Oregon Cares — Empowering Students

[Upbeat Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting and the Kenosha County Substance Use Disorder Coalition. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: Those of you who listen to this podcast regularly know that I speak to and work with thousands of school students every year.

Mike: More than occasionally, I meet students, so exceptional, articulate, and informed that I can't help but feel hopeful for the future. I have a couple of those students and their advisors with us today. Tim and Gavin are high school juniors. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, correction, right? Did you say today's first day of summer?

Tim: First day of summer. We're seniors now,

Mike: High school seniors, congratulations. At Oregon High School in Oregon, Wisconsin. I met them and their advisors, Cynthia DiCamelli and Amy Miller during a workshop in the fall. They impressed me with their knowledge, their work, their conviction. I wanted to share that with all of you today.

Mike: Welcome to all of you. This is, this is great. Cynthia, let me start with you. Talk about your organization. It's called Oregon Area. Oregon, sorry, Area Cares. Correct?

Cynthia: Yeah. And I say it wrong because I lived in the state

Mike: Oh!

Cynthia: Of Oregon. (laughs) So bear with me. And all of you Wisconsinites bear with me, but I don't say it right.

Cynthia: So Oregon Area Cares grew out of work that Amy and I started doing back in 2009. Part of what prompted us to do this is that I had spent the previous nine years on the school board here in Oregon and one of the less felicitous roles of school board members is to sit in with.

Cynthia: Sitting on expulsion hearings and we were seeing an extraordinary number of expulsion hearings over those nine years. And a great many of them had to do with kids having alcohol, mostly in those days, with them in school or going home at lunch and using alcohol over the lunch hour and coming back to school under the influence.

Cynthia: As a school board we didn't wanna just say, bang you're expelled. We wanted to do something to give kids more help to get over that problem and figure out how to help them. And so we, it was really just the very beginning of trying to understand why kids were misusing alcohol, misusing other substances.

Cynthia: And I might point out that in those days at the very beginning of my tenure on the school board, nicotine was not even on our agenda.

Mike: Right.

Cynthia: Because you could still use nicotine at 18. So one of the things that we decided we wanted to, well, one of the things that the school board wanted to do was form a committee to figure out what was causing those kinds of things and how to prevent those substance uses.

Cynthia: So we actually started off as a little ad hoc committee. We brought in some community members. We had teachers, we had a variety of people in this group, and we tried to figure out what was going on and started just talking about how do we get the message out. One of the very first things we did, which was back in the dark ages it feels like, was a Parents Who Host Lose The Most campaign.

Mike: Yep.

Cynthia: And it actually was pretty successful because one of the things that it ultimately led to was our community being one of the very first in the state to pass what's called a social host ordinance. Ultimately it was overwritten by the state social host ordinance, but we are still one of the few states, even in the country that has a social host law that restricts how alcohol is provided to children outside of your family members.

Mike: Amy, when you started the, I mean, that's a long time, that's 16 years ago, right? So, you have now working with kids, when did you all decide to bring kids into the fold, students into the fold to work on projects and to empower them?

Amy: Well, all along the way we've worked with youth because you and I both know as working in education and I come with a background in education, that to make positive change and to lead the work.

Amy: If it is led by youth, the change is gonna happen so much faster and more people will listen. The change will be wider. So we started this specific project with students that have already graduated from Oregon.

Mike: Yeah.

Amy: We started in August of 2023 and we met over the summer and it was students that were interested in coming in in the summer.

Amy: And one of the first things we did was we talked about misperceptions. So the idea of we can't change others behavior. We need to change our own behavior, but what we can do is think about what areas in the school does this specific group of students feel that there are a lot of misperceptions. And we did a post-it note activity and we probably had 60 post-it notes of different areas that this specific group of youth thought there were misperceptions.

Amy: And when they narrowed it down, it narrowed down to alcohol and nicotine were the top two. So then from there it was like, okay, if we have misperceptions and we're aware of it, how do we know that? So then they looked at data and they probably looked at more data than many adults have looked at to try to better understand.

Amy: Oh, so not that many students are drinking alcohol or vaping. But the perception is, we feel the perception is, students would say everybody or most students are doing it.

Mike: You talked a lot about pro-social norming, right?

Amy: Mm-hmm.

