This is a machine transcription and is subject to error. Apologizes in advance. 

Hi my name is Lexie Hargrave and I'm interning at the Health and Wellness office and today
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I'm doing a podcast on Juul. So you guys like to introduce yourselves.
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Hi Michael Labella Director of Community Standards. I'm Kacie Foss I'm the Coordinator of Community Standards.
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Okay so our first question is what is Stonehill's policy on Juuls
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or E-cigarettes? Alright let's jump right in. so our policy on
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Juuls and e-cigarettes is that they're not allowed the policy has
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been in place for a while now I'm in my third year here it's it's been here
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since I started but what changed is the popularity of Juuls. So e-cigarettes
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are electronic cigarettes that produce a vapor and that's exactly what a Juul is right.
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So they're not allowed. it's under our smoking policy with that policy, smoking
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is prohibited in all buildings so when we talk about is not being allowed
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not being allowed anywhere on campus this is different. I will also mention it's different from our
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cigarette smoking policy where cigarettes are allowed provided that they're twenty five feet
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from the building being smoked. These are not allowed on campus and all. A lot of our policies
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also can be found on our website with community standards for this one you're gonna be looking under
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the substance awareness policy. It will also talk about smoking but also the student
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drug policy that's on campus. So we really talked about the campus and twenty five
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feet from the building and why they can't be smoked inside the campus building. A lot of it has to do
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with the fire safety and the explosions which happen electronic cigarettes and ESDs (electronic smoking devices)
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also pose a risk of fire those results and big serious injuries and property
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damage and that's huge when living on a college campus. A big thing with electronic
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cigarettes they're not a safe alternative to regular cigarettes and
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there has been like FDA proven safety concerns which we'll kinda go into in
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a little bit. That's one of the things that we hear the most from students is that they feel or believe
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it's safer alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes and you know
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all the data and research that we've seen it's not in fact there's more nicotine in a Juul
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additionally these Juuls could contain THC marijuana,
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which is drugs and drugs are not allowed on campus either so they could be a real risk for like Kacie mentioned
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for fire hazards and certainly they are not healthier than cigarettes.
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What happens if someone violates the campus policy and like they smoke a Juul or have a Juul on them?
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So if a staff member like as Residence Director or an RA even campus police sees
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someone smoking a Juul or in possession of a juul usually they confiscate them and what that means
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is they'll take them away and they won't be given back usually campus police is destroying them
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or residence life is throwing them away. The big thing
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is that they will be documented in the documentation they'll be it's for policy violations
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of the policies that Mike talked about in the beginning of this podcast. They're sent a
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meeting conference hearing they'll meet with an RD or a staff member and they'll kind of talk
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through the incident so what happened, were you smoking it, what were you smoking out of it? A lot of the times
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students are stressing that their parents don't know that they're smoking these we asked
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well do your parents know? They'll say no but it's not the same of the cigarette so we kind of have that educational conversation
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about okay but it is worse than a cigarette this is like educating them so they're
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not really knowing the difference between a cigarette and an e-cigarette which is the biggest like
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I think frustration for our staff. And yeah if that Juul was modified
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we are aware. So if we know during the times of documentation that Kacie is talking about to keep talking about if we are aware
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that the Juuls been modified or the Juul contains THC marijuana then that's
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gonna be treated a little bit differently that would fall under our drug policy right, because now we're talking about
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marijuana but either way that's gonna result what you should mention in a conversation
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with the hearing officer whether that's the students residence director, myself, Kacie,
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or another staff member. I know in the past a lot of the sanctions to what these conversations
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are gonna be educational projects so one time student that I heard the case for they
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had to do an educational bulletin board about Juuling and a lot of the times like that's where they're learning the information
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the first hand right so they're actually researching it for the first time ever and realizing that maybe it's
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not the safest or healthiest alternative to smoking a cigarette. We get a lot of papers
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so researching the fire policy and how having a Juul can affect that or
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an e-cigarette and then there's also a couple of projects or papers relating to why
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we have these rules so really looking at our policy and having those conversations with Mike and I
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and really determining why it's important to have these in place. A lot of what we do is education.
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one of the biggest things we hear is: I didn't know, I wasn't aware. So when we
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come to sanctioning we wanna make sure that students are aware that they are educated they're informed. We
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want them to make healthy decisions for themselves and if they were under this perception that they were making
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a healthy choice and in reality that they're not we we wanna equip them with the knowledge
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to kind of know that and then you know if they make this hopefully make the decision to change that behavior
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and make healthier choices. So you mention the facts about Juuls,
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can they become addicting? Everything that we've read says
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absolutely. What we're seeing is these jewels contain more nicotine than
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a pack of cigarettes. So more nicotine is in Juul than in a cigarette. It's incredibly addicting.
