 Welcome back everyone. This is the Senate Health and Welfare Committee on Friday, February 18th. And we are joined today by three young women from the voices. Let me make sure I get it right. Our voices exposed youth tobacco prevention program. And if you girls wanna introduce yourselves, I'll go in alphabetical order, I think. Leah, if you wanna start first. I'm Leah Elliott and I'm from Spalding and I'm here to represent OVX. Great, Becca. My name's Becca McKelvie. I'm a junior at Spalding and I'm also here to represent OVX. Wonderful, Madison. Hi, I'm Madison Ashford. I am a junior at Spalding and I'm also here representing OVX. Great. And just for our view. Where is Spalding? Just so we all know. It's in Senator Cummings. Is it in, where is it? What town is it in? It's in Barrie, Vermont. So just- In Barrie. It's in Barrie. All right, so Senator Cummings, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself first. Okay, I'm in Cummings and I am your Senator. I represent Washington County. Awesome, Senator Hooker. Thank you, I'm Cheryl Hooker. I represent Rutland County. Welcome, thanks for being involved. And Senator Charanzini. Hey, good morning, Senator Josh Charanzini from Rutland County and I was also a member of OVX when I was in high school. Cool. And I'm Senator Ruth Hardy. I represent the Addison district. So why don't you all go ahead with your presentation and we will listen to what you have to say. So recently we have experienced an uprising in vaping in our school and I think other schools in Vermont. And typically throughout the day, if you go into the bathroom, you can smell that people have been vaping in there because it's pretty much a fruity scent. Recently also, I know last week the boys bathroom had to be closed and they put a sign up that says closed due to vaping and it has also happened for other bathrooms around the school for the girls bathrooms as well. That's also not the first time that this has happened. This has happened multiple times and teachers have had to come and actually monitor the bathrooms, but as you know, like they can't be everywhere at every time. Aliyah, did you wanna add anything? Not really. I agree that's been happening. It's a real big issue at our school. And what, are there any programs at your school to help prevent vaping or why do you think so many students are doing it? So we do have SAD in our school, which is Students Against Destructive Decisions and it works through OVX and our advisor for OVX is also the advisor for SAD. And we have put up us three together, have put up posters around the school and specifically in the bathrooms. We've actually had people take down the posters because they disagree with them. I also recently did a podcast and they were sent out to the entire school. So we are trying to like spread the word about how bad vaping is and we're trying to get the attention of the students. But obviously outside of school, it's still an issue and then they bring it back into school. And why do you think it's so popular with students to use vaping products? Personally, I think it's because it's so accessible to them. You obviously can get them right at the gas station. I know you have to be of age, but a lot of people have friends that are in college that can get them for them and then they give them to their friends or they ask their friends at school, hey, do you wanna hit my vape type thing? So it's way too common that we see it. In fact, just yesterday, a student that I've never met before asked me if I had a vape and I immediately went right to my advisor and told her and I was honestly grossed out when I was asked that question because I just hate that every kid thinks that every kid vapes. I also think it's like in how it's presented to us like advertised despite all like depression stick commercials that are being shown to us right now. But like Becca said, it's very accessible and like people make it accessible to us. Senator Hooker, did you have a question? Thank you, I do. Can you talk about the way your administration at school handles cases when somebody is vaping in the bathroom or if someone goes to them and talks about people asking them about vaping, how is the administration handling them, the complaints? So we don't know how to say this but we don't exactly know what happens between like the administration and the student like the meeting that they have but I know that they are talked to by our assistant principal because he's the one that handles like behavioral stuff. And as I said, they usually try to close the bathrooms to prevent this but our school has opened up the staff bathrooms which are now considered general neutral bathrooms and I know people who vape who do go into those bathrooms because it's a more private location and they're less likely to be caught. Okay. Okay. And do they close all the bathrooms? What if you have to go to the bathroom? What do you do? Usually they only close, there's like two bathrooms on each floor. So