Tobacco-Free Partnership Hosting Youth Vaping Conference Saturday
Joyce Brewer of the Tobacco-Free Community Partnership is focused on educating residents about the dangers of nicotine and substance abuse. She's spearheading Saturday's conference on youth vaping.
But under those wrappings, vaping is an addictive health hazard that young people may not comprehend.
"It kind of introduces that concept of the quick fix to them, that you can just take a hit off your vape," said Andy Ottoson, a public health planner with Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. "And it is true, it does address your anxiety, your stress ...
"It introduces not only the mind, but also the body physiologically, that when you're feeling bad, when you're feeling stressed, there is a way you can get that quick solution, and that can cascade towards other substances and towards other substance-use disorders in addition to nicotine use disorder."
The Berkshire Tobacco Free Community Partnership Program is hosting a conference on Saturday at the Stationery Factory in Dalton that will look at not only how to deter youth from vaping but listen to them as well.
"I have an activity that I'm going to ask people to do when they get there, which is, if you're an adult, I want you to tell me one thing that you would like the youth to know in Berkshire County, and if you're a youth, I want you to tell me what's one thing that you would like to see adults know," said Joyce Brewer, program manager of the Tobacco Free Community Partnership.
"Our first session will be prevention needs. We have a youth group from Northern Berkshire Community Coalition that's going to do that presentation. We're so excited. They will talk about the results of the survey from a youth perspective, which I think is amazing."
"Award Winning Choices: Take a Starring Role in Ending Youth Vaping" will run from 8 to 3, with check-in and breakfast at 7. The free gathering will include panels, resources, networking, fireside chats and presentations for educators, providers, lawmakers, youth and anyone interested in learning about vaping and strategies to stop it.
The conference is being funded by a grant from Attorney General's Office through the Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program and hosted in a partnership between Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and Berkshire Area Health Education.
The Prevention Needs Assessment is done every two years and taken students in Grades 8, 10 and 12 and is a long list of questions that asks about current or past substance and the risk and protective factors they're experiencing.
Ottoson said the 2025 results were good — there's a measurable decline in vape usage locally across those three grades from the last PNA and the numbers are on par with national results.
"Just looking at all high school seniors, 87 percent have not vaped in the past in the past 30 days," he said. "The numbers are good, and that is all the more reason for us to take more action so that we are not seeing these increase, that we continue to see these numbers slow. We could see continue to see these numbers slope downwards, hopefully towards zero."
Brewer said the coalition youth group will be working off the assessment for their presentation.
"I'm looking at this as an opportunity to come together and not only receive tools, but also let us know what's working," she said of the conference. "What are you doing right now that's working that may benefit other school systems, other agencies, the community as a whole, parents. ... we do have a lot of youth coming, and I am so excited about that, because that connection, I think is important."
Those connections go beyond just youth, she said, adding she's also looked at food insecurity, maternal and infant mortality and mental health, and the LGBTQ community. "We have to look at all those things when we start talking about youth and addiction," she said.
Speakers on these issues will include biology professor Nicole Porther of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, licensed social worker Kelly Shuff-Heck and a doctor from Boston Children's Hospital.
"There's a really neat collective effervescence in Berkshire County, and I think that pulling together agencies such as the schools and BRPC and stuff just sends a message that this is something that that we care about," said Brewer. "From my perspective, it's always been education, so getting this information out and helping the schools who are facing these this concern right now, I think, is has been my main goal when I originally applied for the money to get this conference going. ...
"I think we just want to bolster everybody's education about this and see what we could do as a group for more collective activities."
When vaping, or e-cigarettes, first came on the scene they were sometimes touted as a way to stop smoking cigarettes. But these devices deliver nicotine, cannabis or synthetics with amplified potency.
"The average person takes maybe 10-12 puffs [of a cigarette]. It depends on if you walk away, put it down ... it doesn't deliver the nicotine at the concentration that a vape will deliver, because vaping is a liquid," said Brewer. "It's almost always stronger, and in especially the last several years, typically you would have a product out there that would have maybe 100 to 1,000 puffs on one device before you had to refill it."
Noe Gonzalez Ortiz, also a public health planner with BRPC, said youth often don't understand how vaping can increase their health risks, such getting popcorn lung, or damage to the lung's small airways that is irreversible, and to their cognition.
"I think it's because of the concentration. Vaping products have a higher concentration of nicotine in them, and it's not the same thing with smoking a cigarette," he said. "Not that I'm saying that smoking one cigarette is fine, but the concentration just taking a hit from from a vape pen is higher than just smoking a cigarette."
And Brewer noted that vape devices are also an environmental hazard as many are powered by lithium batteries — and they're becoming litter around public areas.
North Adams Public School Superintendent Barbara Malkas said the school district is trying to address vaping on multiple levels.
"We have preventative work, which is the education in the early grades, and really talking about substance use in general terms, but also talking about just lifestyle choices and how to have a healthy lifestyle," she said. "What we do see is that a lot of students turn to substance use as a means of feeling better, because maybe the underlying root cause may be some depression or anxiety or school phobia or a whole host of social emotional learning behaviors that can be mitigated through substance use, which is not really an appropriate response. ...
"What we do try to educate is how to live that healthy lifestyle, so that you can have healthy response to life stressors."
The tobacco industry has a long history marketing to youth, Malkas pointed out, that goes beyond just flavors. Vaping devices can essentially be hidden if they mimic other items, like a pen or a flash drive that a teacher wouldn't notice.
"We do have policies regarding prohibition of these devices on campus, but the industry became more sophisticated in marketing to children and giving them tools to get by some of those very policies," she said. "So intervention is part education but also really having those social emotional supports to have the conversation for our students who to recognize they are, in fact, nicotine addicted through their vape device, and then what can they do about it."
Ottoson said the use of substances by youth overall has dropped dramatically since the early 1980s when about 80 percent were abusing substances.
"Around about 2000, when I graduated high school, that hit about 50 percent and nowadays, nationally, as well as locally, it's about 35 percent," he said. "Enormous credit to the schools and educators. It's exactly as you were saying: It's increased social emotional learning. It's increased mental health support. ... We're getting a better understanding of how to support and nurture young people."
Social norms and expectation are set by adults, Ottoson said and, referring to a drinking culture in Berkshire County, "youth say that that influences their decisions on whether to use alcohol more so than what their peers are doing, what they're seeing not only parents and other adults in their lives do, but in the community as well."
Tags: conference, substance abuse, vaping, youth,
