was like, okay,if we have misperceptions and we're
aware of it, how do we know that?
So then they looked at data andthey probably looked at more
(05:45):
data than many adults have lookedat to try to better understand.
Oh, so not that many studentsare drinking alcohol or vaping.
But the perception is, we feel theperception is, students would say
everybody or most students are doing it.
You talked a lot aboutpro-social norming, right?
(06:06):
Mm-hmm.
We did.
Yeah.
That was kinda the emphasis for oneof our projects and something we're
still really trying to work on todayis kind of reverting the social
stigma that everybody uses nicotine oralcohol or THC or products like that.
That was a big thing withour posters right here.
As you can see, we have statisticsthat are like 96% of students do
(06:30):
not use these products or this onein particular, nicotine pouches.
So a big focus for our group has beentrying like Ms. Miller said, to revert the
social stigma using community outreach.
Well, okay, say that again, Tim.
Say that again.
How many don't do it?
Pardon me.
How many don't do nicotine pouches?
(06:50):
96% or 92%.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a, that's a huge number.
That means only 8%.
And I would imagine that thatskews I'm gonna guess it skews
higher for upper class kids.
I'm assuming so.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gavin, why did you get involved?
So I got involved recently and I gotinvolved because, to be completely
(07:10):
honest, Tim asked me to do a presentation.
Great.
And I was very good at publicspeaking and stuff like that.
I didn't know much about the club atthe start of it, but I got involved
because Tim asked me to basically.
And from that I've learned a lotand I am now wanting to be a part
of this club and learn about it.
Amy that I think that's great.
That's the, one of the messages Itry to get across when I work with
(07:32):
schools is if you have an invite fromanother kid, that's a way to keep the
program perpetually going, isn't it?
Very much so.
Definitely.
So talk about, gentlemen, talk about theproject that you decided to focus on.
Yeah.
So to tie into kind of what Timsaid, our main project was getting
(07:52):
rid of this stigma around highschool students and vaping, using
nicotine pouches and stuff like that.
Like Cynthia said, alcoholis still there, but is not as
prevalent as nicotine is now.
So, for example, like ZYNs, eventhough only 8% of students still
do it in OHS, that's still 8%.
That's still a margin of people.
(08:13):
So we wanted to change thatstigma that it's not 92% of
students, it's only that 8%.
Mm-hmm.
See, there's a big misperceptionaround the usage of products
like this around schools.
Ms. Miller I think says it really well.
The vocal minority.
Yes.
You have the kids who are usingthese substances saying, oh,
(08:33):
everybody does it, you know?
Oh, me and my buddies we'regetting so hammered at this party.
You know, everybody's going,in reality, they're making up
8% of the student population.
Something that we've really triedto hammer down in our messaging on
these posters is a sense of communityinvolvement in a sense of unity.
One of our big staples thatwe put on every single one of
(08:54):
our posters is Join the Crowd.
Be Loud.
And that's kind of trying to enticethe kids who aren't part of that vocal
majority of users to speak out, say, Hey,actually, wait, not everybody does this.
I'm part of the folks who don't.
And that gets the next kid sayingthat, that gets the next kid.
And all of a sudden, those five kidswho are making a real ruckus and
(09:15):
saying that are looking at a crowdof 50 people who say they don't.
That's interesting that you would saythat because well, I'll just ask you this.
Gavin, what did you do this weekend?
This weekend I studied for some of myclasses, got done with all my classes.
I slept in, played some soccer games.
I had my girlfriend's birthdayparty, so I had a pretty jam packed
(09:37):
weekend, but I was definitely notout partying, I can tell you that.
Right, Tim?
I went to graduation.
I raised some money for a fundraiser.
Went to a lot of grad parties andwent fishing with some of my buddies.
Yeah.
Now see, that's the point, right?
That's what you want the perception to be.
If I'm an eighth grader coming intoOregon High School in the fall,
that's the way to fit in, isn't it?
(09:59):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
With the majority.
Go ahead.
I think the majority of high schoolstudents, I think a big one now is
fishing, to be quite honest with you.
Like what Tim said, a lot ofstudents are starting to go fishing.
Like I know a good 20, 30 guys that'dbe going fishing every single weekend.
Really?
Yeah.
I was gonna say, I picked upfishing later in my life too.
I just had some friendswho really loved it and.
(10:19):
Here I am, you know, spendingmy weekends and free time.
(laughs) Late later in your life?
Later.
Yeah.
Later.
There you go.
Well, okay, so what doyou want people to know?
First of all, I think when you're gonnahave a campaign, it's gotta be accurate.
You guys won't remem, wellyou won't even know this, but
(10:40):
Cynthia and Amy probably do.
When I went to college near you they usedto show an old movie called Reefer Madness
that was so full of misinformation aboutmarijuana that people used to go and
laugh out loud, and that led people tomistrust information that they were given.
(11:02):
So there's a lot of misinformation aboutthe products that you're talking about.
What do you want people to knowabout e-cigarettes and ZYN pouches?
So one thing about e-cigarettes that wewanted to really focus on and was one of
our projects is the recyclability of them.
They are not recyclable.
The lithium batteries causeexplosions, fire, stuff like that,
(11:25):
you are not able to recycle those.
Another misconception is thatthey're better than cigarettes.
They're not better than cigarettes.
So some of these nicotine deviceshave 50,000 puffs, which is
equal to 200 packs of cigarettes.
Mm-hmm.
And what's dangerous about thesee-cigarettes is they're way more
convenient than a cigarette would be, youknow I'm sure you know someone in your
life who has smoked before, they usuallysmell bad and usually stepping out outside
(11:49):
every 15 minutes or so light a cig.
With e-cigarettes nowadays justtake a puff in your hand real
quick, put it back in your pocketand nobody's none the wiser.
Right?
And the vape companies know this.
They're trying to make thesedevices more accessible.
They're more ergonomic.
They fit in your hand better.
They have fancy screens on them.
You can play games andconnect them to your phone.
These devices are really beingdesigned for young children and for
(12:14):
this boost of dopamine when they,when they hit them, to get you.
Get them in your hand andget you using them more.
Can I add a couple of things, Mike?
I'm gonna do the science side.
Yeah, go.
A couple of things severe in mine.
The nicotine that's in these productsis a different form of nicotine
(12:34):
than what's in the tobacco products.