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There also flavors of juuls so there's a variety of those flavors you have the nicotine
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plus the flavor. It's incredibly addicting and we're seeing more and more of
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these the way that they spiked in popularity it's been incredible. Alot of the time,
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I know I wasn't familiar with Juuls or like the research surrounding it so being able to dig deeper and
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like not to see it on social media platforms is really important for me and that's really where I think
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younger individuals are getting information it's gonna be the influencers whether they're
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on YouTube or Instagram or Twitter but those people are also being paid for the content that they're
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putting out right so they're really not trying the product but they're
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really just allowing the brand to have a platform in order to get that popularity.
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So looking at who the influencer, what their age group looks like,and then being able to use
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to kind of the marketing the free marketing that they have although some of the social media stars are being paid
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upwards to like five thousand dollars for one post on on Instagram to talk about
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Juul pod or a new flavor that came out or how it's healthier but then there's really no facts it's just that image
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with not a lot of regulations around the marketing on Instagram or
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social media platforms. I think it was interesting the amount of nicotine that could be found
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in some of these so I never knew it. I usually thought okay a lot of the commercials
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that I'm seeing like how can you avoid becoming addicted to cigarettes or how can you like quit cold
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turkey and it's okay trying Juul. But some of the research that we did had that the nicotine
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was five percent more in these Juuls are the E cigarette and it's not
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just vapor that you're taking in which a lot of students think it's just water vapors and they're not
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even realizing that there's nicotine or that addictive. I once asked a students what's
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in a Juul and he didn't know but they just finished telling me that it's a healthier
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alternative than smoking cigarettes. I think the other thing which was too it was when you have a cigarette you know that's lit
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there's smoke coming out of it and that's something that you light a cigarette, you smoke a cigarette you finish the cigarette. I think
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with Juuls they contain more nicotine and they're using it over a period of time
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but they're not realizing I think that makes them think that oh well it's it's not as much it's not as bad
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just taking a hit here but like Kacie was mentioning the reality is there's a lot more nicotine in that
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than a cigarette. Yeah you mentioned in this they are bad for your health, exactly why?
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It's the nicotine factor and how addictive it is right so it's come and
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God knows what else is in there I'm not quite sure that they're really transparent with everything that's in there. I'm
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not sure we'll know that you know for a while but you know there's a reason why there's
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we're starting to see some regulations on these things. some I've seen some stores are pulling back on like the flavored
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ones because they're seeing how addictive it it really is and you know also too we haven't talked about how
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you know people say you know smoking is gross I I don't make close the smell. this is a little bit different so
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it makes it more attractive to but yeah we mentioned the fire risk we've
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we were kinda doing a research for podcast and we came across some websites that were showing the Juuls that have caught fire
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and exploded really really dangerous stuff. so that but also the amount of nicotine and
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the ability to to swap it out with THC. I think some of the risks that people
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aren't even thinking about either like the increase in flu or viruses
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that are going around campus. So a lot of the time I know Lexi you're talking about earlier before we started this
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that people are just swapping them. So you use the analogy of like a gum pack and so the
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fact that students are seeing one person pull it out and I could have mono and I'm taking
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a hit from this juul and then someone else is taking it and now I'm spreading this
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virus around campus without even really recognizing it, because that's not something that I'm gonna bring up when
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I'm out is oh I'm sick or I have mono or I have strep. But let me now use the juul that's right
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in front of me right? So yeah we're talking about the nicotine and like that addictive state that those have but
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I think there are some of those like a lower level risks too as like getting sick getting the flu and
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and I wouldn't want to be sick so I feel like that's a big thing for me.
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I don't think students realize how much they are juuling either because it could be a hit here, a hit there
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like they're doing it periodically and the other thing too is the flavors like there's so many different flavors.
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Oh I haven't tried that one, I got to try that right? You know it's gonna increase the use, you know I'll stop once I try every flavor.
