Judge Chad Floyd didn’t waste any time Tuesday morning as he addressed defendants and family members gathered in a small third-floor courtroom atop the Cullman County Courthouse.

“If we hurry, I think you should be able to make it back by second period,” Floyd said.

All seven defendants had already missed first period middle and high school classes in Cullman County. All seven had been caught with vape devices on campus.

They are part of a new program that’s spreading across Alabama, as a small number of counties take on the prosecution of students who are busted vaping at school. The schools have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in high-tech vape sensors to catch children puffing in bathrooms and locker rooms.

In addition to receiving school-based punishments that can include alternative school or in-school suspension, those students now get a ticket and a date in the county’s vape court.

If the defendants – all first-time offenders – complete a two-hour education class and 16 hours of community service within the next two months, their charges will be dropped, and they won’t be required to pay any court costs. If they miss the deadline, they must perform additional community service, said Kay Bell, director of Cullman Juvenile Probation.

The program, which started in 2021, seems to be curbing the vaping problem in Cullman schools, Bell said.

“We had 126 our first year and that decreased by 27 percent the following year,” Bell said. “We actually have pretty good success rate. If they have issues, they can call in and we’ll help.”

Fast-growing Marshall County next door and rural Coosa County in central Alabama have already launched vape courts based on the Cullman County model. The goal is to help schools struggling to prohibit vaping on campus. Administrators and school resource officers had become overwhelmed with cases, Bell said.

“It was disrupting the whole school day,” she said.

Although Bell and Floyd say the process is supposed to help students, some experts worry that using courts to crackdown on vaping in school could criminalize young students, leaving them with fines and criminal convictions in some cases.

“This vape court doesn’t help kids avoid anything,” said Leah Nelson, research director for progressive policy group Alabama Appleseed. “If anything, Cullman is constructing a new feeder into the school-to-prison pipeline for no good reason and without legal authority.”

Fines and fees

Vape court is is based on Alabama law, which states that people under the age of 21 who possess vape products can receive tickets and fines that range from $10 to $50.

But students in Cullman County are not required to pay fines or return to court if they complete the program requirements in two months. They can can face hefty court costs that range from $350 to $500 if they don’t complete the requirements on time, according to the student handbook. And fines and fees may kick in on the third and fourth offense, according to the policy posted by the Cullman County Board of Education.

In Marshall County, if students miss an appearance in court, warrants can be issued for failure to appear or contempt of court, and violators can be taken to jail, the handbook said.

But the programs carry other hidden costs, said Jenny Carroll, a law professor at the University of Alabama.

“It costs money to get to a community service location,” Carroll said. “It costs money to participate in educational programming. You may have to pay to go there, or parents have to pay to get them there. For some kids, there are uniform requirements for community service. There’s costs in terms of lost income for the child.”

For Robert Smith of Cullman, attending his son’s vape court appearance on Oct. 3 meant missing a day of work. His job takes him to pipelines across the state, and that morning, he was set to drive to Boaz. Instead, he had to take off because he’s the only one in the family with a driver’s license.

“I’m losing $160 a day to come here,” he said.

Cullman County court officials said they are sensitive to concerns about costs. They recently switched from an online vaping education course that cost $50 to a free in-person class.

Floyd said the program works because it sends a message that underage vaping is a serious offense with real health consequences.

“Our most successful cases are the cases where we have buy in from the parents and everyone is pulling in the same direction,” Floyd said. “And I would say about 99 percent of the time, we have the parents on board with us.”

But when he was in high school, said Smith, smoking on campus was punished in the principal’s office. Students might get detention or paddling. He worries the penalties meted out in court might fall more heavily on parents than students.

“Let the kids suffer for it, not the parents,” he said.

Addiction

School officials have become increasingly concerned about the dangers of vaping.

Vaping can harm brain development among teens, affect mood, learning and impulse control and increase the risk of addiction to other drugs, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most vape cartridges sold commercially contain nicotine, but some are filled with THC. Some school officials have raised concerns about fentanyl in vape devices, but it’s unclear whether any cases of opioid contamination have been documented in Alabama.