The combustible tobacco productsthat you and I grew up with.
These are what's called a nicotine salt.
And they do that so that it is moreeasily dissolved in the liquid that
becomes the vapor in these products.
When it gets into your body, it's stillin that form and it gets into your
(12:56):
tissues much easier and much faster.
And because it's a salt, it is sort ofbuffered, so it doesn't have that harsh
reaction that you get when you know thatsmoker's throat that you used to get from
smoking three or four cigarettes in a row.
So the nicotine itself is different.
Tobacco is changing.
(13:17):
It's a campaign that's been goingon in Wisconsin for a while.
The other thing to remember,in addition to the fact that.
It's in there.
It doesn't all go away.
So when we try to dispose of theseproducts, there's still nicotine in there.
It is an acute, hazardous waste.
And we're gonna have the guys in justa second tell you a little bit about
(13:38):
how we've worked to spread that word.
But beyond that, these productshave heavy metals in them.
So that's part of the battery, butit's also part of the ignition system.
The cases are all plastic.
They're all integrated, and so whenthose get crushed, they contribute to
the microplastics in the environment.
They contribute to the heavy metalcontaminants in the environment.
(14:00):
And the nicotine is still in there.
So guys, you wanna talk a little bit abouthow this group talk to the high school.
Well talk to the schoolsabout safe disposal.
So originally committed this year inyears prior, there was no protocol
for dealing with discarded vapes andnicotine devices that you would find
(14:22):
on the playground around the school.
I mean, there was a startling frequencyabout how many vapes and other
disposable e-cigarettes were found.
And Cynthia can talk about thismore than I can, but the danger
with these nicotine products iswhen they're damaged, they leak and
this nicotine can get in the skin.
And it's especially potent to littlekids and minors that are playing on the
(14:44):
playgrounds or around school property.
It's also dangerous for teachers.
You know, you don't want yourteacher touching one of these
e-cigarettes and having hazardouschemicals enter their skin.
So we'd established a protocoland we had a meeting with the
faculty of Oregon School Districtright before the year started.
To set guidelines for disposal.
Have to wear rubber gloves to protect yourhands, to grab 'em, their safety deposit
(15:07):
box that Ms. Miller will come and collect.
So that was one of our bigger achievementsearlier coming into this year.
Gavin, did you go and talk tothe faculty and the maintenance
staff about this stuff?
It was actually to the 4K through 12.
All the administrators including thedistrict office and the superintendents.
Wow.
So it was really the first timethey had heard anything about...
(15:29):
That's what I was gonna ask.
Did they have a clue?
Did they have a clue?
No.
And this is, this is kind ofrepresentative of like a broader
lack of social awareness about therecyclability of these products.
On the back of every single e-cigarettedevice that you can purchase,
there's a little recycle symbol,but that's not really the case.
Like Gavin was saying earlier, theseproducts are not easily recycled.
(15:50):
They're very hard to take care of.
And when we are starting as anorganization, we found that there was
real no county guidelines or state, likebroader guidelines for this disposal.
So we talked to the Dane Countysupervisor and we shared a presentation
with him kind of outlining the dangersthat Gavin had talked about before.
And it was pretty incredible.
After we talked to Dane Countysupervisor, the materials we shared
(16:11):
with him, you could see the, likethe presentations being shared
higher and higher up the chain.
And eventually there were guidelines setup by the city for the disposal of this.
If you go online Dane County Clean Sweep.
They now have information on their websiteto help anybody who is wondering this.
So, Amy, what do you do when you,when you have the safe deposit
boxes or, or disposal boxes?
(16:34):
Where do they go then?
So in our community, what we are doing,and there's other Dane County schools
and community coalitions also workingon this, but Clean Sweep is located
pretty far away from our school district.
So what we've done to eliminate thebarrier is the coalition will work with
(16:56):
the school and pick up the devices andwe will properly take them to Clean Sweep
so they can be properly disposed of.
It's just amazing.
So what do you, Gavin, what do youhear when you talk to kids about this?
Are they open to it?
Do you sometimes get blown off?
How do they respond to the information?
(17:16):
Kids my age or younger?
Well, both.
I'll start with kids younger.
So I coach soccer and I coach U 11,which is 10 all the way up until
my age, which is 17 years old.
And there was a kid on my team thatwas using nicotine who was older.
He is 15 years old using nicotine,which is crazy to say, but he was.
(17:36):
So, I had a conversation with himabout the dangers of it and he
didn't brush me off and listened.
But obviously there was gonna be thosepeople, especially in the older age
group that are going to brush you off.
And it is just 'cause they're addicted.
Some people, when they're addicted needsomebody else other than a person their
age or somebody who they see just asa teenager to talk to them about it.
(17:59):
Yeah, that's a really good point though.
Tim, you have to run into that.
I, I think I told you guysthis when I talked to you.
I, I ran into a, I was at an event, asporting event, where a kid was using
five of them at once because he'd heardthat it would make him more aware and
peak his athletic performance, right?
(18:20):
Where do you get that information?
Social media.
So you guys are battlingwith fact social media.
How is that received amongthe high school kids?
So I think it's difficult and it alsodepends the crowd, like social media and
any way, especially at this point in life,when you're in this high school age, I
(18:41):
feel for most kids Trump's real facts.
Like there's, it's hard to changea perception in that realm when
you're battling with social media.
'Cause social media is so muchmore accessible than these facts.
Like, we have to spend hoursupon hours reading articles
just to find this information.
Yes.
Versus they spend 15 seconds onTikTok and they find that information.
(19:02):
Mm-hmm.
(laughs)
And I think one of the more dangerousthings about the social media and how it
perpetrates this bad information is thelevel of people who are perpetrating this.
You mentioned that one of the kidson your son's team thought it would
enhance his athletic performance.
Right.
And the reality is a lot of pro athletesuse nicotine pouches when they're
playing and, and they're, a lot of'em are spokesmen for their brands.
(19:23):
So these kids are logging on theirsocial media, Hey, I wanna see what
my favorite basketball player's doing.
Oh, he's advertising pouches.
They, they say they givehim a little bit of an edge.
Maybe I should do that.
Get scorer a few more pointsin my basketball game.
You know.
I think a prime exampleis, this is Baker Mayfield.