Tim: We did. Yeah. That was kinda the emphasis for one of our projects and something we're still really trying to work on today is kind of reverting the social stigma that everybody uses nicotine or alcohol or THC or products like that. That was a big thing with our posters right here. As you can see, we have statistics that are like 96% of students do not use these products or this one in particular, nicotine pouches. So a big focus for our group has been trying like Ms. Miller said, to revert the social stigma using community outreach.

Mike: Well, okay, say that again, Tim. Say that again. How many don't do it?

Tim: Pardon me.

Mike: How many don't do nicotine pouches?

Tim: 96% or 92%. Sorry.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a huge number. That means only 8%. And I would imagine that that skews I'm gonna guess it skews higher for upper class kids.

Tim: I'm assuming so. Yes. Yeah.

Mike: Yeah.

Mike: Gavin, why did you get involved?

Gavin: So I got involved recently and I got involved because, to be completely honest, Tim asked me to do a presentation.

Mike: Great.

Gavin: And I was very good at public speaking and stuff like that. I didn't know much about the club at the start of it, but I got involved because Tim asked me to basically. And from that I've learned a lot and I am now wanting to be a part of this club and learn about it.

Mike: Amy that I think that's great.

Mike: That's the, one of the messages I try to get across when I work with schools is if you have an invite from another kid, that's a way to keep the program perpetually going, isn't it?

Amy: Very much so.

Tim: Definitely.

Mike: So talk about, gentlemen, talk about the project that you decided to focus on.

Gavin: Yeah. So to tie into kind of what Tim said, our main project was getting rid of this stigma around high school students and vaping, using nicotine pouches and stuff like that.

Gavin: Like Cynthia said, alcohol is still there, but is not as prevalent as nicotine is now. So, for example, like ZYNs, even though only 8% of students still do it in OHS, that's still 8%. That's still a margin of people. So we wanted to change that stigma that it's not 92% of students, it's only that 8%.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

Tim: See, there's a big misperception around the usage of products like this around schools. Ms. Miller I think says it really well. The vocal minority.

Mike: Yes.

Tim: You have the kids who are using these substances saying, oh, everybody does it, you know? Oh, me and my buddies we're getting so hammered at this party.

Tim: You know, everybody's going, in reality, they're making up 8% of the student population. Something that we've really tried to hammer down in our messaging on these posters is a sense of community involvement in a sense of unity. One of our big staples that we put on every single one of our posters is Join the Crowd. Be Loud.

Tim: And that's kind of trying to entice the kids who aren't part of that vocal majority of users to speak out, say, Hey, actually, wait, not everybody does this. I'm part of the folks who don't. And that gets the next kid saying that, that gets the next kid. And all of a sudden, those five kids who are making a real ruckus and saying that are looking at a crowd of 50 people who say they don't.

Mike: That's interesting that you would say that because well, I'll just ask you this. Gavin, what did you do this weekend?

Gavin: This weekend I studied for some of my classes, got done with all my classes. I slept in, played some soccer games. I had my girlfriend's birthday party, so I had a pretty jam packed weekend, but I was definitely not out partying, I can tell you that.

Mike: Right, Tim?

Tim: I went to graduation. I raised some money for a fundraiser. Went to a lot of grad parties and went fishing with some of my buddies.

Mike: Yeah. Now see, that's the point, right? That's what you want the perception to be. If I'm an eighth grader coming into Oregon High School in the fall, that's the way to fit in, isn't it?

Tim: Mm-hmm.

Gavin: Yeah.

Mike: With the majority. Go ahead.

Gavin: I think the majority of high school students, I think a big one now is fishing, to be quite honest with you. Like what Tim said, a lot of students are starting to go fishing. Like I know a good 20, 30 guys that'd be going fishing every single weekend.

Mike: Really?

Gavin: Yeah.

Tim: I was gonna say, I picked up fishing later in my life too. I just had some friends who really loved it and. Here I am, you know, spending my weekends and free time.

Mike: (laughs) Late later in your life?

Tim: Later. Yeah. Later.

Mike: There you go. Well, okay, so what do you want people to know? First of all, I think when you're gonna have a campaign, it's gotta be accurate.

Mike: You guys won't remem, well you won't even know this, but Cynthia and Amy probably do. When I went to college near you they used to show an old movie called Reefer Madness that was so full of misinformation about marijuana that people used to go and laugh out loud, and that led people to mistrust information that they were given.

Mike: So there's a lot of misinformation about the products that you're talking about. What do you want people to know about e-cigarettes and ZYN pouches?

