Vaping crisis: Australian schoolkids admit puffing in class in 7News Spotlight investigation

School kids have admitted to being so hopelessly addicted to their vapes that they do it in class when their teacher has their backs.

The claims are a shocking exposure of the nationwide vaping epidemic among Australian youth, which has even spread to preschoolers.

Three schoolgirls, who did not reveal their names or the school they attend, told the police 7News Spotlights they ‘can’t live without’ their vaporizers and puff away ‘all the time’ in class.

“Pretty much all my friends do it and they’re all heavily addicted,” said one.

Another added, “If I don’t have it, I’ll go through withdrawals.” I get very anxious, I get the shakes, headaches.’

They talked about classmates who would desperately take a puff of a friend’s vape on a Monday morning because their parents wouldn’t let them vape at home.

“I know there are harmful chemicals in it, but smoking it won’t speak,” one said.

It’s because a top executive claimed that vaping’s “treacherous problem” was so bad that kindergarten kids were caught puffing.

Christine Del Gallo, NSW Principals Council deputy president, said: ‘There are cases of young primary school students vaping, even up to kindergarten, so that’s a major concern.’

She added, “Using nicotine products but thinking they’re just sucking on a little fruity, pleasantly steamy thing.”

Ms. Del Gallo explained how easy it was for college kids to get away with vaping.

“They’re small, they fit in your hand – they fit easily in your case, so it’s easy to just pull them out, hold them in your hand – put your hand over your mouth and vape,” said she.

“In an afternoon, a student can smoke his vape and ingest 50-705 times more nicotine than a cigarette.”

The show conducted a mystery shopping exercise in every capital city of Australia, where underage children could easily purchase vapes from newsagents or online.

They sent 43 samples to the University of Wollongong for testing, only one of which was labeled as containing nicotine.

But scientists found high concentrations of the addictive compound in a whopping 72 percent of the samples provided, and they confirmed that all of the vapes came from China.

Currently, the only way to legally purchase vapes is through a prescription from your doctor.

But convenience stores across the country are making a fortune selling unregulated vapes filled with nicotine that are not listed as having the highly addictive liquid in them.

Importers often fail to disclose their nicotine levels to get past inspectors – with an estimated 90 million vapes illegally imported into Australia in the past year.

Mark Butler, the federal health minister, said it was the “biggest loophole in the history of Australian healthcare”.

He vowed to tackle the problem by closing the border, banning bright colors and flavorings and limiting their sale to pharmacies.

Butler admitted that the government had “fallen asleep at the wheel.”

“It has shocked many Australians how quickly this has gone away from people,” he told the programme.

“Kids under 12, even under 10, do this and very young children accidentally get their hands on these things with terrible consequences.” The Victorian poison hotline reports that in the last 12 months they have had 50 cases of children under the age of four being poisoned with these things.”

He added: ‘What was presented as a way out of smoking has become a way into smoking for the youngest Australians.’

Respiratory specialist Professor Matthew Peters issued a stark warning about the health risks of vaping.

“We don’t have to wait for the bodies to pile up to know that vaping is dangerous,” he told the show.