He was on the bench putting ZYNsin his mouth during, I don't, it
wasn't the Super Bowl, but it was abigger game that definitely mattered.
(19:43):
And you being aware of what itis, knew it immediately without it
even being mentioned on television.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ladies, that's not anunfamiliar story, is it?
This is echoing for me about alcoholendorsements, cigarette endorsements back
in the day, and a variety of other things.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
You know baseball players with thecha in their, in their mouth, right?
(20:09):
The during base chewingfollows here, chewing, chewing
tobacco during a baseball game.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, babe Ruth wouldshow up to games drunk.
I think he would.
(laughs)
I think another thing too, race cardrivers, they're sponsored by Marlboro.
That's another thing.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
You know, when, one of the disappointmentsin my career, not that you guys have
(20:30):
to share this, but I bet the ladiesdo, is we had we collectively as a
society had reduced teen cigarettesmoking to a negligible amount.
When we went to high school, itwasn't unusual to have a smoking area
outside of almost every high school.
Everybody knew about the corner,the pit, you know, the smoking area.
(20:51):
For the students!
Yes!
We had, my high school actually hada smoking lounge for the students.
Right.
In the, in the school.
Yeah.
And so we got that down to zero.
And I think, ladies, do youthink what, what happened?
Did we take a pause and say We got it?
Or did they just switchbefore we could pivot?
Absolutely they switchedbefore we could pivot.
(21:12):
Because if you are a manufacturer andsupply and demand, there isn't a demand.
You're gonna create a demand.
And they were able to, back in 2013, 14,15, create a demand with misinformation.
Remember, that was the aerosol.
There's nothing wrong with it,it's just flavored aerosol and
they had a whole generationthat believed it and was hooked.
(21:36):
And even now today, as adults, wedon't know the targeted marketing
that the youth are seeing.
Because we're not aware of itAmy, is that what you're saying?
Yeah.
And you guys can talk aboutflavors and that TikTok and other.
So amongst teens, like afrequent flavor that everybody
(21:58):
wants is like blue raspberry.
Who doesn't love like a blueraspberry slushie or something
like that as a teenager.
Hot summer day that sounds amazing, right?
Well, they're putting this intonicotine now, into the vapes.
So like a flavor we have infront of us is gummy bear.
Another one's Blue Rancher,like a Jolly Rancher.
You have watermelon bubblegum, watermelon phantom.
You have banging sour berries.
(22:19):
And you have mint.
These are all flavorstargeted towards teens.
No, no calamari or or kale.
No prime rib.
Nothing like that.
Yeah.
Right.
That's, that's not unusual as well.
We had the state worked really hardand so to get cigarette advertising
away from kids off of billboards,outta magazines, and now when you
(22:42):
go to a convenience store across thecountry, right behind the cash register.
What used to be a wall of cigarettesis now a wall of nicotine pouches.
And for those adults listeningto this, if you don't use these
products, I want you to look thenext time you go to a convenience
store behind the cash register, andyou'll wonder what is that stuff?
(23:04):
You'll think it's chewing tobaccobecause it's in similar canisters, but
that's what we're talking about, right?
Overnight it became everywhere.
And that's the biggestproblem we faced when.
And this, this new frontier isthis usage of nicotine pouches.
Even we like the school districtsurveys that they've sent out
(23:25):
interviewing kids about their choices.
Really there was a blank spot when it cameto information about nicotine pouches.
So we as a group actually made ourown survey and we distributed it
amongst grade 10 health classes.
And we found that the statisticwe were using earlier, that 8% of
students are using pouches, whichdoesn't sound like a whole lot, but
(23:46):
you think about 8% of our student body.
And you think about the national average.
Ms. Miller, what's the national average?
When we compared what we found tothe national average in 2024 in
middle schools and high schools.
The Truth Initiative hada source that was 1.8%.
So just like you are talkingabout the exponential growth.
(24:07):
Yeah.
And just kudos to our students for sayingthis is something we want to address.
And why did you wanna address it?
Where were the pouches found?
I think the, the grossest place wefound 'em is in our school urinals.
Right.
And that's a big complaint ourjanitors have had as well, is you go
go into the bathroom, go up to theurinal for about six or six to 10
(24:31):
just pouches, littering the urinal.
They're stuck on, they'rein the bowl of the toilet.
They're everywhere.
People are spitting 'em,and it's disgusting.
And as a janitor who wantsto stick their hand in their
urinal if they don't have to.
Right.
One of the statements that I'vefound to be effective when I talk
to groups, especially in highschool is, do you like your janitor?
(24:54):
And almost everybody does, right?
Right.
And they're like, yeah, of course.
I'm like, oh, then why wouldyou spit that stuff in a place
where they gotta clean it up?
And it, I don't think they make theconnection, but you wanna, you wanna
personalize your information, right guys?
You wanna make it so that they can of.
So how do you do that?
Where do you put your information?
How is it disseminated?
(25:14):
So I think the way we personalizeit is the posters we made.
So the posters we made, we inthe every background, we try
to do something that is Oregon.
So for example, one of the ones wemade, it says 89% of OHS students
have not vaped in the last 12 months.
And then it has our slogan,join the crowd, be loud.
But in the background of it, yousee a printed label of OHS as
(25:34):
well as our homecoming picture.
But it has everybody blurred out.
So you can't pick out andsay, oh, this person vapes.
Oh, this person does this,this person does this.
We blurred it out.
So it's still hitting home toyour, like school environment, but
you're not able to pick out certainpeople and decredit the poster.
And we try and, and put theseposters in really relevant places.
(25:54):
We do a good job of distributingthem around the school
making 'em generally aware.
But in the bathroom, you know.
Hang an awareness signright above the urinal.
People think, maybe think twiceabout spitting 'em, you know,
or put 'em in the lunchroom.
You know, folks arewalking out to their cars.
Who knows what they're doing.
They see that sign, they think twice.
So we've really tried to hit criticalareas with the placement of these posters.
(26:15):
So what's next for next year?
So we are gonna continue working oninformation and stopping the misperception
around the usage of these substances.
That's always been our headline bannergoal, specifically next year we're
gonna talk more about the pollution.
We are going to delve into how they'reimpacting our ecosystem and the water.
(26:37):
We talked to our localsanitation officials.
Ms. Miller can speak to theinformation better than I can.
How many vapes were they findingwhen they took out the nets?