But some of the organizations concerned about the health risks of vaping have said criminalizing underage use is not the best approach. Jada Shaffer, state government relations lead for the American Heart Association in Alabama, said tobacco companies have spent billions of dollars targeting young people with addictive products. Instead of punishing users, state officials should increase regulations and taxes on vape products, she said.

“It is disappointing and frustrating that Alabama continues to further victimize Alabama’s youth by putting them through the courts, while there is no accountability or repercussions on the industry making billions of dollars off kids’ addictions,” Shaffer said. “There is no evidence that fining children helps them with their addiction. They instead need education, counseling and cessation resources to help with their addiction.”

Gracie, an 11th-grader who had her first court appearance Oct. 3, said bringing her vape to school was a dumb mistake. Going to court and spending several days in alternative school has been embarrassing, but she said it has also been helpful.

“I feel like it was a good thing because I might not have ever quit otherwise,” she said.

Officials in Cullman County said they are aware that many students may be addicted to vaping. The vape court judge can refer a student for treatment, which might not be an option for schools.

Judge Rusty Turner started the vape court in Cullman County in his juvenile court before it moved to the misdemeanor docket. He said vaping poses special problems for schools. Unlike smoking, it can be hard to detect.

“The ease of use and the ease of access, that’s an issue that everyone has to deal with,” Turner said. “It’s not something you can pick up that easily, like smoking. Everyone can smell cigarette smoke, but it’s harder to do with the vaping.”

Vape detectors

Schools in Alabama have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in vape detection equipment. Cullman City Schools spent $230,826 on 152 HALO Smart Sensors for middle and high schools, according to records from Alabama Appleseed. Walker County schools spent $130,000 for 66 of the devices, according to ABC 33/40. Limestone and Lauderdale counties are also investing in sensors, AL.com reported.

Many schools place them in bathrooms and locker rooms. The devices are designed to detect vaping, THC, heat, particulate matter and other measures. They do not have cameras or recording devices. They alert administrators to check the bathroom or locker room.

There are concerns about whether those sensors can pinpoint which person was using the vape and whether it is an invasion of student privacy. In a presentation last year for the Children’s Policy Council, an organization that represents juvenile justice and children’s service organizations across the state, Floyd said the sensors led to about 90 percent of the vape cases.

State lawmakers have also looked at cracking down on vaping in schools. In the last state legislative session, Rep. Barbara Drummond, D-Mobile, proposed a bill that would increase criminal penalties for vape possession by underage users. It would have increased fines and community service on people between the ages of 18 and 20 and sent those younger than 18 to juvenile court. The bill failed.

Right now, court officials place those cases on the regular misdemeanor docket, then take all the vape cases up to a different courtroom to give the young defendants more privacy. Turner, the judge in Cullman, supports efforts to revive Drummond’s bill next year and to put vape court back under the jurisdiction of juvenile court. He said that moving the cases to juvenile court would unlock more services for young people who might need them.

Vape court will accept kids as young as 12, but Turner said the average age is 14 to 15. During a court day this month in Cullman, one of the defendants was just 13 years old.

Growing the program

Floyd and Bell have made presentations about vape court to prosecutors and to children’s advocacy groups. Officials in other counties have expressed interest in starting similar programs.

Judge Jay Mastin of Marshall County is one of them. His vape court in Guntersville launched at the beginning of the school year and is modeled on Cullman County. Students will have 16 hours of community service and education on the first offense, with punishments that escalate with each additional offense.

Mastin said he is concerned that kids are vaping without understanding the long-term health consequences. The problem has also become too widespread for schools to handle with regular forms of discipline, he said.

“Traditionally if you were smoking at school, you had to light up a cigarette somewhere in the building,” Mastin said. “But with vaping, they can carry it around in their pocket and basically use it all day long as long as they aren’t that obvious with it.”

By coming down hard on vaping, he hopes to send a message to kids in the area to avoid substances that could cause addiction and lung damage.

“The worry is how it’s marketed,” Mastin said. “The fact that so much of it is scented and flavored with kind of trendy labels and colors. It just seems that it’s geared to be more attractive to kids.”