I've discovered the key to getting your children to do whatever it is you want them to do. Give them 400s, take quizzes in their academic classes. So, and I will tell you this week trying to project what our turnout would be. I
was hoping for a half full auditorium. In my wildest dreams, I did not imagine that we would have cameras finding the sides of the auditorium. For that, I apologize that we don't have a seat for you. Um, it's a great problem to have. So, thank you to all of you who came up to
So, >> we're here tonight to to to talk and learn about something that's an ongoing and major topic here at Nicholls. And to be very very clear, this is not just a Nicholls topic. It is not a Millor
topic. It is not a Massachusetts topic. I have friends that are school administrators throughout New England and the Southeast, a couple on the West Coast. And when we chat, this is something that comes up virtually every time we talk is the exponential growth
and exponential concern that we have about the amount of kids that are vaping and what it means for them and what the the outcomes are for them and and you know just how much we worry about these kids because they're kids. They are they are they are little kids. They're 12,
13, 14 year old kids here at Nicholls and you know their brains are still developing. They are still learning about making mistakes and learning from them. And vaping has presented a new challenge that didn't exist when any of us were children. You know, this was not
something that any of us that grew up was it was a topic when we were in middle school and it's not the same as friends that smoked or kids that smoked in middle school. It's just not the same. >> So, the reason we asked you to come out tonight is that Mr. prove this. No con
and I and our guidance staff here at the school, you know, it it's an ongoing thing when we're addressing with kids. And what we found more often than not is when we're addressing it with kids and then we bring parents in with vaping's involvement, >> more often than not, parents have
absolutely no idea what it means, how their child got into it, what they should be looking for, how to talk to their children about it. Um, you know, even in my own family, I have two teenage boys came up about six months ago. We were questioning it with my own children and my wife and I had a long
conversation because I'm a school administrator and I still struggle to find resources to talk to my kids about this. So, we wanted to bring you all here to just have a conversation, not to scare anyone, you know, not just just to open eyes a little bit and at
least start the dialogue about how to talk to your kids. >> Um, so we brought in a gentleman named Kevin Rosario. He is a a speaker who Kevin Aabi, our student services director, has known for years and worked with for years and he highly recommended
him to come in. He met with all of our students today at the school and I thought his message for our kids was very very powerful. Um and I wanted him to come here tonight to talk to you about similar things. Um he was able to come here tonight. You know we have anal
grant that our district um uses to bring programming and education in for our schools and he was able to come here as a part of that grant. So we're very lucky for that and this is part of our overall plan to address vaping as a topic in school. you know, we believe that it's a multifaceted approach, uh
that it involves education, that it involves oversight, and we're necessary. It involves consequences. So, on the education front, we are revising our health curriculum to beef up um how we teach about vaping. We have it be for every grade, every trimester now. So, it
used to be that the kids would get one unit about vaping during their three years at Nicholls. Now, they get it every year. And it is enhanced with more more accurate, more modern data, more interactive for the kids. Some of you may have gotten a survey that your kids brought home for you as parents about
what you know is vaping about vaping as part of your kids health curriculum this winter. And that's part of what we're trying to do on the educational front. Um, educationally, you know, if we have students that get consequenc part of their re-entry is that they participate in a an education program called I
decide that our trained guidance counselors teach the kids um after school. It's a one-on-one program. Um, and then we do things like this and we're going to continue to bring programming like this into the school. Um, you know, in terms of oversight, you know, we want to look at ways to beef up how we can keep an eye on this in
school. We're looking into, you know, things like grants for fate monitors in the bathrooms and looking at our bathroom duties for teachers to make sure that teachers are able to better monitor um you know, our kids um during the day. And and there are consequences, too. You know, we it's a part of the
package is that kids who are caught with vapes in school face an automatic suspension from school. And it's not necessarily that we think that fixes it, but it starts the dialogue with the kids and the parents. kids realize that this that we take this very seriously that this is not something that we say don't
do it again we look the other way move on this is something that requires >> so I continue to be concerned about vaping in the middle school my concern has escalated as the year has gone on uh and I'm sure you've seen my emails about that but I I want to be very clear that
we are here to support you as parents none of us school can't work on this alone you as parents can't work on this alone so if you have questions or concern concerns after tonight, you want to talk more, you want to come in and sit for a while, if you need help with resources, if you have questions of us
and how we handle all this, please call me, please email me, reach out to me, let me know. I will I will happily sit with any of you to talk about this because we have a goal to educate our children. But if they're making decisions that are going to endanger their health and safety in the background, then what we do in the
classroom is irrelevant if they're not taking care of their bodies and their minds behind the scenes. So, that being said, I want to introduce Mr. Rosario here to him. He's the man. I was just looking over at the crowd and I was getting emotionally emotional. Oh
my god. I've been doing this for probably I don't know eight years have never had a turnout for a parent community night like this ever. It's always 5, 10, 20. It's usually the parents that are already kind of plugged
in, right? And it's to have this turn off just warms my heart. I'm so excited. I feed off the energy. I get to see all these beautiful things for a second time and now the parents and caregivers are here in uh May. So I'll try to keep it together and like just get through the
holiday. So you can see my name, you can see the credentials and probably like I said to the students, it's like all right, whatever. Like I have an MBA and a focus in healthcare management. The other two things is I'm a nationally certified family recovery coach and a nationally certified interventionist.