So Oregon has a, actually I'm gonnajump in and Amy will correct me.
But we're unique in the county because wehave our own wastewater processing plant.
(26:58):
We can get local information,which is incredibly valuable.
We talked with the folks who managethe, and clean off the screens that
are in that wastewater flow and to findout how many vapes they're seeing, and
they were seeing about, Amy help me.
A dozen to a dozen and a half.
(27:19):
A dozen to a dozen and a halfevery time they clean the screens.
Wow.
And the largest percentageof them were on the main that
flows out of Oregon High School.
Well, and that's like you weresaying earlier, then those
chemicals enter the system.
Exactly.
(27:39):
If they're getting into thewastewater, ultimately they're
getting into groundwater.
Mm-hmm.
So that's something we'rereally trying to combat.
O ne of our concepts is trying to getkids to think about the ecosystem.
You know there's lots of ecologicalproblems that people care strongly about.
People don't know about thevapes and all the toxins entering
the water stream from them.
(28:00):
So we're gonna try andspread awareness of that.
And we're also gonna try and combat thespread of ZYNs and these nicotine pouches.
It's great.
I think to add on to those ZYNsand nicotine pouches, it's not just
vapes being found in those filters.
It's almost like a wall of those ZYNsand nicotine pouches from being spit in a
urinal or them getting spit in the toilet.
Something anywhere that it canget into your water system.
(28:20):
Even being spit in the grass, whoknows how it's gonna end up in there?
It's still ending up in your ground,which can lead to your groundwater.
And I don't wanna leave this conversationwithout emphasizing you two guys were
nice enough to come on here, but you'renot the only two guys in this project.
And ladies, you also have anumber of different groups working
(28:40):
simultaneously, including one.
Am I correct?
Who is Spanish speaking forthe people in your community
who are Hispanic and Latino?
That is correct.
So we're approaching, I mean,because this, we discovered how big
of a misperception issue this is.
It's really important not only totalk to students, but we wanted
(29:03):
to find ways to talk to parents.
And we had students that really stepped upand were interested in talking to parents.
So we've done one parent presentation,a town hall, we'll call it.
In Spanish and our goal is to havemultiple presentations moving forward
where we have students explaining thisinformation to parents because we've
(29:25):
said over and over to every student we'veworked with, what's the common statement?
When you present, you will know more
than...
Than the people that you're presenting to.
Yeah.
Than the people that you're presenting to.
Oh, absolutely.
And it's always been true.
Correct.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I think it's the same concept withwhen I'm, when you're coaching a
(29:46):
sport or you're presenting a sportin any way, or not even just sports,
just doing something in general.
I feel as if parents listen to kids more,if you know what you're talking about.
If I'm coaching a soccer game and a parentdoesn't believe what I'm saying and I
say something that makes complete sense,they're gonna respect me a lot more.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Terrific.
Ladies I'll let you havethe last word to this.
(30:08):
If you started in 2000, whateverit was, that means, gentlemen, that
the first people who were involvedin this and now in their thirties,
that'll lead you a little bit, right?
It has to make you likeme, ladies, feel hopeful.
When you work with people likethis who are dedicated, young,
is it time that we get out of itand just turn it over to them?
(30:32):
Well we're hoping they will continueto grow in the advocacy and obviously,
I mean, you're hearing the leadershipand the understanding and the passion.
I think the one piece that wasn'tmentioned, which I think is important,
that their goal is prevention.
Their goal is to help studentscounter the misperception and not
(30:53):
use, but we also care deeply aboutstudents that are using and need help.
So as a coalition, as a school, weare trying to get information out
to parents and youth that if you areusing nicotine at a high level and
as Gavin talked about the amounts inone device, you probably need help.
(31:13):
So we are advocating fortalking to family physicians.
We have two adults trained at our middleschool, and we have one trained at
our high school to support cessation.
Great.
So it's how do we help allstudents and each group needs
something slightly different.
Outstanding.
(31:34):
I wanna thank all of you for being withus today and for the work that you do.
Those of you who listen, know that there'san attachment to the blurb on the podcast
that links you to the Oregon Area Cares.
And if you need more information,feel free to contact them.
As always, we thank you for listening.
Until we can talk to you again,be safe, take a deep breath.
(31:56):
With young people likethis, we're in great shape.
Welcome everybody.
This is Avoiding the AddictionAffliction, brought to you by Westwords
Consulting and the Kenosha CountySubstance Use Disorder Coalition.
I'm Mike McGowan.
Those of you who listen to thispodcast regularly know that I
speak to and work with thousandsof school students every year.
More than occasionally, I meetstudents, so exceptional, articulate,
(00:33):
and informed that I can't helpbut feel hopeful for the future.
I have a couple of those studentsand their advisors with us today.
Tim and Gavin are high school juniors.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Oh, correction, right?
Did you say today's first day of summer?
First day of summer.
We're seniors now,
High school seniors, congratulations.
At Oregon High Schoolin Oregon, Wisconsin.
(00:54):
I met them and their advisors,Cynthia DiCamelli and Amy Miller
during a workshop in the fall.
They impressed me with their knowledge,their work, their conviction.
I wanted to share thatwith all of you today.
Welcome to all of you.
This is, this is great.
Cynthia, let me start with you.
Talk about your organization.
It's called Oregon Area.
Oregon, sorry, Area Cares.
(01:15):
Correct?
Yeah.
And I say it wrong becauseI lived in the state
Oh!
Of Oregon.
(laughs) So bear with me.
And all of you Wisconsinites bearwith me, but I don't say it right.
So Oregon Area Cares grew out of workthat Amy and I started doing back in 2009.
(01:36):
Part of what prompted us to do this isthat I had spent the previous nine years
on the school board here in Oregon andone of the less felicitous roles of
school board members is to sit in with.
Sitting on expulsion hearings and wewere seeing an extraordinary number of
(01:57):
expulsion hearings over those nine years.
And a great many of them had to do withkids having alcohol, mostly in those days,
with them in school or going home at lunchand using alcohol over the lunch hour and
coming back to school under the influence.
As a school board we didn't wannajust say, bang you're expelled.
(02:19):
We wanted to do something to give kidsmore help to get over that problem
and figure out how to help them.
And so we, it was really justthe very beginning of trying to
understand why kids were misusingalcohol, misusing other substances.