Gavin: So one thing about e-cigarettes that we wanted to really focus on and was one of our projects is the recyclability of them. They are not recyclable. The lithium batteries cause explosions, fire, stuff like that, you are not able to recycle those.

Gavin: Another misconception is that they're better than cigarettes. They're not better than cigarettes. So some of these nicotine devices have 50,000 puffs, which is equal to 200 packs of cigarettes.

Tim: Mm-hmm.

Tim: And what's dangerous about these e-cigarettes is they're way more convenient than a cigarette would be, you know I'm sure you know someone in your life who has smoked before, they usually smell bad and usually stepping out outside every 15 minutes or so light a cig.

Tim: With e-cigarettes nowadays just take a puff in your hand real quick, put it back in your pocket and nobody's none the wiser. Right? And the vape companies know this. They're trying to make these devices more accessible. They're more ergonomic. They fit in your hand better. They have fancy screens on them.

Tim: You can play games and connect them to your phone. These devices are really being designed for young children and for this boost of dopamine when they, when they hit them, to get you. Get them in your hand and get you using them more.

Cynthia: Can I add a couple of things, Mike?

Cynthia: I'm gonna do the science side.

Mike: Yeah, go.

Cynthia: A couple of things severe in mine. The nicotine that's in these products is a different form of nicotine than what's in the tobacco products. The combustible tobacco products that you and I grew up with. These are what's called a nicotine salt. And they do that so that it is more easily dissolved in the liquid that becomes the vapor in these products.

Cynthia: When it gets into your body, it's still in that form and it gets into your tissues much easier and much faster. And because it's a salt, it is sort of buffered, so it doesn't have that harsh reaction that you get when you know that smoker's throat that you used to get from smoking three or four cigarettes in a row.

Cynthia: So the nicotine itself is different. Tobacco is changing. It's a campaign that's been going on in Wisconsin for a while. The other thing to remember, in addition to the fact that. It's in there. It doesn't all go away. So when we try to dispose of these products, there's still nicotine in there. It is an acute, hazardous waste.

Cynthia: And we're gonna have the guys in just a second tell you a little bit about how we've worked to spread that word. But beyond that, these products have heavy metals in them. So that's part of the battery, but it's also part of the ignition system. The cases are all plastic. They're all integrated, and so when those get crushed, they contribute to the microplastics in the environment.

Cynthia: They contribute to the heavy metal contaminants in the environment. And the nicotine is still in there. So guys, you wanna talk a little bit about how this group talk to the high school. Well talk to the schools about safe disposal.

Tim: So originally committed this year in years prior, there was no protocol for dealing with discarded vapes and nicotine devices that you would find on the playground around the school.

Tim: I mean, there was a startling frequency about how many vapes and other disposable e-cigarettes were found. And Cynthia can talk about this more than I can, but the danger with these nicotine products is when they're damaged, they leak and this nicotine can get in the skin. And it's especially potent to little kids and minors that are playing on the playgrounds or around school property.

Tim: It's also dangerous for teachers. You know, you don't want your teacher touching one of these e-cigarettes and having hazardous chemicals enter their skin. So we'd established a protocol and we had a meeting with the faculty of Oregon School District right before the year started.

Tim: To set guidelines for disposal. Have to wear rubber gloves to protect your hands, to grab 'em, their safety deposit box that Ms. Miller will come and collect. So that was one of our bigger achievements earlier coming into this year.

Mike: Gavin, did you go and talk to the faculty and the maintenance staff about this stuff?

Amy: It was actually to the 4K through 12. All the administrators including the district office and the superintendents.

Mike: Wow.

Amy: So it was really the first time they had heard anything about...

Mike: That's what I was gonna ask. Did they have a clue? Did they have a clue?

Tim: No. And this is, this is kind of representative of like a broader lack of social awareness about the recyclability of these products. On the back of every single e-cigarette device that you can purchase, there's a little recycle symbol, but that's not really the case. Like Gavin was saying earlier, these products are not easily recycled. They're very hard to take care of.

Tim: And when we are starting as an organization, we found that there was real no county guidelines or state, like broader guidelines for this disposal. So we talked to the Dane County supervisor and we shared a presentation with him kind of outlining the dangers that Gavin had talked about before.

Tim: And it was pretty incredible. After we talked to Dane County supervisor, the materials we shared with him, you could see the, like the presentations being shared higher and higher up the chain. And eventually there were guidelines set up by the city for the disposal of this. If you go online Dane County Clean Sweep.