I've worked in a field directly of mental health and addiction for the past 14 years. I currently work for New England Medical Group for the last two years which is a program that specializes in adolescent mental health program
who I am. Um and all of that is great >> but like the thing that I really bring to the table is I'm just a guy in longterm recovery. That's the thing that sparked this whole thing. Not my degree, not like where I work in the field. is my hustle to try to get business. Like
I'm a guy that was a young person that made some bad decisions that got way out of control and I almost didn't pay back from again not to be used a lot of my friends didn't make it up. A lot of my friends some of my friends are
in jail. Like I can't even recall how many people have died. like at this point in my life sometimes like it's like oh it's Billy you know whatever his birthday on Facebook and I'm not even sure if Billy's still alive like that's a sad place to be where like I got to scroll his page to see if he's had any
recent activity because I thought I heard Billy might have passed and it's heartbreaking right so I I used to run around and like tell my story and my story is like how many did drugs I got arrested like don't do drugs you're going to die
and Like as I was going through my kind of like career and education, I thought it'd be clinical people and medical people and I learned the things I'm going to share with you today. And one of the things that I picked up was like, yeah, I'm not afraid to talk to other people. Like I gave you that gift like I'm talking, you know, I'm a people guy.
But what I didn't know, public speaking 101 says, number one, what's your message? What are you trying to accept? Who's your audience? And how do you best convey that message to that audience? And what I learned was public speaker 101 was rail high school 12 13 years old
and then the guy comes in shut up guy I can't wait till this presentation is over so I go smoke a joint you know what I'm saying I don't recommend anybody do that I'm just bringing back to like when I was in school with speakers in how they made me feel and did I respond to
them and where was the scare tactics and the DEA drug did any of those things have an impact on me and I was like not really You know, I felt as a young person very dismissed, right? Hey, I got I got a feeling. I got an opinion. I got a thought. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like just just go do it. Just go do like always got dismissed. And so my approach with young people and the approach would be the same with you. This is the same power point that I gave them. I think sometimes I'm doing a different I want you to see what we showed them so we can
all be on the same page, right? We can go through it quicker. We can talk about different things. Um, but my my position is like, I'm not going to scare you. I'm not going to threaten you. I'm not going to talk down to you. I'm not going to demean you. I'm just going to give you real information based on facts that you
can do whatever you want. Somebody said young people and all humans. Some people do whatever they're going to do. I'm not going to scare them. I'm not going to sway them. I'm not going to be able to like use it here is the information. Like at a minimum what I say is maybe this don't
apply. A lot of people in this room a lot of you don't think you don't do drugs. You're great parents. You're healthy. You're in academics. Like this is an attack. This isn't an attack on the whole student body, right? This doesn't apply to everybody. However, we all know someone who's got an actual
drug problem or an alcohol problem, right? And so my thing with young people and with adults is like maybe I can give you some real talking points to have an educated conversation because when my mom was telling me don't drink like why
don't you're not old enough right meanwhile my mother and mom living their best life don't do it because I said you got to give me something else. And so to try to support the parents,
well, they're going to give you some talking points and some science that you can use to talk to your young people and tell the young people like maybe you can use this information to help someone else. Maybe you have a brother or cousin or a neighbor that's stopping risky behavior or do certain things and now you can talk about brain science and