(02:40):
And I might point out that inthose days at the very beginning
of my tenure on the school board,nicotine was not even on our agenda.
Right.
Because you could stilluse nicotine at 18.
So one of the things that we decidedwe wanted to, well, one of the things
that the school board wanted to do wasform a committee to figure out what
was causing those kinds of things andhow to prevent those substance uses.
(03:05):
So we actually started offas a little ad hoc committee.
We brought in some community members.
We had teachers, we had a varietyof people in this group, and we
tried to figure out what was goingon and started just talking about
how do we get the message out.
One of the very first things wedid, which was back in the dark
(03:28):
ages it feels like, was a ParentsWho Host Lose The Most campaign.
Yep.
And it actually was pretty successfulbecause one of the things that it
ultimately led to was our community beingone of the very first in the state to pass
what's called a social host ordinance.
Ultimately it was overwritten by thestate social host ordinance, but we are
(03:52):
still one of the few states, even in thecountry that has a social host law that
restricts how alcohol is provided tochildren outside of your family members.
Amy, when you started the, I mean, that'sa long time, that's 16 years ago, right?
So, you have now working with kids,when did you all decide to bring kids
(04:14):
into the fold, students into the foldto work on projects and to empower them?
Well, all along the way we've workedwith youth because you and I both know
as working in education and I come witha background in education, that to make
positive change and to lead the work.
If it is led by youth, the changeis gonna happen so much faster
(04:37):
and more people will listen.
The change will be wider.
So we started this specificproject with students that have
already graduated from Oregon.
Yeah.
We started in August of 2023 andwe met over the summer and it
was students that were interestedin coming in in the summer.
And one of the first things we didwas we talked about misperceptions.
(05:00):
So the idea of we can'tchange others behavior.
We need to change our own behavior,but what we can do is think about
what areas in the school does thisspecific group of students feel that
there are a lot of misperceptions.
And we did a post-it note activity and weprobably had 60 post-it notes of different
(05:23):
areas that this specific group of youththought there were misperceptions.
And when they narrowed it down,it narrowed down to alcohol
and nicotine were the top two.
So then from there it was like, okay,if we have misperceptions and we're
aware of it, how do we know that?
So then they looked at data andthey probably looked at more
(05:45):
data than many adults have lookedat to try to better understand.
Oh, so not that many studentsare drinking alcohol or vaping.
But the perception is, we feel theperception is, students would say
everybody or most students are doing it.
You talked a lot aboutpro-social norming, right?
(06:06):
Mm-hmm.
We did.
Yeah.
That was kinda the emphasis for oneof our projects and something we're
still really trying to work on todayis kind of reverting the social
stigma that everybody uses nicotine oralcohol or THC or products like that.
That was a big thing withour posters right here.
As you can see, we have statisticsthat are like 96% of students do
(06:30):
not use these products or this onein particular, nicotine pouches.
So a big focus for our group has beentrying like Ms. Miller said, to revert the
social stigma using community outreach.
Well, okay, say that again, Tim.
Say that again.
How many don't do it?
Pardon me.
How many don't do nicotine pouches?
(06:50):
96% or 92%.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a, that's a huge number.
That means only 8%.
And I would imagine that thatskews I'm gonna guess it skews
higher for upper class kids.
I'm assuming so.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gavin, why did you get involved?
So I got involved recently and I gotinvolved because, to be completely
(07:10):
honest, Tim asked me to do a presentation.
Great.
And I was very good at publicspeaking and stuff like that.
I didn't know much about the club atthe start of it, but I got involved
because Tim asked me to basically.
And from that I've learned a lotand I am now wanting to be a part
of this club and learn about it.
Amy that I think that's great.
That's the, one of the messages Itry to get across when I work with
(07:32):
schools is if you have an invite fromanother kid, that's a way to keep the
program perpetually going, isn't it?
Very much so.
Definitely.
So talk about, gentlemen, talk about theproject that you decided to focus on.
Yeah.
So to tie into kind of what Timsaid, our main project was getting
(07:52):
rid of this stigma around highschool students and vaping, using
nicotine pouches and stuff like that.
Like Cynthia said, alcoholis still there, but is not as
prevalent as nicotine is now.
So, for example, like ZYNs, eventhough only 8% of students still
do it in OHS, that's still 8%.
That's still a margin of people.
(08:13):
So we wanted to change thatstigma that it's not 92% of
students, it's only that 8%.
Mm-hmm.
See, there's a big misperceptionaround the usage of products
like this around schools.
Ms. Miller I think says it really well.
The vocal minority.
Yes.
You have the kids who are usingthese substances saying, oh,
(08:33):
everybody does it, you know?
Oh, me and my buddies we'regetting so hammered at this party.
You know, everybody's going,in reality, they're making up
8% of the student population.
Something that we've really triedto hammer down in our messaging on
these posters is a sense of communityinvolvement in a sense of unity.
One of our big staples thatwe put on every single one of
(08:54):
our posters is Join the Crowd.
Be Loud.
And that's kind of trying to enticethe kids who aren't part of that vocal
majority of users to speak out, say, Hey,actually, wait, not everybody does this.
I'm part of the folks who don't.
And that gets the next kid sayingthat, that gets the next kid.
And all of a sudden, those five kidswho are making a real ruckus and
(09:15):
saying that are looking at a crowdof 50 people who say they don't.
That's interesting that you would saythat because well, I'll just ask you this.
Gavin, what did you do this weekend?
This weekend I studied for some of myclasses, got done with all my classes.
I slept in, played some soccer games.
I had my girlfriend's birthdayparty, so I had a pretty jam packed
(09:37):
weekend, but I was definitely notout partying, I can tell you that.
Right, Tim?
I went to graduation.
I raised some money for a fundraiser.
Went to a lot of grad parties andwent fishing with some of my buddies.
Yeah.
Now see, that's the point, right?
That's what you want the perception to be.
If I'm an eighth grader coming intoOregon High School in the fall,
that's the way to fit in, isn't it?
(09:59):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
With the majority.
Go ahead.
I think the majority of high schoolstudents, I think a big one now is
fishing, to be quite honest with you.
Like what Tim said, a lot ofstudents are starting to go fishing.
Like I know a good 20, 30 guys that'dbe going fishing every single weekend.
Really?
Yeah.
I was gonna say, I picked upfishing later in my life too.
