In 2019, three Pennsylvania teens entered a state STEM competition with a solution to the nation’s vaping epidemic. Five years later, six Connecticut districts are using their vape-detecting technology to crack down on e-cigarettes in schools.

Without a twinge of irony in his voice, Triton Sensors Co-Founder Garrison Parthemore likes to describe his company’s product as “a smoke detector on drugs.”

It does look like a smoke detector, but inside is a powerful machine learning algorithm trained on thousands of data points that allow Triton Sensor’s 3D Sense Vape Detectors to pick up on clouds of nicotine, THC and cigarette smoke and send an instant alert via text or email to school officials.

According to Parthemore, it’s technology that administrators and school safety personnel in 21 countries and 1,000 districts across all 50 states — including Naugatuck, North Canaan, Norwalk, Sterling and Windham — have turned to to deter and detect illicit vape use in their schools.

This month, Bristol Public Schools officials announced that the district installed Triton Sensors at Bristol Central High School, Bristol Eastern High School, and Bristol Preparatory Academy.

In a message to the community last week, school leaders said the sensors monitor “bathrooms, locker rooms, and other areas” for vapes and THC, the main psychoactive chemical responsible for a cannabis “high.”

“What we’re finding in the schools is that kids are struggling today,” said Deedra Willingham,  the project coordinator for Bristol Eliminating Substance Use Together, the city’s “drug-free community coalition” better known as BEST.

“They’re struggling with mental health issues, they’re struggling with peer pressure, bullying, anxiety, depression and the way that they’re coping is they’re using these vapes,” Willingham said.

In Connecticut, youth vape and e-cigarette use soared in the 2010s. At its peak in 2019, 27% of high school students in the state were considered current users of electronic vapor products based on their responses to the bi-annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, according to data compiled by the State Department of Public Health.

After a decade of growth, the percentage of Connecticut students who currently vaped dropped for the first time in 2021, falling to 10.6%. In 2023, the number saw a slight bump at 11.5%.

According to YRBS survey data prepared by the Connecticut State Department of Education, last school year, 28% of high school students reported that they had used an electronic vapor product at least once in their lives.

It is an issue that impacts even non-vapers. In 2023, 35% of Connecticut high school students said they had breathed “the smoke, vapor, or aerosol from someone who was smoking or vaping a tobacco or marijuana product” within the week before the YRBS survey.

“Every time we went to the bathroom at our high school, it was basically just like walking into a cloud of vape, so to speak,” Parthemore said, recalling his high school days in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

“That was kind of the year the whole vaping crisis started,” Parthemore said. “I still have friends that (were) good students — your honor roll students, star athletes, et cetera — (who) took up vaping, and then their lives took a path they might not otherwise have taken.”

In 2019, Parthemore and his friend Jack Guerrisi were juniors and Parthermore’s older brother Lance was a senior when they developed their first vape detector after getting the idea from their sister.

Their “ RFID E-Cigarette Detector ” came in third place at the Governor’s Stem Competition in Pennsylvania that year, Parthemore said. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the following spring, Parthemore said the team realized that they hit on an issue that affected not just their school, but all schools.

While others sat in quarantine, they built their company.

Today at ages 21, 21 and 23, Garrison noted that he and his two Triton-Sensors co-founders are not much older than the students their devices monitor.

“A lot of times when (potential clients) get on a Zoom call for the first time, they are absolutely surprised,” Garrison said. “I don’t think most students know that the people responsible for getting them in trouble are just a couple years older than them, but I think that’s a kind of a key advantage because we keep our ears to the streets, we know … what the new trends are, what the new popular devices are and can keep up to date.”

Over the last five years, Parthemore said Triton-Sensors has expanded its product capabilities with added features that detect keywords, signs of bullying or aggression, broken glass, gunshots and crowding.

“It’s all about protecting any private space where you can’t put a camera,” Parthemore said. “Our sensors don’t collect any personally identifiable information. We don’t record any audio, we don’t use any cameras … it’s just a really awesome cutting edge technology.”

Parthemore said that schools see a 70% to 85% reduction in vaping, on average, after installing Triton Sensors.

“We do get a lot of praise from our customers, which is really cool. They’ll send us pictures of all the vapes they confiscate. A lot of our principals will show us the collection of vapes they have, which is kind of fun,” Parthemore said. “Our record is (that) we caught 16 students in the first hour at a school in the UK.”