dopamine and the lyic system and things like that. So, it took a while to get settled because the place is popping and I love that. So, I'm going to try to go a little quicker to be mindful with 30 minutes to get you out of here. Um, but I just want to give you a little background of where I come from in my
delivery style before I get into the whole presentation. I will definitely leave time at the end for questions and comments. I can talk to people offline tomorrow, whatever. Uh, my goal is to be available to people. Um, and this isn't a one and done. This isn't like here's a presentation, see you later. Like on my
last slide, it's my cell phone number, my email address, my website. Like I'm accessible and available forever moving forward. I mean that. And one thing I've developed over the last 14 years of working in the treatment field is definitely my organization is not the
perfect fit for everybody, but I know other organizations. I know who takes insurance. I know detox is rehab, you know, therapist. So like nothing else. You got to resource this whole situation. So, let's go. That was a long
intro. So, cautionary tales below a lot. That's me. Science, risk factors, vaping, refusal skills. And I like to put this in there just because I know I'm old and try to look cool, but I'm not cool. And so, I just want to bring valid evidence
to the youngsters that I was in fact at one point 12 years old with a full head of hair and a thin body. I also thought I was very cool at key junior high and this is my experience and not everyone's experience but I did smoke marijuana for the first time in
seventh grade >> and again maybe that doesn't relate to a lot of young people like maybe it's whatever it is whatever it is because my overarching thing is drugs and alcohol are not the primary problem the real
problem is dopamine the addiction to dopamine the fact that dopamine doesn't last long term and the driving factor of why do you eat in the first place? Anxiety, depression, fear, trauma, inse they don't want to hurt themselves. So
real prevention works not about don't get high qualms so that drugs and alcohol don't see them. All right. So again, no big deal. You're going to tell me anything. 17 years old. I'm smoking weed every day. I'm selling small. I'm drinking heavily
on the weekends. I'm experimenting with pills. And I There was another slide in here of me like a full-blown addiction. I took it off. But like I already told you, little D. And by the way, like 12, 13, 14, 15, 17.
Just having fun. Just having fun. It's no big deal. It's no big deal. You get suspended in school. At 16, I got arrested for drinking in public. Um, at 17, I got the event of hope. I got kicked out. I had to lose that high all because of my behavior, because of my drinking and using. Still, no big deal.
No big deal. It's just weed. It's just alcohol. Leave me alone. You're being addict. And then one day I got into pills and like very quickly my whole life changed. 2021. It was first and then it was off. It was a year full-blown heroin. How did that happen,
dude? I was having I made money. I had Cadillacs and jewelry. I was a guy. I was the party club. You know, all the things. It'll never happen to me. It'll never happen to me. And then I'm like once I crossed that line very quickly, I don't want to do this anymore. This is
not a party. Heroin, it's not me. And I'm like, I'm done. And it took me about 10 years to actually get into recovery. Overdoses, stealing from the family, in and out of treatment. like I didn't want to do it anymore. But by the time I made
a decision to stop, I couldn't stop. And what I learned was it's because of the brain. My brain had been hijacked and rewired and I lost impulse control. Even though I did it once and I would cry and said never do it again, I'll do it again. So like let's get in front of this stuff, right? Let's educate people
because what the further down the road you go, the harder it is to come back. So how did this happen? Right? I already talked about anxiety, depression, insecurity. I moved to different schools as a kid. Like that was super awkward and uncomfortable. My parents were always fighting at home, right? Um they
did it to us. My parents got my back today. My mother's a big champion. My father's a Portuguese immigrant, right? He came here when he was like 17. And what does he do? He get this job as a fisherman. So he's gone two or three weeks out of time. He's not around. So we have a good relationship. Then he becomes a painter. Painter.
