MIDDLEBURG – Vaping is at the center of most topics relating to student safety. Teens are eschewing traditional cigarettes for pod-based electric vaporizers that are usually flavored.

Students Working Against Tobacco, or SWAT, took a table to Middleburg High last week, where they were approached by students and answered questions about smoking.

SWAT clubs are entrenched in 10 Clay schools, including two elementary schools. Each has a teacher in an advisor role. The group coordinates park clean ups and outreach efforts with students and businesses. SWAT members passed out fliers and pamphlets, candy and novelties during Middleburg High’s three lunch periods.

Joy Moritz, Tobacco Free Partnership of Clay County’s community advocate, said quitting smoking starts with education and a conversation. It’s possible to emphasize the dangerousness of the product without demonizing the student, she said.

“We don’t want to be negative towards them,” Moritz said. “We want to say, ‘Guess what, let’s educate you. What are you vaping or smoking?’”

The Tobacco Free Partnership of Clay County operates under the state’s QuitDoc Foundation. About 17% of youth who responded to the state’s Youth Substance Abuse Survey in 2018 reported use of an e-cigarette or vaporizer in the past 30 days. The state average was 13.7%, according to the state Health Department.

The 2019 Youth Substance Abuse Survey quoted an increase in reported vape use in the past 30 days from 20.8% in 2018 to 27.5% this year.

“To me, that (number is) concern, especially in Clay County,” Moritz said. “There’s a lot of lack of education. We don’t want them to be the guinea pigs to that kind of industry.”

Oct. 16 was “Not A Lab Rat Day.” SWAT’s table had several plastic lab rats, to emphasize companies “testing” e-cigarettes’ effects on teens.

“E-cigarette companies use the same tricks, including flavors and marketing campaigns, tobacco companies used for decades to target and recruit young smokers,” according to a state Health Department press release. “These are the same tobacco companies that for decades lied about the addictiveness and health effects of cigarettes.”

Middleburg junior Tyler Garcia is a member of the school’s SWAT program. Garcia said he wanted to help educate and get students to stop smoking.

“Everybody does it, out of school or in school. It’s just a normal thing,” Garcia said. “It only takes a friend to walk up to you and say, ‘Take a hit of this.’ It’s easy to spread around and to hide, the flavors make it taste better.”

Tobacco prevention is not easy. Garcia said some students shake off the adverse effects when discuss e-cigarettes.

“It’s dangerous, it’s killing people,” Garcia said.