Within 24 hours of installing the vape-detecting technology in Bristol’s high schools, Bristol Eastern Principal Michael Higgins said the administrative and security teams at the three schools “received multiple alerts” through the sensors.

“When the detectors are activated, a sweep of that area is conducted, and students may be escorted to the offices at all three schools and subjected to a search,” Higgins said in a message to Bristol students, staff and families on Sept. 5. “Searches thus far have produced multiple nicotine and/or THC devices, which are illegal for possession by minors.”

Higgins said “Smoking by anyone anywhere on a school campus, inside or outside, is prohibited by state law,” and that Bristol responds to incidents in accordance with the district’s substance abuse policies.

“Our goal is to keep our schools as safe and as healthy as possible for staff and students,” Higgins said.

According to Bristol Public School’s Policy Manual, which mirrors recommendations developed by the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, students who violate school substance abuse policies may face disciplinary action including suspension, expulsion, prosecutorial referral, disqualification from interscholastic athletics or the completion of “a program recommended by the Student Support Team.”

According to a “Tobacco/E-Cigarette” subsection of the policy, the district also offers “an ongoing program of student support and counseling … to provide support for students who wish to break the smoking habit.”

Last school year, 49% of high school students who used vapes and other tobacco products reported that they had tried to quit in the 12 months leading up to the Connecticut Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

Dr. Melanie Collins the director of pulmonary medicine for Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, said exposure to nicotine as a teen can “set you up for a lifetime of addiction.”

Collins said that on average, most kids start vaping around age 14. She explained that sweet and fruity flavors make vapes appear safer and more appealing to students, perpetuating a dangerous cycle of enticement and addiction.

“When you look and you see that (almost) 90% of kids who are vaping are using flavored vapes, and … that most kids that just try vaping continue to do it, it makes for a different case than cigarettes,” Collins said. “You’ve paired your sense of smell and taste with the effects of nicotine in your brain. And so you just make it that much stronger of an addiction.”

Collins said that “any exposure to nicotine is toxic to your body” and can impair brain development, leading to issues with depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, mood regulation, impulse control and concentration that can intensify when individuals try to quit.

Collins said vaping as a teen can also lead to lung disease and e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury, known as EVALI, as well as heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke in adulthood.

“We always think about e-cigarettes or cigarettes as being toxic to the lungs, which they 100% are, but they are also really impairing your cardiac function and decreasing your longevity,” Collins said. “We don’t want our kids to have heart disease or stroke, but if they continue to use nicotine, they will.”

Collins said that most parents “assume that their kid who is the soccer player or fresh-faced honor student is not vaping,” however, Collins said that assumption “is likely to be incorrect.”

When picking up her teen daughters at school, Collins said she sees carloads of high schoolers “vaping as soon as they get out of the parking lot.”

“Most kids who vape (do it) because it is easy to hide,” Collins said. “You really have to spend the time to talk to your kids about vaping, create a place for an open dialogue, and if your child is vaping enlist the help of your pediatrician.”

In a statement to the Courant, Dr. Manisha Juthani, the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, indicated that vape sensors are by no means are not a cure-all.

“There is currently no evidence that indicates vape detectors as a standalone solution are effective in reducing youth vaping,” Juthani said.

She encouraged schools to implement a comprehensive framework that emphasizes prevention, cessation and restorative practices.

“Addressing the issue of youth tobacco use and vaping is critical and requires a multifaceted approach that involves state and community partners, educators, health care providers, parents, and young people,” Juthani said. “Evidence-based strategies that have been proven effective in preventing tobacco and (electronic vapor product) use and in supporting quitting in schools include comprehensive tobacco-free schools policy and evidence-based vaping prevention education, alternative to suspension, and voluntary youth cessation programs.”

In Bristol, Willingham said BEST is working to build up its Youth Coalition to eliminate youth substance use through prevention efforts.

“We found that when youth talk to youth, the message gets across a little more clearly. They tend to listen (more) to their peers versus an adult,” Willingham said.

Part of the strategy is meeting youth where they are and identifying the underlying factors that drive students towards unhealthy coping mechanisms.

“We want to empower the youth, educate the youth and just really be there for them,” Willingham said. “We have these mental health issues and we have these other things going on, but what can we do to target and fix those issues?”

Willingham said the bulk of the work “starts at home.”

“Sometimes we’re afraid to have those conversations with kids, but they want to talk about it. They need an outlet to discuss it,” Willingham said. “Just bringing it up, putting it out there and having these conversations is very important.”