I just had some friendswho really loved it and.
(10:19):
Here I am, you know, spendingmy weekends and free time.
(laughs) Late later in your life?
Later.
Yeah.
Later.
There you go.
Well, okay, so what doyou want people to know?
First of all, I think when you're gonnahave a campaign, it's gotta be accurate.
You guys won't remem, wellyou won't even know this, but
(10:40):
Cynthia and Amy probably do.
When I went to college near you they usedto show an old movie called Reefer Madness
that was so full of misinformation aboutmarijuana that people used to go and
laugh out loud, and that led people tomistrust information that they were given.
(11:02):
So there's a lot of misinformation aboutthe products that you're talking about.
What do you want people to knowabout e-cigarettes and ZYN pouches?
So one thing about e-cigarettes that wewanted to really focus on and was one of
our projects is the recyclability of them.
They are not recyclable.
The lithium batteries causeexplosions, fire, stuff like that,
(11:25):
you are not able to recycle those.
Another misconception is thatthey're better than cigarettes.
They're not better than cigarettes.
So some of these nicotine deviceshave 50,000 puffs, which is
equal to 200 packs of cigarettes.
Mm-hmm.
And what's dangerous about thesee-cigarettes is they're way more
convenient than a cigarette would be, youknow I'm sure you know someone in your
life who has smoked before, they usuallysmell bad and usually stepping out outside
(11:49):
every 15 minutes or so light a cig.
With e-cigarettes nowadays justtake a puff in your hand real
quick, put it back in your pocketand nobody's none the wiser.
Right?
And the vape companies know this.
They're trying to make thesedevices more accessible.
They're more ergonomic.
They fit in your hand better.
They have fancy screens on them.
You can play games andconnect them to your phone.
These devices are really beingdesigned for young children and for
(12:14):
this boost of dopamine when they,when they hit them, to get you.
Get them in your hand andget you using them more.
Can I add a couple of things, Mike?
I'm gonna do the science side.
Yeah, go.
A couple of things severe in mine.
The nicotine that's in these productsis a different form of nicotine
(12:34):
than what's in the tobacco products.
The combustible tobacco productsthat you and I grew up with.
These are what's called a nicotine salt.
And they do that so that it is moreeasily dissolved in the liquid that
becomes the vapor in these products.
When it gets into your body, it's stillin that form and it gets into your
(12:56):
tissues much easier and much faster.
And because it's a salt, it is sort ofbuffered, so it doesn't have that harsh
reaction that you get when you know thatsmoker's throat that you used to get from
smoking three or four cigarettes in a row.
So the nicotine itself is different.
Tobacco is changing.
(13:17):
It's a campaign that's been goingon in Wisconsin for a while.
The other thing to remember,in addition to the fact that.
It's in there.
It doesn't all go away.
So when we try to dispose of theseproducts, there's still nicotine in there.
It is an acute, hazardous waste.
And we're gonna have the guys in justa second tell you a little bit about
(13:38):
how we've worked to spread that word.
But beyond that, these productshave heavy metals in them.
So that's part of the battery, butit's also part of the ignition system.
The cases are all plastic.
They're all integrated, and so whenthose get crushed, they contribute to
the microplastics in the environment.
They contribute to the heavy metalcontaminants in the environment.
(14:00):
And the nicotine is still in there.
So guys, you wanna talk a little bit abouthow this group talk to the high school.
Well talk to the schoolsabout safe disposal.
So originally committed this year inyears prior, there was no protocol
for dealing with discarded vapes andnicotine devices that you would find
(14:22):
on the playground around the school.
I mean, there was a startling frequencyabout how many vapes and other
disposable e-cigarettes were found.
And Cynthia can talk about thismore than I can, but the danger
with these nicotine products iswhen they're damaged, they leak and
this nicotine can get in the skin.
And it's especially potent to littlekids and minors that are playing on the
(14:44):
playgrounds or around school property.
It's also dangerous for teachers.
You know, you don't want yourteacher touching one of these
e-cigarettes and having hazardouschemicals enter their skin.
So we'd established a protocoland we had a meeting with the
faculty of Oregon School Districtright before the year started.
To set guidelines for disposal.
Have to wear rubber gloves to protect yourhands, to grab 'em, their safety deposit
(15:07):
box that Ms. Miller will come and collect.
So that was one of our bigger achievementsearlier coming into this year.
Gavin, did you go and talk tothe faculty and the maintenance
staff about this stuff?
It was actually to the 4K through 12.
All the administrators including thedistrict office and the superintendents.
Wow.
So it was really the first timethey had heard anything about...
(15:29):
That's what I was gonna ask.
Did they have a clue?
Did they have a clue?
No.
And this is, this is kind ofrepresentative of like a broader
lack of social awareness about therecyclability of these products.
On the back of every single e-cigarettedevice that you can purchase,
there's a little recycle symbol,but that's not really the case.
Like Gavin was saying earlier, theseproducts are not easily recycled.
(15:50):
They're very hard to take care of.
And when we are starting as anorganization, we found that there was
real no county guidelines or state, likebroader guidelines for this disposal.
So we talked to the Dane Countysupervisor and we shared a presentation
with him kind of outlining the dangersthat Gavin had talked about before.
And it was pretty incredible.
After we talked to Dane Countysupervisor, the materials we shared
(16:11):
with him, you could see the, likethe presentations being shared
higher and higher up the chain.
And eventually there were guidelines setup by the city for the disposal of this.
If you go online Dane County Clean Sweep.
They now have information on their websiteto help anybody who is wondering this.
So, Amy, what do you do when you,when you have the safe deposit
boxes or, or disposal boxes?
(16:34):
Where do they go then?
So in our community, what we are doing,and there's other Dane County schools
and community coalitions also workingon this, but Clean Sweep is located
pretty far away from our school district.
So what we've done to eliminate thebarrier is the coalition will work with
(16:56):
the school and pick up the devices andwe will properly take them to Clean Sweep
so they can be properly disposed of.
It's just amazing.
So what do you, Gavin, what do youhear when you talk to kids about this?
Are they open to it?
Do you sometimes get blown off?
How do they respond to the information?
(17:16):
Kids my age or younger?
Well, both.
I'll start with kids younger.
So I coach soccer and I coach U 11,which is 10 all the way up until
my age, which is 17 years old.
