Melbourne principal says schools struggling to combat vaping as minister blasts ‘public health menace’

A school principal at a major Melbourne high school has spoken of the significant resources being allocated to combat vaping, as students addicted to nicotine struggle with concentration and behaviour.

"When they're experiencing withdrawal or experiencing a craving for nicotine, they experience tiredness, irritability, restlessness and appetite changes," said the principal, who asked not to be identified.

"We get reports from teachers of young people leaving class and being found vaping. I think that's a really big challenge for a young kid addicted to vaping, to be able to get through a one-hour period."

A recent survey of 218 school staff members across public, Catholic and independent secondary schools found nearly half (46%) reported finding a student with an e-cigarette on campus at least monthly, and one-third of principals who responded reported suspending or expelling students at least monthly for e-cigarette possession or use.

The health minister, Mark Butler, said on Tuesday that he regularly receives concerns about vaping "from parents and from school communities".

"This has become a very serious public health menace," he said. "We're determined to take really strong action against it. All health ministers are committed to strong reform in this area but also recognise that it can't just be done at a commonwealth level or at a state level alone. We need to do it together."

The principal said while Victoria's education department was providing resources to teachers, addressing vaping in schools was complex work that goes beyond just educating children and relying on school resources alone is not enough.

"I couldn't give you a hard and fast number on how much money we have spent addressing vaping," she said.

"We have spent money on upgrading our physical resources such as bathroom spaces and putting vape detectors in those, but it's the human resource and the time resource that I can't put the number on. Each school needs to gather data from their own community to identify when, where and why vaping is occurring. We spent a fair bit of time and work doing that."

The principal said while health and sport curriculums had been updated to incorporate the harms of vaping, parents needed to be educated too.

"With some parents who maybe have previously been smokers themselves or may use vapes themselves, it is challenging," she said. "They may not see vaping as big deal or priority. We do sometimes get parents that talk about the fact that their child is not smoking, so vaping is perceived as being 'better'.

"A lot of the work we're doing at the moment is really targeting kids, which is absolutely necessary. But I also think there's a really important role that parents play."

The federal government is currently considering which reforms to introduce before the end of the year to curb youth vaping. A University of Sydney health law researcher, barrister Neil Francey, said there was an urgent need for the Australian Competition Consumer Commission (ACCC) to enforce consumer laws to tackle the issue.

Francey, who has extensive experience in tobacco litigation, said marketing strategies used to promote vaping to children; deficiencies in age verification requirements; easy payment and delivery methods and false and misleading marketing claims by many vaping companies are in contravention of consumer law. He said this marketing, often directed to children, amounts to "unconscionable conduct".

However, he said while "the ACCC should urgently consider enforcement action, the practicability of securing compliance with the law is another matter".

"Prosecuting false representations and seeking injunctions to restrain misleading statements and unconscionable conduct can only be on a case by case basis," he said. "It can't be done on an industry-wide basis."