THC vapes spiked with spice rife in schools...

[Totallybannanas]

We have letters warning us that children have been hospitalised due to vaping unknown substances. Other schools all over our town have also had issues and children arrested for dealing or hospitalised. Tonight a 14 year old child from my son's school died from vaping THC spiked with spice and other substances. How can we stop this? I know we can educate our children and talk to them but these vapes are everywhere. The government have been too slow to react to this market.

Adult deaths are happening due to spice in vapes.....kids are using the same so only a matter of time

No, this is a bad take. Teenagers aren't stupid. Part of the reason that messaging on drugs is ineffective is because it's inaccurate and young people know this. They know that if they take ecstasy they aren't going to become addicted to heroin or die. Trying to put kids off vaping regular vape juice by talking up rumoured risks about spice is just going to alienate them and stop them listening. Teenagers know that corner shops aren't selling weed vapes! If we try to tack anti vaping messaging onto scare stories about spice we just look stupid and out of touch.

Fentanyl is hot on the heels of spice....will be the next big problem

If kids want spice then there's other means over the use of it in vapes.

It's not exclusively in liquid form

There have been numerous incidents of cheap vapes being sold with dangerous levels of nicotine and other substances that have been seized by trading standards.
But if as a parent you let your child vape (which obviously can cause lung disease and heart problems) not sure you will be the sort of parent that would worry about this.

I think the point is that kids don't want spice, they think they are buying weed vapes but it's not THC it's spice.

What a terrible thing that vapes were ever allowed to be sold. They should have been on prescription only for getting off cigs.

Why do you say that? We don't have an opiate crisis in the UK the way some countries do. Fentanyl has been around for years now and has not become a crisis in the UK.

Teenagers are very stupid in that they often make poor decisions based on peer pressure, emotional immaturity etc. in comparison to an adult over 25. Plenty of kids have died from ecstasy - Leah Betts springs to mind without even having to Google it. And that's before the tablets started getting laced with a million other things. And this isn't scare stories about spice, it's an actual problem.

11 year old died in Lancaster a couple of weeks ago after 'chroming' came on to say it was vaping but I don't think that's been established.

Leah Betts is the only person that is confirmed to have died after taking ecstasy. And you've missed my point. The point is that the messaging 'all drugs are bad and equally dangerous' is counter productive because it's not true. Giving teenagers TRUE information about the actual risks of different substances including harm minimisation approaches is much more effective than just saying drugs are bad.

Died after vaping or died because of vaping? Just like the teenager the OP has heard about, we would need to know the outcome of the autopsy to be sure that vaping caused the death.

Edited as you edited your post while I was replying to make the same point

I agree, smoking cessation products should be free but not freely accessible.

Isn’t that how they hook people in, or is that an urban myth?

Of course it's an urban myth. Kids go looking for drugs and they know where to buy them. They are being pushed on insta and Snapchat regularly.

Many people have died as a result of taking ecstasy
https://www.drugwise.org.uk/how-many-people-have-died-from-ecstasy/

You talk about giving 'true' information but you are not aware of the facts yourself.

Vapes are sometimes given away as part of county lines activities in order to create a debt burden.

Vapes laced with dangerous levels of synthetic cannabinoids are absolutely a thing and whilst I dont subscribe to moral panic it's also ridiculous to say it's all just urban legend.

Vapes to create a debt? Really?

Yes. Absolutely. So that children are then forced to undertake illegal activities to repay the debt.

https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/child-abuse-and-neglect/county-lines/child-abuse-and-neglect/county-lines

From the NSPCC

I haven't come across reports about young people dying but The Met's Safer Schools Team in West London sent a letter to all schools in at least one LA which states,
'We wish to emphasise the importance of informing parents about the hazards
associated with unregulated vape pens, given the recent surge in related incidents.
Law enforcement authorities across London, including our local police officers, have
seized numerous vapes from students in the past weeks. Some of these devices are
currently undergoing testing to detect dangerous Class B substances such as Spice or THC, the active component in cannabis.'

Absolutely not true. PP has linked to the NOS information on deaths caused by ecstasy.

The problem with stating that teenagers should be given accurate information is that they are immersed in all kinds of incorrect information on SM all the time. The very last source of information they will take on board would be anything coming from the establishment.

i agree it’s a massive issue and not sure why some posters are so keen to play it down. Weird thing to be shilling for imo.

This link doesn't work. I'm aware of drug debts as part of county lines exploitation and grooming, but I've not heard about vapes being used. They may be, inasmuch as kids are given drugs to sell, but I'm not sure why they would be any more used than other drugs.