And there was a kid on my team thatwas using nicotine who was older.
He is 15 years old using nicotine,which is crazy to say, but he was.
(17:36):
So, I had a conversation with himabout the dangers of it and he
didn't brush me off and listened.
But obviously there was gonna be thosepeople, especially in the older age
group that are going to brush you off.
And it is just 'cause they're addicted.
Some people, when they're addicted needsomebody else other than a person their
age or somebody who they see just asa teenager to talk to them about it.
(17:59):
Yeah, that's a really good point though.
Tim, you have to run into that.
I, I think I told you guysthis when I talked to you.
I, I ran into a, I was at an event, asporting event, where a kid was using
five of them at once because he'd heardthat it would make him more aware and
peak his athletic performance, right?
(18:20):
Where do you get that information?
Social media.
So you guys are battlingwith fact social media.
How is that received amongthe high school kids?
So I think it's difficult and it alsodepends the crowd, like social media and
any way, especially at this point in life,when you're in this high school age, I
(18:41):
feel for most kids Trump's real facts.
Like there's, it's hard to changea perception in that realm when
you're battling with social media.
'Cause social media is so muchmore accessible than these facts.
Like, we have to spend hoursupon hours reading articles
just to find this information.
Yes.
Versus they spend 15 seconds onTikTok and they find that information.
(19:02):
Mm-hmm.
(laughs)
And I think one of the more dangerousthings about the social media and how it
perpetrates this bad information is thelevel of people who are perpetrating this.
You mentioned that one of the kidson your son's team thought it would
enhance his athletic performance.
Right.
And the reality is a lot of pro athletesuse nicotine pouches when they're
playing and, and they're, a lot of'em are spokesmen for their brands.
(19:23):
So these kids are logging on theirsocial media, Hey, I wanna see what
my favorite basketball player's doing.
Oh, he's advertising pouches.
They, they say they givehim a little bit of an edge.
Maybe I should do that.
Get scorer a few more pointsin my basketball game.
You know.
I think a prime exampleis, this is Baker Mayfield.
He was on the bench putting ZYNsin his mouth during, I don't, it
wasn't the Super Bowl, but it was abigger game that definitely mattered.
(19:43):
And you being aware of what itis, knew it immediately without it
even being mentioned on television.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ladies, that's not anunfamiliar story, is it?
This is echoing for me about alcoholendorsements, cigarette endorsements back
in the day, and a variety of other things.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
You know baseball players with thecha in their, in their mouth, right?
(20:09):
The during base chewingfollows here, chewing, chewing
tobacco during a baseball game.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, babe Ruth wouldshow up to games drunk.
I think he would.
(laughs)
I think another thing too, race cardrivers, they're sponsored by Marlboro.
That's another thing.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
You know, when, one of the disappointmentsin my career, not that you guys have
(20:30):
to share this, but I bet the ladiesdo, is we had we collectively as a
society had reduced teen cigarettesmoking to a negligible amount.
When we went to high school, itwasn't unusual to have a smoking area
outside of almost every high school.
Everybody knew about the corner,the pit, you know, the smoking area.
(20:51):
For the students!
Yes!
We had, my high school actually hada smoking lounge for the students.
Right.
In the, in the school.
Yeah.
And so we got that down to zero.
And I think, ladies, do youthink what, what happened?
Did we take a pause and say We got it?
Or did they just switchbefore we could pivot?
Absolutely they switchedbefore we could pivot.
(21:12):
Because if you are a manufacturer andsupply and demand, there isn't a demand.
You're gonna create a demand.
And they were able to, back in 2013, 14,15, create a demand with misinformation.
Remember, that was the aerosol.
There's nothing wrong with it,it's just flavored aerosol and
they had a whole generationthat believed it and was hooked.
(21:36):
And even now today, as adults, wedon't know the targeted marketing
that the youth are seeing.
Because we're not aware of itAmy, is that what you're saying?
Yeah.
And you guys can talk aboutflavors and that TikTok and other.
So amongst teens, like afrequent flavor that everybody
(21:58):
wants is like blue raspberry.
Who doesn't love like a blueraspberry slushie or something
like that as a teenager.
Hot summer day that sounds amazing, right?
Well, they're putting this intonicotine now, into the vapes.
So like a flavor we have infront of us is gummy bear.
Another one's Blue Rancher,like a Jolly Rancher.
You have watermelon bubblegum, watermelon phantom.
You have banging sour berries.
(22:19):
And you have mint.
These are all flavorstargeted towards teens.
No, no calamari or or kale.
No prime rib.
Nothing like that.
Yeah.
Right.
That's, that's not unusual as well.
We had the state worked really hardand so to get cigarette advertising
away from kids off of billboards,outta magazines, and now when you
(22:42):
go to a convenience store across thecountry, right behind the cash register.
What used to be a wall of cigarettesis now a wall of nicotine pouches.
And for those adults listeningto this, if you don't use these
products, I want you to look thenext time you go to a convenience
store behind the cash register, andyou'll wonder what is that stuff?
(23:04):
You'll think it's chewing tobaccobecause it's in similar canisters, but
that's what we're talking about, right?
Overnight it became everywhere.
And that's the biggestproblem we faced when.
And this, this new frontier isthis usage of nicotine pouches.
Even we like the school districtsurveys that they've sent out
(23:25):
interviewing kids about their choices.
Really there was a blank spot when it cameto information about nicotine pouches.
So we as a group actually made ourown survey and we distributed it
amongst grade 10 health classes.
And we found that the statisticwe were using earlier, that 8% of
students are using pouches, whichdoesn't sound like a whole lot, but
(23:46):
you think about 8% of our student body.
And you think about the national average.
Ms. Miller, what's the national average?
When we compared what we found tothe national average in 2024 in
middle schools and high schools.
The Truth Initiative hada source that was 1.8%.
So just like you are talkingabout the exponential growth.
(24:07):
Yeah.
And just kudos to our students for sayingthis is something we want to address.
And why did you wanna address it?
Where were the pouches found?
I think the, the grossest place wefound 'em is in our school urinals.
Right.
And that's a big complaint ourjanitors have had as well, is you go
go into the bathroom, go up to theurinal for about six or six to 10
(24:31):
just pouches, littering the urinal.
They're stuck on, they'rein the bowl of the toilet.
They're everywhere.
