"We need some help," said West Seneca East High School principal, Jason Winnicki Thursday morning at the Erie County Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee meeting.
Winnicki's empassioned plea was just one of many made by the principals and superintendents invited to speak. They shared what is going on in their schools in terms of middle and high school students vaping on and off school property. The educational leaders, spoke on behalf of teachers and staff, worried that vaping among students is out of control.
"It's really taxing the system right now," testified William McCowan, assistant principal of Alden High School, "and I'm sure it's not just the schools that are here. Every single school. So...more needs to be done."
This is the second group addressing Erie County lawmakers in as many weeks. They're asking the county to enact laws to make these devices less attractive to kids and teens and harder for them to get ahold of.
"You need to tax the heck out of these things," said Winnicki. "Make them cost prohibitive."
He added, "If you can ban flavors, please do that."
Winnicki's counterpart at West Seneca West, principal John Brinker brought various types of vaporizers to the meeting explaining that the larger more easy to spot models are more expensive. The smaller easier to hide e-cigarettes, like the popular Juul model, are cheaper.
"These look like a USB drive," testified Brinker. "This looks like a pen. These by the way are about 20 dollars now."
Since the e-cigarette industry has only been around a few years, there is very little research out there to prove the long term health effects of vaping. While Roswell Park is currently researching the thousands of liquid nicotine flavors on the market, it won't be clear for some time what the various chemicals in those products can do to the body.
But what experts do know for certain is that the vaping aerosol is not water vapor. It is a combination of chemicals that include fine particles, nicotine and heavy metals that are inhaled directly into the lungs.
The nicotine is especially concerning for kids and teens because the newer more popular products can deliver high levels of this extremely addictive chemical which studies show is dangerous for the developing brain.
Perhaps even more concerning, school officials say it's not uncommon for illicit drugs to be added to the vaping liquid.
"We had a student from another school at our football game last year," explains Brinker during his testimony. "She needed medical attention. We called in medical. We were convinced she was on opioids. It wasn't. She had an e-cig on her, and it was a Juul. It was a highly concentrated dab. I've dealt with kids that were stoned on marijuana. This student was far beyond what we would expect a student on marijuana to look like."
The belief is that 18 year-old students are buying e-cigarettes and reselling the products to younger kids. This is why educators as well as health and addiction experts are calling on legislators to increase the legal age to buy tobacco products, including e-cigs, to 21.
Thursday's meeting was the second, in what is expected to be an ongoing discussion, to help legislators figure out possible county vaping laws.
After the first meeting on January 10, Committee Chair John Bruso told 2 On Your Side it would likely be many months before Erie County would see any vaping regulations.
But Thursday, it seemed that raising the legal age to buy tobacco products to 21 may happen sooner.
"I think the T-21." explains Bruso, "it's already in nine different counties and the city, so I think that would be something that is the start."
How soon, is still not clear. Bruso said more discussions are in the pipeline before votes on potential legislation.