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Metro Sheriff's Office takes to the classroom to teach kids dangers of vaping

PAULDING COUNTY, Ga. — Vaping is such a danger to children that local students in elementary school are learning to stay away from it.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said kids as young as 13 are among the thousands of people who got sick.

Some of the 47 people who died are teens

Channel 2's Lauren Pozen was in Paulding County Friday as children beginning in second grade were told about the dangers of vaping.

The Paulding County Sheriff’s Office led the discussion at Poole Elementary School. She said she was surprise that the nearly 30 students raised their hand when asked if they knew what vaping was.

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“They know that smoking is not something that is healthy for you. We have barely touched on vaping. I’d like to think that is not something we have to address, but I know it is," parent Tiffany Boudin said.

That's where Paulding County Sgt. Ashley Henson comes in. He invited Channel 2 Action News to join him Friday as he talked to second- and third-graders about the serious problem nationwide.

“You don’t know what you're getting into when you're vaping, so we want to make sure they don’t do it. It’s a very dangerous situation," Henson said.

The Paulding County School District takes vaping very seriously. It even made a PSA video to warn students.

Pozen checked in with the county to see how many cases of illness it has seen due to vaping. The county told her it doesn’t track vaping cases but did say the number of cases is down this year, after they put into place a strict no vaping policy.

The hope with educating students about the dangers of vaping is that they'll continue that conversation at home.

“They are going to go home and say, ‘Hey mom, dad, brother, sister, we learned about vaping today and it’s not good, you guys don’t need to do it,’” Henson said.