People are spitting 'em,and it's disgusting.
And as a janitor who wantsto stick their hand in their
urinal if they don't have to.
Right.
One of the statements that I'vefound to be effective when I talk
to groups, especially in highschool is, do you like your janitor?
(24:54):
And almost everybody does, right?
Right.
And they're like, yeah, of course.
I'm like, oh, then why wouldyou spit that stuff in a place
where they gotta clean it up?
And it, I don't think they make theconnection, but you wanna, you wanna
personalize your information, right guys?
You wanna make it so that they can of.
So how do you do that?
Where do you put your information?
How is it disseminated?
(25:14):
So I think the way we personalizeit is the posters we made.
So the posters we made, we inthe every background, we try
to do something that is Oregon.
So for example, one of the ones wemade, it says 89% of OHS students
have not vaped in the last 12 months.
And then it has our slogan,join the crowd, be loud.
But in the background of it, yousee a printed label of OHS as
(25:34):
well as our homecoming picture.
But it has everybody blurred out.
So you can't pick out andsay, oh, this person vapes.
Oh, this person does this,this person does this.
We blurred it out.
So it's still hitting home toyour, like school environment, but
you're not able to pick out certainpeople and decredit the poster.
And we try and, and put theseposters in really relevant places.
(25:54):
We do a good job of distributingthem around the school
making 'em generally aware.
But in the bathroom, you know.
Hang an awareness signright above the urinal.
People think, maybe think twiceabout spitting 'em, you know,
or put 'em in the lunchroom.
You know, folks arewalking out to their cars.
Who knows what they're doing.
They see that sign, they think twice.
So we've really tried to hit criticalareas with the placement of these posters.
(26:15):
So what's next for next year?
So we are gonna continue working oninformation and stopping the misperception
around the usage of these substances.
That's always been our headline bannergoal, specifically next year we're
gonna talk more about the pollution.
We are going to delve into how they'reimpacting our ecosystem and the water.
(26:37):
We talked to our localsanitation officials.
Ms. Miller can speak to theinformation better than I can.
How many vapes were they findingwhen they took out the nets?
So Oregon has a, actually I'm gonnajump in and Amy will correct me.
But we're unique in the county because wehave our own wastewater processing plant.
(26:58):
We can get local information,which is incredibly valuable.
We talked with the folks who managethe, and clean off the screens that
are in that wastewater flow and to findout how many vapes they're seeing, and
they were seeing about, Amy help me.
A dozen to a dozen and a half.
(27:19):
A dozen to a dozen and a halfevery time they clean the screens.
Wow.
And the largest percentageof them were on the main that
flows out of Oregon High School.
Well, and that's like you weresaying earlier, then those
chemicals enter the system.
Exactly.
(27:39):
If they're getting into thewastewater, ultimately they're
getting into groundwater.
Mm-hmm.
So that's something we'rereally trying to combat.
O ne of our concepts is trying to getkids to think about the ecosystem.
You know there's lots of ecologicalproblems that people care strongly about.
People don't know about thevapes and all the toxins entering
the water stream from them.
(28:00):
So we're gonna try andspread awareness of that.
And we're also gonna try and combat thespread of ZYNs and these nicotine pouches.
It's great.
I think to add on to those ZYNsand nicotine pouches, it's not just
vapes being found in those filters.
It's almost like a wall of those ZYNsand nicotine pouches from being spit in a
urinal or them getting spit in the toilet.
Something anywhere that it canget into your water system.
(28:20):
Even being spit in the grass, whoknows how it's gonna end up in there?
It's still ending up in your ground,which can lead to your groundwater.
And I don't wanna leave this conversationwithout emphasizing you two guys were
nice enough to come on here, but you'renot the only two guys in this project.
And ladies, you also have anumber of different groups working
(28:40):
simultaneously, including one.
Am I correct?
Who is Spanish speaking forthe people in your community
who are Hispanic and Latino?
That is correct.
So we're approaching, I mean,because this, we discovered how big
of a misperception issue this is.
It's really important not only totalk to students, but we wanted
(29:03):
to find ways to talk to parents.
And we had students that really stepped upand were interested in talking to parents.
So we've done one parent presentation,a town hall, we'll call it.
In Spanish and our goal is to havemultiple presentations moving forward
where we have students explaining thisinformation to parents because we've
(29:25):
said over and over to every student we'veworked with, what's the common statement?
When you present, you will know more
than...
Than the people that you're presenting to.
Yeah.
Than the people that you're presenting to.
Oh, absolutely.
And it's always been true.
Correct.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I think it's the same concept withwhen I'm, when you're coaching a
(29:46):
sport or you're presenting a sportin any way, or not even just sports,
just doing something in general.
I feel as if parents listen to kids more,if you know what you're talking about.
If I'm coaching a soccer game and a parentdoesn't believe what I'm saying and I
say something that makes complete sense,they're gonna respect me a lot more.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Terrific.
Ladies I'll let you havethe last word to this.
(30:08):
If you started in 2000, whateverit was, that means, gentlemen, that
the first people who were involvedin this and now in their thirties,
that'll lead you a little bit, right?
It has to make you likeme, ladies, feel hopeful.
When you work with people likethis who are dedicated, young,
is it time that we get out of itand just turn it over to them?
(30:32):
Well we're hoping they will continueto grow in the advocacy and obviously,
I mean, you're hearing the leadershipand the understanding and the passion.
I think the one piece that wasn'tmentioned, which I think is important,
that their goal is prevention.
Their goal is to help studentscounter the misperception and not
(30:53):
use, but we also care deeply aboutstudents that are using and need help.
So as a coalition, as a school, weare trying to get information out
to parents and youth that if you areusing nicotine at a high level and
as Gavin talked about the amounts inone device, you probably need help.
(31:13):
So we are advocating fortalking to family physicians.
We have two adults trained at our middleschool, and we have one trained at
our high school to support cessation.
Great.
So it's how do we help allstudents and each group needs
something slightly different.
Outstanding.
(31:34):
I wanna thank all of you for being withus today and for the work that you do.
Those of you who listen, know that there'san attachment to the blurb on the podcast
that links you to the Oregon Area Cares.
And if you need more information,feel free to contact them.
As always, we thank you for listening.
Until we can talk to you again,be safe, take a deep breath.
(31:56):
With young people likethis, we're in great shape.
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