I want to go see my people of his. Um, so he has a painting, right? Painting's seasonal. So in the summer he's got money. In the winter he's broke. Mom's got the like new benefit payroll department job with the great pennies. Makes like $400 a week and makes it
work, right? Mom holds it down, but it creates chaos in the household. This is saying all this to say I have parents that live in home and some of my friends grew up without a parent, without two parents or one parent or whatever. But like going to school where I felt insecure and I felt
like I was getting picked on and I felt like I had to fit in. And then going home to parents that were always fighting, it was like a toxic environment. It was like anxiety and discomfort everywhere I went. >> And so again, when you have people that have pain, anxiety, trauma, anger,
you're looking for relief. You're looking for some kind of escape. I also have ADHD. But I figured that out immediately years old. The difference today is it's generally manageable. I found a way to operationalize it and monetize it,
right? Other jobs. It's like give an AD person like a mission and a passion and they're like they get they get going, right? I had like half a cup of coffee at 7 a.m. I'm rocking, baby. This is my baseline. I am not drinking that. This is where I
live. Also why alcohol and marijuana was kind of appealing to me because they kind of helped me regulate. I had no self-reg. Learn extra dialog
still up until it took a while to learn that skill. I am not under any medication today. Not that I'm against medication, but I learn to self regularly. I think it's an important tool that schools like this try to teach. And it's not always the
go-to. We live in a society that's like, "Oh, you have a problem. Write a script. Oh, you have a side effect. No problem. You got another script." No, that's not the solution. How about breathe, diet, exercise, nutrition, proper rest? There's a lot of actual
simple holistic solutions to a lot of problems. Oh, we live in this fast society and we used to lazy. The hard work that it takes sometimes to get well is way harder than I digress. That's a whole different story.
>> So, what is addiction? And the students did great. You should all know we have amazing uh kids. I asked this. People raised their hand. They got excited. We laughed. They a lot of them knew what it was and variations of what it was. I'm not going to do that with you guys.
But simply addiction is an obsessive reoccurring use of something despite negative consequences. So if you're obsessively compulsively doing anything that's causing problems in your life, you're probably dealing with some type of addiction. And everybody thinks like
drugs and alcohol and homework addiction. But how about video games? How about when you're locked in the basement until 2 a.m. yelling when you leave the plate at the door cuz they're not even trying to go to the dinner table and you're all strung out in the morning, not doing your homework, not
taking a shower because it's so tired. Well, it's kind of a problem. Playing video games is not bad. But if anything disrupts your whole life, then it's something you might want to evaluate. Gambling, eating, relationships,
cell phones, social media, addicted to the dopamine that comes with like my heart. Little Susie shared my status. So it's not limited to drugs. What the real problem is is this.
Everybody knows. I don't think a lot of people know what drugs. Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that's released by the lyic system that makes you feel good. A lot of young people knew what dopamine was. They knew the chemical that makes you feel good. A lot a lot of young people are set up and all the
people do you notice that when I get close to that it's like one thing that all these things have in common is dopamine. Now dopamine is a good chemical. It's actually meant to revulsate you and keep you alive. This is a trap right
here. Whether you believe in God and science, whatever you want to believe in, that's something to it should be instinctual when approaching violence of danger to run or fight. If you freeze, you can die. Same thing with the Ly system. Ly system is a reward system like when you're training a puppy to
kill, right? Puppy puppy pad treat bad. You shouldn't do that. Nice. Some people do that very quickly. puppy learns I get the treat in the sweet voice if I pee on
the puppy pad right it reinforces the behavior of peing on the puppy pad I'm going to talk down like that's not good but like really that's what the limit system is now there certain things that we have to do as humans to stay alive as a human we need to eat
laughing is a super healthy thing that releases dopamine makes you feel good laughter is the best medicine and it is the particular chemical that makes you feel good We need to procreate to make more humans. Those are the primary things that release dopamine. Eating, laughing,
exercise, making more humans way after college, place. So when you do those things, you get to feel it says, "Oh, we need to do this thing again." All right. Bad news. Vaping with high concentrations of
nicotine release a thousand times more dopamine than eating laughing exercise. And what does that do? Dopamine chemical. This feels good. I need to repeat this behavior to keep the human
