“Also known as vaping,” said Baker, longtime resource officer at Rock Ridge High School in Ashburn. Squinting at a sheet of paper, he read off a statistic: Between 2017 and 2018, use of e-cigarettes among high-schoolers jumped 78 percent.

“Among middle-schoolers,” Baker said, “by 48 percent.”

AD

The topic of driving did not surface until 15 minutes later — after Baker hit play on a video that warned vaping could lead to lung damage, cancer or serious skin burns if devices “explode unpredictably.”

Officials in the Northern Virginia school system partnered with the sheriff’s office at the start of the school year to add information on vaping to a mandatory driving seminar, the rest of which includes more typical fare such as the best way to grip a wheel. (“Hands,” a presenter later said, “at 10 and 2.”)

AD

The Loudoun County initiative, experts said, marks a new frontier in vaping prevention as schools nationwide struggle with the popularity of e-cigarettes. One in 4 high school sophomores and 1 in 3 seniors used vaping products as of December, according to the most recent data published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. That study found that nicotine vaping doubled over the past two years across all grades.

AD

Alarmed school systems are testing an array of solutions, said Bob Farrace, spokesman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Some have designed special punishments, suspending or expelling students caught vaping. Others are placing vaping detection devices in bathrooms, launching anti-vaping poster campaigns or forming student committees that preach about the risks of e-cigarettes.

“Everybody is scrambling,” Farrace said.

AD

Ashley L. Merianos, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati who studies public health education, said she is encouraged that some schools are teaching students about possible medical hazards — and hopes more will follow their example.

AD

One reason vaping is so widespread, Merianos said, is that most teenagers and their parents do not understand its dangers. Studies have shown that teaching young people about the risks of an activity — smoking, for example — reduces the chance they will partake, she said.

Still, neither she nor Farrace had heard of any other school district tying vaping information to driver’s education.

“Interesting,” Farrace said.

“That’s certainly a, um, novel way to go,” Merianos said.

Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman said the anti-vaping program is a first for his office. The department has never incorporated warnings about other forms of substance abuse into its driver’s education program, which it has offered in Loudoun County schools for at least as long as he has been sheriff. Chapman took the job in 2012.

AD

AD

The idea emerged from discussions Chapman held with staff members last summer, he said, shortly after Virginia enacted a law making it illegal for people under 21 to buy “nicotine vapor products,” including e-cigarettes. The sheriff convenes senior officers for a chat every morning to discuss “what’s on people’s minds” — and, in the weeks after the legislation took effect, one topic dominated.

“We came to an agreement that we needed to get the word out,” Chapman said. “People need to understand the consequences.”

The 84,000-student school system was receptive to the suggestion, Chapman said. Police shot an anti-vaping video, handed school resource officers a one-page script, and “that was pretty much all it took,” Chapman said.

AD

Fears of negative health consequences from vaping are well founded, said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Early research suggests vaping causes nicotine addiction, increases the likelihood students will try other drugs and stunts adolescent brain development — and those are “just the effects we know about so far,” she said.

AD

“Constantly sending very hot air into your lungs?” Volkow said. “Evolution just did not design them to tolerate that.”

In the Loudoun County schools, the campaign to curb vaping goes beyond driver’s ed.

Fiona Brown, a school system employee who works to combat substance abuse, said school officials have added vaping to the list of topics covered in a mandatory substance abuse presentation held once a year for sixth- and 10th-graders. At these sessions, school staffers warn students about marketing campaigns waged by e-cigarette companies and meant to make vaping seem “cool and tech-y,” she said.

AD

Loudoun County principals can request an extra presentation focused exclusively on vaping, Brown said — a service her office does not offer for alcohol or for any other drug.

“We absolutely have to address this,” Brown said. “This is their health at stake.”

At Rock Ridge High, Baker, the school resource officer, branded vaping a major problem; his fellow presenter, health and physical education teacher Brian Schmidt, decried e-cigarettes’ psychological effects.

AD

Their certainty faded for only a moment — when they sought to transition back to the basics of driver’s education.

“Well, you know, distraction can be caused by vaping,” Schmidt said, preparing to introduce a segment on distracted driving. “There’s a cloud. Maybe.”

AD

Vaping went unmentioned the rest of the evening. Afterward, Tim Doherty — who attended the driver’s ed class with his daughter, Stone Bridge High School student Norah Doherty — said he found the vaping portion of the evening “rather surprising.” It was certainly different from the driver’s ed classes he remembers suffering through, the 49-year-old said.

“But these days, I suppose, it’s necessary,” he said, grinning and glancing at Norah, 16. The teenager blushed, laughed and ducked her head.

The weekend before, Norah’s mother had picked up her daughter’s iPhone and saw a Snapchat video of the teenager smoking an e-cigarette — her first time vaping, Norah said. Dismayed, her parents called a family meeting.

AD

AD

After a feverish round of Googling, Tim Doherty came ready to make a point that lingered with his daughter.

“He said you have no idea what’s in it,” Norah said. “That made sense.”

Also effective, she admitted, were the parental punishments: no Snapchat, no sleepovers, no cellphone for an entire weekend. She has no plans to try vaping any time soon — a conviction strengthened by that evening’s driver’s ed class.

“Still, it’s not as effective as him,” she said, nodding at Tim Doherty.