usually they just close one of the bathrooms on that floor. So there is still another one available. Oh, okay. Okay. That's better. Parker, did you have a follow-up question? No, it's just this certainly is a new take on an old problem. We've been dealing with tobacco and nicotine for a long time and I appreciate that you're involved in this and trying to do something to make others aware of the destructive nature of these products. Senator Cummings, did you have a question? Yeah, some of your peers spoke to Lee Senator Hardy and I in finance. I think it was last week. And they were talking about mail order and even though we've raised the age for everything to 21, that there was a lot of black market vapes coming in. Are you seeing that? I definitely haven't heard anything about that but it would make sense considering a lot of people in our school that actually do utilize these products. Okay. But you're also seeing them just coming from the local gas stations and kids getting them that way. And you think it's older kids buying them for them, not just that they're not carded? Is that what I was hearing? No, they'll be carded. Yeah, I would say it's definitely the older kids like older siblings or kids used to go to high school with them. Did you have another question, Senator Cummings? No, no. Senator Taranzini, did you have a question? Well, I was just thinking Senator Hardy, I applaud these three young ladies for being so courageous to come talk to us about this. Especially, we know that high school years can be difficult with people being picked on and bullies and so on. And I'm sure it's not always easy to stand up to your classmates and when you know something's wrong and it's so popular. And I applaud you for being courageous about this and caring about your community's health. So keep up the good work. Yeah, absolutely. I think we all agree with Senator Taranzini. Are there other things you want us to know about this, about your efforts with OVX? Which, can you remind us what OVX stands for? Yeah, OVX is Our Voices Exposed. Okay. And is it specific to tobacco issues or is it broader than that? It's broader than that too. So it can be like alcohol prevention or relationships like basically stuff to keep the community safe. So health and safety for students, I see. That's good. So do you have other things you wanna share with us? We're the Health and Welfare Committee. So we'd love to hear your thoughts on other things if you want to share. Madison? I just had a question. Sure. So I know that, well, I used to go to Williamstown Middle High School and a couple of years ago, they had the same issue and they installed smoke detector type things in their bathrooms and they're like post-wedding it, posting it on social media. Is that actually like effective? Like I don't understand how that works and if it is, why don't we use things like this? That is a good question. I don't know. I don't know if anyone else knows. It sounds like they were specific to catching cigarette smoke kind of things. I don't know if it would be effective on vaping but that's a really good question to ask your principal and maybe the principal could ask the facilities manager about it because if that is an effective deterrent or alarm, that might be a good idea. Yeah. This committee has done a lot of work on tobacco prevention and a few years ago, the Senate and the full legislature passed a raise the age bill that raised the age for accessing cigarettes and vapes and other products to 21. Tobacco 21 was what it was called and it started in this committee just so you know we have worked for many years on this issue and Senator Lyons who's the chair is a particularly vocal champion on tobacco prevention as who's not here right now. And Becca, I just wanted to add, you mentioned that you did a podcast. Is that something that you would be willing to share with us and to send along to Erin and we could post it on our website and listen to it in our free time? Yeah, I definitely can. I don't have the link, but I'm sure I can find it and send it to Song if Song can send it out to you guys, do you know? I don't know. She was the one that set us up for this meeting. Okay, Erin, do you have her contact information? Yes, she can send it to me, I can talk to her. Okay, that would be great. So if you want to send the link to that or any other things you've written or produced that you would like to share with us, that'd be great. No, it definitely will. Wonderful. Well, girls, thank you so much for your time today. It's been really nice to have you in our committee and you're welcome back any time to talk to us about this or any other issues that might be impacting you. And thank you for your good work in your school. And enjoy your snow day. I'm assuming you're all right. I was gonna ask them if they were in school today. That means my grandkids aren't in school either. Thanks so much, have a good break too. Yes, that's right. Thank you. We'll see you everybody. Bye.