race alive. It sounds a little exaggerated, but that's exactly what happened. You from a very young age are trained to repeat behavior where dopamine is involved and most of those behavior is not healthy for you. The bad news is vaping,
marijuana, alcohol such a larger dose of dopamine for those essential life activities and it tricks the brain into thinking it's something it needs. It's definitely something it wants. So that's why I say the vaping is a problem. Of course it is. It's not really the vaping
though. It's just that's the thing that's the easiest for them to get. The real problem is is the dopamine. They get a lot of crush of dopamine. It sets off this this this like feeling in the brain that says, "Oh, we like that. Let's do that again." >> So the other thing that happens all the
time and if any of you have kids or family members that have other drugs, you might have seen this, right? Because you get certain feelood from playing sports or adrenaline. You get some dopamine from that, right? There's another chemical called oxytocin. It's called the love chemical,
the safety chemical. You can get it from being around family or getting a hug from Nana. Even smelling like Nana's apple pie in a room can be like here. It actually releases that helps you relax and makes you feel good. And
so interacting with other humans, playing sports, being around Nana, eating food, traveling, doing certain things that make you feel good. Once you stop being able to over you get so used to those odd bursts of dopamine, you become desensitized, which means all those other things do not give you
sufficient dopamine and you stop losing interest in them. So you see people that used to have all those pastimes that stop doing them because those things don't give me the blast of dopamine that I crave and they drop the brands or even the video games and they stop to just
obsess all their time. How can I get the next blast of dopamine? For some people it's vaping. For some people it's marijuana. For some people it's other things. But I try to drill home that the real problem is the dopamine. And the real underlying problem is well why in
the first place? Why do you need dopamine? Why is that feeling to you? Right? And it's usually because it makes you feel good and they don't have it. They don't feel as good. So again, the real treatment and the real recovery, the real prevention work is about how do
you identify people to help you with it, you know, especially if you feel like you need to quit vaping right now. Well, you're going to offer us some support because they're not going to feel good when they stop and we're going to have to supplement that with other healthy, holistic, sustainable ways to feel good.
100% possible. The earlier you catch it, the easier it is. But like to understand people to do the drugs, it didn't offer something, right? It does something. I used to say like in the beginning it made me feel good. In the in the end it
made me not feel at all. But I like the effect of reduce. It made me forget. It made me just shut down. So offer something. And so we got to take away the unhealthy things or replace them with healthy habits and healthy problems. The last thing that I think is
super important, I mean there's other important things on this slide is the prefocus cortex. Again, if you have nothing else on this and you want strong talking points to talk to your kid or someone else about why not drugs, this is why. Not because
I said I'm not going to do that. Not because it's because science says you get addicted to the dopamine which may lead you to progress into other things when this stops working and it may desensitize you so that you don't enjoy
other things anymore. And more importantly the frontal cortex of the brain is responsible for decision making impulse control and risk assessment that our brain will develop until his 20s. If you stop craving or slowing or anything
else, it slows drastically slows the development of that part of the brain, which in turn leads you to more risky behavior, more bad decisions, more impulse control issues. When I started to learn this stuff, I'm like, "Oh my god, that like literally aligns with my
life. I'm 12 years old with an underdeveloped grade. I'm just smoking a little bit on the weekend. Smoke a little more." And guess what I do? I make awful decisions over and over again. I have zero impulse control. I'm constantly getting in trouble. And the
second after I do something to like pause it just like 247 in right now. And to go further, I want you to know I'm not this crazy alcohol, drugs, weed is the devil guy. I'm just
saying don't do it now. At least prolong first time use. This is some very important data. The younger you stop and this is Dr. talking now
I think great guy and this is not herb data but you'll get you'll get the the gist of it he said if you wait until you're 16 years old before you you experiment with alcohol aging you're like 32% less likely it's addicted because of developing weight if you wait
until you're 18 it's like 46% less likely 21 52% like less likely if you actually wait until you're 25 years old and you give me a brain chance to develop. You're like 67% less likely to become addicted. Isn't that amazing?
