ATLANTA — On the heels of an online business disguising e-cigarettes as school supplies, the Georgia Retailers' Association is urging the Food and Drug Administration and local authorities to crack down harder on the sale of vape products.
Some vape pens are designed to look like highlighters, hoodies, USB drives, and water bottles--making it more difficult for parents and teachers to notice students have them.
Rich Marianos is a retired U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives director.
"They're becoming more creative in ways to get the products inside the school system now, to keep the kids addicted," Marianos said.
The FDA's National Youth Tobacco survey shows one in four young people use e-cigarettes daily. And Marianos said kids are using disposable vapes more than ever.
"The parents need to know that it's a dangerous product for their kids to take in," Marianos said. "It works very, very well when they work in concert with local law enforcement, the school resource officers, the school systems, and amongst each other to identify it and take it."
11Alive reached out to all of the local school districts. Atlanta Public Schools says they haven't had an issue, Cobb County School District references their program to educate families about vaping, and a Decatur Schools spokesperson sent this statement:
"A review indicates that of the very few confiscations that have occurred during this semester, some have been described as resembling jump drives, flash drives, lighters and lipsticks. It was undetermined if these devices had been intentionally designed to resemble these items or if it was a description based on a lack of familiarity with the vape device."
Marianos said it's harder to control online retailers, as they can sell from other countries, such as China. However, he said vape shops shouldn't get away with selling them. Because of how popular these products are, it's going to take more than an FDA warning to keep them out of the hands of students, he added.
"What we need to do is a more comprehensive look at getting law enforcement, the tools, the abilities to work with the teachers, the administrators, and our parents to identify the problem in the jurisdictions and to go after it on a lower level to remove it from the shelves," Marianos said.