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Well how many flavors are there? The amount of pods that they're using within sittings too is increasing and then
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it's giving you more. It's convenient to carry, it's small. You can hide it
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easier. If someone's addicted to smoking and juuling where should they
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go to get help for quitting? I would like to think on campus there's probably a lot of resources that
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they could utilize I mean this podcast is giving you the information.But also like the Health
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and Wellness Center they're gonna have a lot of education surrounding that. I always like to utilize the resources
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we have right with the students. So an RA, the RAs aren't trying to make your life
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harder but they're trying to help you and educate you about why it's important. Maybe you stop or you recognize
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that maybe it's an issue that you didn't realize you had. I'm thinking too like counseling. We
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talk about maybe coping or alternatives to replace behaviors. You know they're really
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a good resource and if they can handle it or if things go to the next level they know resources
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off campus that they could refer. Talking to even, even if you don't want to talk to your Residence Director or your RA
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talking to any person or professional I feel like on Stonehill's campus they're gonna be able
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to lead you in the right direction to get that help and may not be something that you want to hear but maybe it's
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something that you need to hear at that point of knowing that you know this is becoming a problem and and I want help
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with it. But I don't want to draw that attention from my RA or RD or I don't have a good relationship
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with them, who else can I go to. What else would you like students to know about E cigarettes on
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campus? We want them to make healthy decisions and smart decisions. Our mission talks about
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thinking critically about issues and that's what we want students to do about juuls. It's no different.
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We want students to rather than kind of say oh wow it's you know the coolest thing. I better do this too
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especially now you know I worry about the incoming first year students and you know
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the desire to fit in. I don't wanna be the only one that's not you juuling. But I got to do it.
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We want them to really know what juuling is, what the risks are, what
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it entails, the impact on themselves healthwise. You know what does that mean.
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And also what does that mean in the Stonehill community. How are my actions going to
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impact others. How is it gonna impact me moving forward. You know could be
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scary. I think education is the key thing that I want to get across,
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know what you're putting in your body right? So you're gonna come to college and you don't want to
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gain the freshman fifteen but then you're picking up the juuling behaviors like you're still putting bad things
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into your body and you're creating a bad habit that's ultimately gonna affect your schoolwork. your motivation
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and different things like that. I don't think students are realizing that. Like if I passed you my water
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bottle and said here "have a sip of this" I think you'd be a little apprehensive and say well what's in it.
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Oh don't worry about it, it tastes good. I think you'd be apprehensive but for some reason with these juuls. You know they look like
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a USB drive and they're been passed here, take a hit of it. You know it's almost like
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surprising to me that's no one is like hey wait a minute what this is weird like what is in this thing? Yeah not being afraid to
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talk about it too. I think if you're getting in trouble with this and and maybe you got one confiscated like having that conversation
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because me and Mike wanna learn too. So we did a lot of research here but we wanna know like
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why they're popular so if it's something that we're not even thinking about, then at least that gives us
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in our brains working to say like okay like that makes sense. That's why they're attractive at social
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media but it could be a completely different reason and we're not really registering and understanding a lot.
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I think like having the conversation, talking with your parents.
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I think talking with even older siblings or people that maybe a little more
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knowledgeable about it. I'm not saying that older people are knowledgeable but more just like people who are gonna understand
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and kinda know the trend and why it's popular. Yeah we wanna take the information that
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when we hear things from students and you know that may inform us that okay we need to do a little bit more programming
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about it and not just programming but we need to educate student on this aspect of juuling
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because this is what we're hearing from students. And also you know being honest
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with themselves too about their behaviors like I was talking earlier about frequency. Sometimes we talk to students
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about it not you know they had it on them, but it's not there's it's their friends they're just
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holding it you know we're addressing the rules. I want to know kind of
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what's what's going on because that's how we're most affected by hearing from students getting feedback from
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students. I think too if the only time that you're using it is on a weekend when you're intoxicated
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then maybe that's an issue alone too. Maybe if there's more of an issue with alcohol on your behaviors
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when you're under the influence then maybe it is a juuling issue. So really understanding I think
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your own body and like the warning signs and stuff that it's giving you. We've heard since I only
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smoke when I drink. Well how many times a week do you drink? And that's start to head off
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Yeah especially if it's like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Any day that ends in y. Yeah very true.
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I think that's all we have. Thank you guys. Perfect thank you for a giving us this opportunity. You're welcome,
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our pleasure. Our office is located in Duffy one forty two. So you know
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stop by say hi. If you want some information or education or have a conversation
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about this policy about juuls or really anything you're unsure of. We want students to be educated
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and know about our policy so we can make educated decisions and that they're informed.
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Not to get you in trouble but to make sure that you're well educated
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on decisions that are gonna impact you and others in the community. So thank you so much
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for having us!
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This is a machine transcription and is subject to error. Apologizes in advance.