Like I don't know if that you think that's very I think that's amazing. That's just like science saying this is the proof, right? So I think it's fanatical to tell you this. It's like no just like don't do it now. Go to
high school. Go to college. Call me when you're at 25 with a master's degree. I'm buying a bro. You deserve it. You want a glass of wine, a bottle of champagne, I will be proud of you and your brain can handle it and you'll be 67% less likely to be an issue. Now, I'm not advocating drugs
and alcohol cuz I don't drink. I'm not at all. I'm just trying to be a real person to say please consider prolonging first time use the science here. >> All right. So, that
Who's most at risk? I already covered that. Anyone under 18 is at risk and anyone under 25 is at risk. And then how many risk factors are do you already have anxiety, depression, bipolar, schizopffective disorder, more at risk? Are you already on medication for some
kind of mood stabilization? More at risk? Do you have genetic predisposition? More at risk. And genetic predisposition means it's one in your family. Science says if you come from the family of one side addiction, you're like 42% more likely to get
addicted than little. If you come from a family that has addiction on both sides, you are like 58% more likely. And I was like, oh my so what might have been more helpful is to
say, hey, my father died of alcoholism, which is a fact. and my father's father died little because of alcoholism and decision would have done so many time but it would have been a more valant and
respectable piece of information than don't do it because I said the truth is alcoholism killed both my grandpas risk to completely destroy my life by experimenting at a young age because of my genetics that might have been helpful
And it feels to parents because I deal with a lot. I have friends in recovery and it's your choice. I'm not judging you. I'm not shaming you or whatever. But I have friends in recovery that choose not to disclose to their kids. Right? I I know this one couple. They're beautiful humans. They're living their
haven. The kids are involved in their smile and they have philosophy. I'm going to love my kids up on the bottom environment and this will not be a factor. And I I have kind of my my feeling around that is you could be
setting these kids up because if kids go and experiment if they're just like regular mobile kids with no genetic predisposition they might they might become full like very quickly. So my opinion is do whatever you want. It's just like this. You go to the doctor they do a genog and they say what's your
family history? Diabetes, high blood pressure, hypertension, cancer, right? They ask you these things. The science says you're not definitely going to get it, but they're 100% increased risk. So, we want to be aware of it. It's the same thing with addiction. I'm just throwing it out there. Do whatever you want with
it, but like people are here in recovery like consideration appropriate because it even starts with sugar. You see them get all tweaked out on sugar. Then you see like hitting coffee and caffeine and Red Bull and they're like way out of control with it. Yeah. Red flag. It's addictive behavior,
right? Maybe it's the genes in them a little just out there. Um, keep going. So, this is a heavy subject and I didn't get into it a lot, just so you know. But the fact is people that have more trauma are more likely to become addicted. It just makes
sense. If you didn't do a lot of stuff and you got pain, you're more likely to want to seek relief, right? So, if you know young people that are experiencing pain, we're going to have to connect them with some services. I won't go into any more than that. So, marijuana.
I look around the room. Some of you are roughly my age. Most of you are younger and more attractive, which is fine. >> When I was growing up, oh, such an old man thing to say. But it's the truth. When I was
introduced to marijuana, it was at Ricky via Arizona via Mexico. It was it was full of cities. It was trashed, right? You had to like hit it with some back
my experience. But the thing that's different is this was like 4% THC meaning it was very weak. Now with the legalization and the medicalization and all these little shops that have popped up again if you're 40 years old
I'm not attacking. You can take it easy. What I'm saying is the fact is this we is way stronger. This isn't that Arizona drip weed. This could be 12%, 18%. Then you get into the edibles. When you eat one in your field, 40 minutes, you eat
another one, you eat another one hour later, you're in psychosis. You get to the dabs in the resins, which is the condensed THC. That can be up to 92% THC. And so it's not a big deal. They drink some
obese, they drink the science, the technology these days like this weed is really strong and it has you know stronger side effects. So uh the last side is a fact I don't know if you've heard this about what we see
with the young people we're seeing young people with no history of mental illness or schizophrenia having psychosis literally hearing and seeing things that are not there they end up in a lot of mental mental institution and when you do it's just marijuana right it's just
marijuana to have complet psychotic breaks of just marijuana. So, just know again, alcohol, not a big deal. Everybody drinks it, not a big deal. But alcohol is a drug. Don't abuse it. Whatever. No judgment. I'm not I don't
think alcohol is bad. But for young people, they see that alcohol and it kills more people every year than any other drug and all the drugs.