Tim: They now have information on their website to help anybody who is wondering this.

Mike: So, Amy, what do you do when you, when you have the safe deposit boxes or, or disposal boxes? Where do they go then?

Amy: So in our community, what we are doing, and there's other Dane County schools and community coalitions also working on this, but Clean Sweep is located pretty far away from our school district.

Amy: So what we've done to eliminate the barrier is the coalition will work with the school and pick up the devices and we will properly take them to Clean Sweep so they can be properly disposed of.

Mike: It's just amazing. So what do you, Gavin, what do you hear when you talk to kids about this? Are they open to it?

Mike: Do you sometimes get blown off? How do they respond to the information?

Gavin: Kids my age or younger?

Mike: Well, both.

Gavin: I'll start with kids younger. So I coach soccer and I coach U 11, which is 10 all the way up until my age, which is 17 years old. And there was a kid on my team that was using nicotine who was older.

Gavin: He is 15 years old using nicotine, which is crazy to say, but he was. So, I had a conversation with him about the dangers of it and he didn't brush me off and listened. But obviously there was gonna be those people, especially in the older age group that are going to brush you off. And it is just 'cause they're addicted.

Gavin: Some people, when they're addicted need somebody else other than a person their age or somebody who they see just as a teenager to talk to them about it.

Mike: Yeah, that's a really good point though. Tim, you have to run into that. I, I think I told you guys this when I talked to you. I, I ran into a, I was at an event, a sporting event, where a kid was using five of them at once because he'd heard that it would make him more aware and peak his athletic performance, right?

Mike: Where do you get that information? Social media. So you guys are battling with fact social media. How is that received among the high school kids?

Gavin: So I think it's difficult and it also depends the crowd, like social media and any way, especially at this point in life, when you're in this high school age, I feel for most kids Trump's real facts.

Gavin: Like there's, it's hard to change a perception in that realm when you're battling with social media. 'Cause social media is so much more accessible than these facts. Like, we have to spend hours upon hours reading articles just to find this information.

Mike: Yes.

Gavin: Versus they spend 15 seconds on TikTok and they find that information.

Mike: Mm-hmm. (laughs)

Tim: And I think one of the more dangerous things about the social media and how it perpetrates this bad information is the level of people who are perpetrating this. You mentioned that one of the kids on your son's team thought it would enhance his athletic performance.

Mike: Right.

Tim: And the reality is a lot of pro athletes use nicotine pouches when they're playing and, and they're, a lot of 'em are spokesmen for their brands. So these kids are logging on their social media, Hey, I wanna see what my favorite basketball player's doing. Oh, he's advertising pouches. They, they say they give him a little bit of an edge.

Tim: Maybe I should do that. Get scorer a few more points in my basketball game. You know.

Gavin: I think a prime example is, this is Baker Mayfield. He was on the bench putting ZYNs in his mouth during, I don't, it wasn't the Super Bowl, but it was a bigger game that definitely mattered.

Mike: And you being aware of what it is, knew it immediately without it even being mentioned on television.

Gavin: Yeah. Yeah.

Mike: Ladies, that's not an unfamiliar story, is it? This is echoing for me about alcohol endorsements, cigarette endorsements back in the day, and a variety of other things.

Cynthia: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know baseball players with the cha in their, in their mouth, right? The during base chewing follows here, chewing, chewing tobacco during a baseball game.

Tim: Mm-hmm. I mean, babe Ruth would show up to games drunk.

Cynthia: I think he would. (laughs)

Gavin: I think another thing too, race car drivers, they're sponsored by Marlboro. That's another thing.

Mike: Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know, when, one of the disappointments in my career, not that you guys have to share this, but I bet the ladies do, is we had we collectively as a society had reduced teen cigarette smoking to a negligible amount.

Mike: When we went to high school, it wasn't unusual to have a smoking area outside of almost every high school. Everybody knew about the corner, the pit, you know, the smoking area.

Cynthia: For the students! Yes! We had, my high school actually had a smoking lounge for the students.

Mike: Right. In the, in the school.

Cynthia: Yeah.

Mike: And so we got that down to zero. And I think, ladies, do you think what, what happened? Did we take a pause and say We got it? Or did they just switch before we could pivot?

Amy: Absolutely they switched before we could pivot. Because if you are a manufacturer and supply and demand, there isn't a demand.

