Photo: AP

Ah, peer pressure. Regardless of the leaps and bounds made in smoking technology that will hopefully one day render cigarettes irrelevant, it’s always going to be cool to convince an impressionable friend to puff on something they shouldn’t in a location where puffing is strictly forbidden.



Dora the Explorer voice actress Fatima Ptacek, 15, appears to be caught in just such a web of mutual adolescent fear mongering. According to the New York Daily News, last winter, Ptacek and a younger friend were caught sampling caramel-flavored vapor water in the bathroom of Avenues: The World School in Chelsea—yes, that is the school’s real name.

While Ptacek claimed she vaped only to impress an older boy and received just a 3-day suspension, her friend was forced to withdraw from the expensive institution altogether. The parents of the younger child are now suing the school, claiming their daughter was was intimidated into experimentation by fraternizing with a celebrity best known for cooing simple directions in Spanish.