Province’s largest school division bans e-cigarettes

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This article was published 06/10/2014 (4403 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg School Division has snuffed out the use of e-cigarettes anywhere on school division property effective immediately.

“No smoking is allowed, period,” retiring trustee Anthony Ramos declared Monday night to reporters in his final act after eight years as a school trustee.

The school board unanimously supported Ramos’s bid to ban the e-cigarettes, but only after a lengthy debate in which a minority of board members tried to postpone any action until after the Oct. 22 election. The administration told trustees the division’s total ban on smoking already covers the vapourizing devices.

There’s no room for ambiguity, said Ramos, who’s running for city council Oct. 22 in the Point Douglas ward.

Ramos told the board several school districts in British Columbia have banned the devices because they can be used to smoke marijuana.

“It’s distracting, plainly, with the smoke it does produce,” he said. “We don’t need to wait until it becomes a problem.”

Trustee Mike Babinsky said there are reports students are already smoking e-cigarettes in class, but no one could substantiate those reports Monday night.

“It is an emerging health issue,” retiring trustee Kristine Barr agreed, but she said the district needs to gather as much information as possible — including seeking reports from Health Canada and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority — before implementing the ban.

The board also needs to know whether there is e-smoking in schools now, Barr said.

Barr wanted the issue bounced to the policy/program committee, which will be formed in November. Only Babinsky, Mark Wasyliw and Cathy Collins are seeking re-election, guaranteeing the board’s largest turnover in recent years.

Wasyliw urged the board to avoid ambiguity and confrontation in schools. He scoffed that, “It’s unlikely we’ll come back with a recommendation to allow vaping in schools.”

Babinsky also went for sarcasm: “If we discover it’s healthy, we can bring it back,” he said, as a 5-4 vote rejected delaying the ban to wait for a  committee report.

Meanwhile, chief superintendent Pauline Clarke advised trustees the existing total ban on any kind of smoking anywhere on division property already provides a ban on e-cigarettes.

But that wasn’t enough.

“We must send a clear message,” said Ramos.

All nine trustees then approved a total ban effective immediately.

Technically, e-cigarettes are electronic vaporizer devices — battery-operated devices that use liquid nicotine.

Healthy Living Minister Sharon Blady said last week that the province will follow Ottawa’s lead — there is no federal policy on e-cigarettes.

But the province said other organizations are free to develop their own policies.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca