Time for another outlandish and ridiculous claim about e-cigarettes, this time from GeneseeCounty and you’ll never guess what e-cigarettes are a gateway to now.Jennifer Zambito is the assistant director for prevention at Genesee/Orleans Council onAlcoholism and Substance Abuse. She was invited to take part in a p anel discussing e- cigarettes held at Batavia High School . Zambito declared that one of the problems with e-cigarettes (we’re sure she can think of quite a few) was the fact that the nicotine containedcan be replaced with other substances. “You can put anything in these,” she said. “Youcan crush a prescription pill. It’s a gateway to heroin. Heroin is a huge problem in GeneseeCounty.”Not many people can follow a sentence discussing prescription pills with one mentioningheroin. It’s a claim though that has nothing to do with the e-cigarette industry. If someonewants to replace the nicotine with some other substance then that is entirely down to them.You’ll never find any e-cigarette company saying if you don’t fancy using nicotine, then sticka bit of heroin in instead. If Genesee County does have a “huge problem” with heroin, thenperhaps Zambito should be spending more time trying to reduce that problem rather thangetting worked up over the e-cigarette industry.Batavia High School has already dealt with the problem by prohibiting the use or possessionof e-cigarettes or other smoking materials. The school is also trying to raise awarenessamong parents as well as youngsters who might want to use them. Bringing somebody inwho tells parents that e-cigarettes can be a gateway to heroin isn’t the cleverest example ofawareness ever seen.It appears that some of the students attending the High School have been using a variety ofmethods to smuggle e-cigarettes into the school. This includes ceiling tiles, spandex shorts,fake water bottles and even bras. It seems children these days are just as clever at hidingbanned items as I was when at school many years ago. To think some of the teachers atour school actually thought it was lemonade in those bottles! Again though this behaviour isnot the fault of the e-cigarette industry is it?I particularly loved the fact that the article reporting the panel included this sentence:“Raised awareness is important, and so is valid information.” Well perhaps they shouldspend more time reading this website and taking in the positive information about e-cigarettes and all the studies held. Or perhaps they’d rather just listen to someone who linkse-cigarettes with heroin use which doesn’t really help anyone.What is important here though is that it isn’t right to criticize any product when it’s not beingused for its actual purpose. If the school has a problem with its students using illegal drugsthen they should be sorting that issue out.