So that's just a fact. like this idea that's not dangerous like hey you 25 30 year old maybe not as dangerous but the 12 to 15 year old person super dangerous right so just in perspective and then
the star of the show beautiful product >> and it's taking the streets and sweeping the nation and it's really bad now being a business person.
I don't like when people manipulate me. I don't like false marketing practices. I don't like being like they came out with this stuff and they said this is going to help people who quit smoking cigarettes, right? And the truth is lobbyists made a lot of
noise and they finally made it illegal to market advertise cigarettes on TV. You don't see that anymore. They also pull out every single pack of cigarettes. This pack of cigarettes still selling because they really truth this campaign to stop advertising
cigarettes on TV and to put on every pack that's going to kill you drastically affecting some people's bottom line and millionaires and corporations don't like that very much. So what do you do when a product goes scale? You need diversify your portfolio. You need to develop new
products to engage and attract new end users potentially hopefully lifetime users. So let's get blue and cotton candy and strawberry milkshake. Let's put like little things on. Even worse, this is old slides. The new one like a
double dip or triple dip, right? is the blue has with like a slot machine built in to the bait. So you can play a video game and bake and double down on the weight. Some of them got excited. That's
not good. It's manipulation. It's awful. Right? So you take two things that young people are interested in the video game or whatever and then you load it with chemicals that give them this dopamine rush. And so the reality is like and I said this I say this all too like never
in the history of any local farmer in who's pilig you into an industry not only hurt you but will continue. So the biggest thing about ADS and I want to make this clear on and on and on
dopamine the biggest problem with dopamine it releases large dopamine and over a period of time your body I just want to get a little bit
here and there I felt okay 14 like So stronger we more frequent we cross the line into more frequence. So again the biggest fear about young people vaping is that what are you going
to do when it stops working? put that that's going to be stopping you on the floor. No, more than likely that everybody want like we got you. Don't worry, this works now. And that's exactly what happened to
me. Guess what? That's my experience. Like I was just doing something issues and I think I smoked a little bit like I felt a little better. But over a period of time like that didn't do it and it was the next thing and the next thing and even addicted to
heroin I just wanted to throw it and I had no other skills. So that's the real danger of vaping nobody else. So let's get to the bottom of it. What do you get out of it? How can we
offer you another solution permanent or holistic solution? And then if you want to get into the science, yeah, look, high levels of nicotine was like this little flash. There's a whole pack of cigarettes in that jewel in the bigger like two packs of
cigarettes, right? Lung irritation, ability to focus, decrease. Here's another thing, little gem. I don't know if you've heard of this, but researching. It's called salt nick. So back in the day, maybe I don't know
how many years ago when they made the scene, it was like a big thing. It was like a big glass thing that you put a filter in. You got to pour juice in. You get these four car batteries. You got to put in the bottom. It was monsters. Dude training logs, right? The old guys.
>> Well, you don't see them that much anymore. So, how did they take that big contraption and make it into something this big that still satisfies the smoker, the user? And that is salt. So salt nick is nicotine which is the
most addictive drug in in the universe probably. Nicotine flavoring and salt. Like why the hell you put salt in? Because when you make this very small thing with a very small battery with a very little amount of smoke. The salt goes into your lungs. It opens your
blood vessels so that the nicotine can travel more efficiently. How crazy is that? Right? And even like young people, really salt, the test and then what what do you think salt does? Salt dehydrates.
So a lot of people that are baking a lot, they got cracked skin, cracked lips, dry throat, dry tongue, right? They have a hard time sleeping. The salt literally is like sucking into the water. And so again, I hope like some of this is new information that helps you have
healthy conversations. I'm not trying to be dramatic or scare anyone, but this is information that I learned along the way. Oh man, there is another thing to be worth looking at, right? You see the lifesavers and the savings.com and again I'm not
that does this but because kids are getting caught with the vapes a lot of young people again smokeless high concentration of nicotine
they become addicted to them >> it affects brain development messes with the cardiovascular system highly addictive dizziness. >> Some of the side effects of nicotine as a whole dizziness, sleep disturbances, increase
in blood clotting, blood pressure, hot rhythm, sugar, ulcers, diarrhea, trembles, pain. These are all, and by the way, if anyone has an issue with this, like I'm happy to give you all my
work cited. I look at like the CDC and FDA and I'm trying to find websites to do my research and I have all like the citations for it. I I'm not like trying to find thematic left or rightwing people. I'm trying to find real medical and scientific data because I think it's helpful to have a real
conversation rather than like you know u value statistics like this is just one of many. You do the research you'll see yourself. But now we're going to be happy. This is uh the one that's freaking all the kids off. So just be aware of that. They didn't react to the alcohol
mild reactions even when came up the crowd went wild. >> They was buzzing. They were side chatting. They was very happy that this came up. >> Mostly the eighth graders to be a real sixth and seventh graders very well
behaved, very mature, very respectful. They were very quiet. answer the question right back down. But that second was a little feisty right a little tested me. >> So I got a little uncomfortable.