Amy: You're gonna create a demand. And they were able to, back in 2013, 14, 15, create a demand with misinformation. Remember, that was the aerosol. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just flavored aerosol and they had a whole generation that believed it and was hooked. And even now today, as adults, we don't know the targeted marketing that the youth are seeing.

Mike: Because we're not aware of it Amy, is that what you're saying?

Amy: Yeah. And you guys can talk about flavors and that TikTok and other.

Gavin: So amongst teens, like a frequent flavor that everybody wants is like blue raspberry. Who doesn't love like a blue raspberry slushie or something like that as a teenager. Hot summer day that sounds amazing, right?

Gavin: Well, they're putting this into nicotine now, into the vapes. So like a flavor we have in front of us is gummy bear. Another one's Blue Rancher, like a Jolly Rancher. You have watermelon bubble gum, watermelon phantom. You have banging sour berries. And you have mint. These are all flavors targeted towards teens.

Mike: No, no calamari or or kale.

Gavin: No prime rib. Nothing like that.

Mike: Yeah. Right. That's, that's not unusual as well. We had the state worked really hard and so to get cigarette advertising away from kids off of billboards, outta magazines, and now when you go to a convenience store across the country, right behind the cash register.

Mike: What used to be a wall of cigarettes is now a wall of nicotine pouches. And for those adults listening to this, if you don't use these products, I want you to look the next time you go to a convenience store behind the cash register, and you'll wonder what is that stuff? You'll think it's chewing tobacco because it's in similar canisters, but that's what we're talking about, right?

Mike: Overnight it became everywhere.

Tim: And that's the biggest problem we faced when. And this, this new frontier is this usage of nicotine pouches. Even we like the school district surveys that they've sent out interviewing kids about their choices. Really there was a blank spot when it came to information about nicotine pouches.

Tim: So we as a group actually made our own survey and we distributed it amongst grade 10 health classes. And we found that the statistic we were using earlier, that 8% of students are using pouches, which doesn't sound like a whole lot, but you think about 8% of our student body. And you think about the national average. Ms. Miller, what's the national average?

Amy: When we compared what we found to the national average in 2024 in middle schools and high schools.

Amy: The Truth Initiative had a source that was 1.8%. So just like you are talking about the exponential growth.

Mike: Yeah.

Amy: And just kudos to our students for saying this is something we want to address. And why did you wanna address it? Where were the pouches found?

Tim: I think the, the grossest place we found 'em is in our school urinals.

Tim: Right. And that's a big complaint our janitors have had as well, is you go go into the bathroom, go up to the urinal for about six or six to 10 just pouches, littering the urinal. They're stuck on, they're in the bowl of the toilet. They're everywhere. People are spitting 'em, and it's disgusting.

Gavin: And as a janitor who wants to stick their hand in their urinal if they don't have to.

Tim: Right.

Mike: One of the statements that I've found to be effective when I talk to groups, especially in high school is, do you like your janitor? And almost everybody does, right?

Tim: Right.

Mike: And they're like, yeah, of course.

Mike: I'm like, oh, then why would you spit that stuff in a place where they gotta clean it up? And it, I don't think they make the connection, but you wanna, you wanna personalize your information, right guys? You wanna make it so that they can of. So how do you do that? Where do you put your information? How is it disseminated?

Gavin: So I think the way we personalize it is the posters we made. So the posters we made, we in the every background, we try to do something that is Oregon. So for example, one of the ones we made, it says 89% of OHS students have not vaped in the last 12 months. And then it has our slogan, join the crowd, be loud.

Gavin: But in the background of it, you see a printed label of OHS as well as our homecoming picture. But it has everybody blurred out. So you can't pick out and say, oh, this person vapes. Oh, this person does this, this person does this. We blurred it out. So it's still hitting home to your, like school environment, but you're not able to pick out certain people and decredit the poster.

Tim: And we try and, and put these posters in really relevant places. We do a good job of distributing them around the school making 'em generally aware. But in the bathroom, you know. Hang an awareness sign right above the urinal. People think, maybe think twice about spitting 'em, you know, or put 'em in the lunchroom.

Tim: You know, folks are walking out to their cars. Who knows what they're doing. They see that sign, they think twice. So we've really tried to hit critical areas with the placement of these posters.

Mike: So what's next for next year?

Tim: So we are gonna continue working on information and stopping the misperception around the usage of these substances.

