Exclusive:"Gang" forces Sheffield school to shut toilets as teachers battle explosive rise in popularity of vapes
Vaping is now the biggest drug concern for Sheffield schools
Vaping has become the biggest ‘drug-related concern’ facing Sheffield schools, according to a charity warning children are being exposed to the habit on an explosive scale.
Hope UK project worker Andy Lawley delivers youth drug education across the city, and said almost every secondary school he worked with over the past year had specifically asked for help to tackle vaping.
He described vapes as a drug.
“Schools and teachers are dealing with this drug on an explosive scale,” he said.
The warning comes as Hope UK launches a £100,000 fundraising appeal to secure the charity’s future and allow its work with young people, including in Sheffield, to continue.
Andy said vaping had “suddenly appeared on the scene” around a decade ago before rapidly becoming widespread among children.
He said: “Every secondary school I went to last year asked me to do something on vaping.”
In some classes of Year 9 pupils, aged around 13 to 14, Andy said between 40 and 50 per cent put their hands up when asked if they had ever used a vape.
The problem has become so serious in some schools that toilets have been closed during break times, he said.
“In one of the schools I visited, toilets had to be closed at break time, with staff counting the students coming in and out because some were being set up as ‘vape gangs’ - essentially you could only come in if you vaped,” he said.
“They’re now waiting on the installation of a vape detector which will cost thousands of pounds - which could of course be used for other things.”
He believes the biggest concern is that young people still do not fully understand the risks.
Vaping was initially promoted as a safer alternative to smoking, but Andy said research is increasingly revealing potentially harmful substances in vapes.
He added that while vapes do not contain cigarette tar, other substances found in cigarette smoke are also appearing in vapes as they are analysed in greater detail.
The risks do not stop at nicotine, he said.
Andy is also seeing growing concern around “spiked vapes” containing Spice, a synthetic cannabinoid which can be significantly more potent than cannabis.
He said research from the University of Bath had found schools were now among the most common places outside prisons where Spice could be found.
“For somebody who is Spice-naive, one or two puffs can be enough to lose consciousness,” he said.
Andy, who moved from East Yorkshire to Sheffield in 2019 to take up his Hope UK role, reached more than 2,200 school-age children in the city in the last academic year.
The charity’s approach is not simply to tell children not to take drugs, but to give them the confidence and skills to deal with peer pressure.
Andy said: “If all we do is teach drug education, we end up with some educated drug users.
“They know exactly what cannabis does, but actually don’t have any skills to manage the situation where their friend says, ‘Do you want to puff on my joint?’”
Hope UK has provided drug education for nearly 170 years, beginning as the Band of Hope, but Andy said the organisation is now fighting to ensure it can continue its work.
The £100,000 appeal is intended to provide greater financial sustainability for the national charity, which provides the support and infrastructure allowing its locally funded Sheffield work to continue.
Andy said: “I want more people to know about Hope UK, and I want more young people to be equipped with the skills they need to make drug-free choices.”
The charity is also encouraging Sheffield schools and parents concerned about drug education to make use of its free services.