Students are headed back to school and TSET is encouraging parents and educators to watch out for vaping in teens.

Vaping among young people is on the decline nationally, but in Oklahoma, teens are still twice as likely to pick up a vape pen.

Schools have been cracking down with stricter policies and ways to identify when kids are vaping on campus.

“They can delineate between nicotine. They can delineate between THC and marijuana. We also get alerts if they are being tampered with,” said Assistant Principal Andrew Morris of Jenks High School.

Morris showed News On 6 Jenks High School's new vape detectors back in the fall of 2023.

The hope was to deter students from vaping in bathrooms. A year later, the district says the detectors and stricter policies have been working. The district hopes that continues to be the case for this new school year.

Thomas Larson with TSET says Oklahoma is still one of the worst states in the country for teen vaping according to statistics.

“More than one in five Oklahoma teens is vaping, that's the big problem that is cause for concern, and that is still twice what the national average is. The national average for youth vaping is around 10%,” said Thomas Larson with TSET.

Larson says about 21% of teens in Oklahoma still vape. It's unclear why teens in Oklahoma vape more than in other states. 

“Going back decades, Oklahoma's rates of tobacco use have trended higher than the rest of the country. And so what we're seeing with these vaping rates is probably an extension of that,” said Larson.

TSET warns that vaping exposes teens to cancer-causing chemicals as well as heavy metals.

The organization encourages parents and educators to have compassionate conversations with kids about the problem.

“Because if you're not talking to your kids about vaping and tobacco, the tobacco companies are talking to your kids,” said Larson.