Tim: That's always been our headline banner goal, specifically next year we're gonna talk more about the pollution. We are going to delve into how they're impacting our ecosystem and the water. We talked to our local sanitation officials. Ms. Miller can speak to the information better than I can.

Tim: How many vapes were they finding when they took out the nets?

Cynthia: So Oregon has a, actually I'm gonna jump in and Amy will correct me. But we're unique in the county because we have our own wastewater processing plant. We can get local information, which is incredibly valuable. We talked with the folks who manage the, and clean off the screens that are in that wastewater flow and to find out how many vapes they're seeing, and they were seeing about, Amy help me.

Amy: A dozen to a dozen and a half.

Cynthia: A dozen to a dozen and a half every time they clean the screens.

Mike: Wow.

Cynthia: And the largest percentage of them were on the main that flows out of Oregon High School.

Mike: Well, and that's like you were saying earlier, then those chemicals enter the system.

Tim: Exactly.

Cynthia: If they're getting into the wastewater, ultimately they're getting into groundwater.

Tim: Mm-hmm. So that's something we're really trying to combat. O ne of our concepts is trying to get kids to think about the ecosystem. You know there's lots of ecological problems that people care strongly about. People don't know about the vapes and all the toxins entering the water stream from them.

Tim: So we're gonna try and spread awareness of that. And we're also gonna try and combat the spread of ZYNs and these nicotine pouches.

Mike: It's great.

Gavin: I think to add on to those ZYNs and nicotine pouches, it's not just vapes being found in those filters. It's almost like a wall of those ZYNs and nicotine pouches from being spit in a urinal or them getting spit in the toilet.

Gavin: Something anywhere that it can get into your water system. Even being spit in the grass, who knows how it's gonna end up in there? It's still ending up in your ground, which can lead to your groundwater.

Mike: And I don't wanna leave this conversation without emphasizing you two guys were nice enough to come on here, but you're not the only two guys in this project.

Mike: And ladies, you also have a number of different groups working simultaneously, including one. Am I correct? Who is Spanish speaking for the people in your community who are Hispanic and Latino?

Amy: That is correct. So we're approaching, I mean, because this, we discovered how big of a misperception issue this is.

Amy: It's really important not only to talk to students, but we wanted to find ways to talk to parents. And we had students that really stepped up and were interested in talking to parents. So we've done one parent presentation, a town hall, we'll call it. In Spanish and our goal is to have multiple presentations moving forward where we have students explaining this information to parents because we've said over and over to every student we've worked with, what's the common statement?

Amy: When you present, you will know more

Gavin: than...

Gavin: Than the people that you're presenting to.

Tim: Yeah. Than the people that you're presenting to.

Mike: Oh, absolutely.

Amy: And it's always been true. Correct.

Tim: Exactly. Yeah.

Gavin: I think it's the same concept with when I'm, when you're coaching a sport or you're presenting a sport in any way, or not even just sports, just doing something in general.

Gavin: I feel as if parents listen to kids more, if you know what you're talking about. If I'm coaching a soccer game and a parent doesn't believe what I'm saying and I say something that makes complete sense, they're gonna respect me a lot more.

Mike: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Terrific. Ladies I'll let you have the last word to this.

Mike: If you started in 2000, whatever it was, that means, gentlemen, that the first people who were involved in this and now in their thirties, that'll lead you a little bit, right? It has to make you like me, ladies, feel hopeful. When you work with people like this who are dedicated, young, is it time that we get out of it and just turn it over to them?

Amy: Well we're hoping they will continue to grow in the advocacy and obviously, I mean, you're hearing the leadership and the understanding and the passion. I think the one piece that wasn't mentioned, which I think is important, that their goal is prevention. Their goal is to help students counter the misperception and not use, but we also care deeply about students that are using and need help.

Amy: So as a coalition, as a school, we are trying to get information out to parents and youth that if you are using nicotine at a high level and as Gavin talked about the amounts in one device, you probably need help. So we are advocating for talking to family physicians. We have two adults trained at our middle school, and we have one trained at our high school to support cessation.

Mike: Great.

Amy: So it's how do we help all students and each group needs something slightly different.

Mike: Outstanding. I wanna thank all of you for being with us today and for the work that you do. Those of you who listen, know that there's an attachment to the blurb on the podcast that links you to the Oregon Area Cares. And if you need more information, feel free to contact them.

Mike: As always, we thank you for listening. Until we can talk to you again, be safe, take a deep breath. With young people like this, we're in great shape.