There’s been an increase in vaping in Kamloops area schools, despite the school board banning smoking and vaping on all school properties.

Youth vaping rates appear to have doubled year over year in the last three years.

That’s according to Interior Health’s Tobacco Reduction Coordinator Jeff Conners who is concerned.

“So for adults, who already smoke, it’s probably better for them to move to vaping,” he said. “But to start for a young, adolescent brain getting addicted to nicotine, that’s probably not what we want.”

“And so some of the challenges are also with the flavours, like popcorn lung, is something that we are looking at, that could be an issue. This stuff hasn’t been around long enough to test longitudinally.”

Popcorn lung is a type of lung disease, named after a ckuster of popcorn factory workers who were found to have the rare lung condition. some e-cigarette users may worry about it.

Conners adds that vapes might not have tobacco in them, but they do contain nicotine which he says is one of the most addictive substances.

The Kamloops-Thompon School District has banned smoking and vaping on all school property, but there are still reports that students are vaping when at school.

Conner’s is hoping to see some better education and enforcement around susbstances and addicitons.

“We want to push kids not to use any substance until they are far out of high school, quite frankly,” Connors added.

The ease of availabilty at numerous stores is another area to look at, he said.