“Puyu Blasters” to Deliver Week 7 Sessions

Tim Lawrence is a Project Officer with the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia’s “Tackling Indigenous Smoking” team, a.k.a. the “Puyu Blasters”. Next week (Week 7), Tim and the team will visit PLHS to deliver information sessions to our Year 7-10 and TLC students on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Tim kindly provided the following summary for our school community:

The “Puyu Blasters” have been presenting vape/e-cigarette education to high school-aged students across regional SA since May 2022. During this time, the team have presented to over 3,500 people; whilst these participants have mainly been students, the Puyu Blasters have also held a number of community/parent/teacher sessions.

With a lack of information (and misinformation) on vaping/e-cigarettes within our community, the Puyu Blasters present in a non-judgemental and safe manner. Our aim is to give people the information they need to make informed choices; in our own words, we are not the vape police!

Our student presentation includes the following topics:

• Who makes e-cigarettes?
• How the vape (tobacco companies) have specifically targeted youth-aged people (including quotes from tobacco company executives)
• Misleading information from some of the world’s biggest tobacco companies
• What is nicotine and how does addiction work?
• Independent research results (from NSW) showing how much nicotine is in supposedly ‘nicotine-free’ vaping devices
• South Australian laws and legislation related to vaping use (and considering others if individuals are currently vaping)
• What is in a vape?
• What to do if you or a loved one have developed a nicotine addiction