LOST IN THE CLOUDS
NESTLED BETWEENthe wealthy suburb of Kohimarama and the Hauraki Gulf, Glendowie College in east Auckland is one of the city’s most respected public high schools, with a clean-cut image to match. Until very recently, according to former principal, Richard Dykes, discipline issues were pretty minimal — just an occasional cigarette smoker or truant. But then, after the summer holidays in 2019, something changed.
“Suddenly, oh my goodness, every day we were picking up multiple students vaping,” says Dykes. “It felt like a tsunami had crashed.”
Alerted by the tell-tale scent of candy-flavoured juices, or the billowing yet ethereal clouds of vapour, teachers were catching students vaping everywhere — in the grounds, in the toilets, even during lessons. “One of the games was trying to see who could vape in class,” says Dykes. Students would hide their device in their sleeve, take a hit and then breath the vapour back into their jumpers to mask the smell. Around this time, Dykes started hearing similar complaints from colleagues at “multiple schools” — particularly high-decile ones where students typically had more disposable income. By the end of the 2019 school year, Dykes had between 70 and 100 vape devices in his office drawer. He wasn’t the only high school principal to start using the word “epidemic”.
Vapes, once more commonly known as e-cigarettes, are non-combustible nicotine delivery systems that heat a flavoured “juice” or e-liquid to create clouds of nicotine-infused vapour. You’ve likely seen — or smelt — one. They’re promoted by the vaping industry and the government alike as a healthier alternative to cigarettes. But that doesn’t mean they are actually healthy. A growing number of academics, researchers and medical professionals believe vape companies have long abandoned the pretense that their product is a cigarette alternative and instead are creating a new generation of first-time vapers (and nicotine addicts) — particularly among younger New Zealanders.
In 2019, a study by Action for Smokefree 2025 showed that regular vaping among Year 10 students increased from 3.5 per cent to 12 per cent in four years. During this period,
