On Thursday afternoon, November 15th, 2018, the first ever ‘Vaping Assembly’ took place in the Goffstown High School gymnasium. The assembly was an optional get together, hosted in the gym of Goffstown High by Youth Forum, a program of Crispin’s House Coalition for Youth, in partnership with GHS. John Webb, Guidance Counselor at Goffstown High was a big part of the assembly, along with many others who have come together to help find an end to this epidemic, including, Laurie Warnock from the Poison Control Center, Todd Lavallee,  The Dean of Students, Shannon Hebert, Student Guidance Counselor, and Officer Pelletier, the Student Resource Officer from Goffstown Police Department.

The Assembly was an informative but also helpful workshop to those who have tried vaping or need to know why not to start. About 250 students turned out to see a powerpoint that was presented and put together by Laurie Warnock, who was eager to inform kids how addictive nicotine truly is. She explains that vaping is like Maple syrup going into an air conditioner, an unknown liquid entering the lungs that is only made for air. Many kids laughed at the information being provided but a lot were also happy that action is being taken on the issue at hand. John Webb, and Todd Lavallee, have provided point of view and personal experience of the assembly.

Todd Lavallee the Dean of students at GHS, has dealt with the most vaping situations in school than anyone else has. He explains that there were only 30 incident reports regarding drugs/alcohol in the year 2015-2016, then 34 in 2016-2017, and last school year almost 77 incident reports regarding vaping, drugs and alcohol, in 2017-2018. “The vaping epidemic is getting out of control” says Lavallee. He feels as if he has been discredited as a leader due to other kids bad decision making, In the assembly Officer Pelletier sheds light on the issue that Mr.Lavallee has to legally report to her about anything to do with vapes. “Educators need to be proactive with the information that they see or hear and that is one step closer to ending this”. Many kids have run off campus, two kids have been taken by ambulance due to vaping and some kids are uncomfortable to even enter school bathrooms.

The assembly caused many reactions, from staff point of view, Mr.Webb  has stated that he was “blown away to see how addictive nicotine is, to be on the same level as heroin”. Many kids laughed when Mrs.Warnock provided that information, but she held her ground to inform that it is not a joking matter. Webb was shocked at the turnout! “We did a headcount and there were about 250 kids who showed up and it was an optional assembly which made us hopeful”.

The overall point of this presentation was to inform and help kids who didn’t believe they had a voice, and those who actually believed that nicotine would not hurt them over time. The assembly was such a success to the faculty, that they believe awareness is the main cause to ending the epidemic. The Vape Assembly has created controversy but also clarity to those who choose to recieve help for addiction, or need more information on the topic.