question. >> What's a healthy dose of caffeine? That's a great question. I'll say for 14 zero. Zero is a healthy dose. 14. You are at the part of your life. If you can't get through a day without a Red Bull, you got bigger problems.
>> You know what I'm saying? Go eat some peanuts. Eat a couple strawberries. Do the push-ups. You'll be fine. But again, society we live in. I'm stressed. I got homework smash gives me wings. I'm walking out and then the fourth dimension. But then guess
what? Oh, I get the double down. Another one. Literally on this slide. 20 minutes later came back with a cafe latte, a couple more pom pom from Starbucks or something. I'm like,
"Really? You left on caffeine slide?" No. I say to school cuz it doesn't matter if we're being recorded now. But it was just like, "Yo, I threw this up. She was immediately >> and then I had come back with like a,
you know, whatever it was. most I'm like really and you didn't bring me one. So again and and this is I don't know the statistics on this side to be safe but because it was there I did add value
this was on um the was it the heart disease website I can if you want yeah anxiety chest pain but it says heartbeat even death
Then all 13 14 if you are already addicted to being able to depend on anything to feel okay that's a problem today is you know and so the fact that you can drink so much of it you actually
and it is what I love about I know but I always What can I add or subtract especially the young people >> and I did this last year was clear nobody's doing but what you didn't have
was caffeine we're not going to add caffeine research as a student said caffeine is a big problem in school and I appreciate students that I don't know I'm not plugged in they think we're up here I
don't know and politicians know even the principal Tim B. We don't always know. We got to call, hey guys, what's going on? Help us so we can help you. And so just know that I'm open to that. We're almost done.
If anybody wants on my last slide, you see my email address. If you got feedback, you have questions, you think there's a way I can make this better or things that I should subtract, let me know. Like I'm not married to this PowerPoint. I want to have an impact. So we'll change and modify and do whatever we got to do to be relevant to the
people we're trying to help. Okay, keep going. So these last few slides, what do I got? 15 minutes probably. And I know we started a little late so I'm keeping them a little longer and it's okay. But these last few slides I think are
important and I'm glad I have 15 minutes because the first one is five minutes left actual like high thought helpful stuff. >> So when we think about self-esteem it's the way we perceive ourselves. People
with high self-esteem or at least level self-esteem are more likely I should say less likely to be influenced by others and make bad decisions. People with low self-esteem, which was me, I so care about what everybody thinks. I was very
influenced by peer pressure and uh bullying and all that stuff because I didn't feel good about me. So I need you to validate me and make me feel good and despite a lot of bad decisions. So I believe helping young people build positive healthy
self-esteem is huge. It's vital to overall health and it's a huge prevention. >> Welladjusted people. So again I think in society now a lot of people struggle with adults and young people but a lot of it has been science
says the correlation between depression and social media usage and I'll say what I said to them because I don't care I say you want to know why because social media is right we're on social media right now and you got this dude with a
fresh turkey plus on steroids with a cal implant flex accident he rented in Miami Beach. You know what I'm saying? Then you got the girl that wants to be the model. She got the blown out lip
fill up. She got the eyelashes slapped. She got the Brazilian package. She stand up on her to use a filter on the best day of her life. And look, bro, I can't wait. you're just going big
millionaire nice like how do you feel good about your average life? >> So the studies showpecially go down. No, like that. >> I mean, you have long eyelashes.
>> Oh, okay. Yeah. See, I don't have that long. That's fine. >> I got to get out of my life. I all Facebook all the notifications and I'm home at home and I'm working on listening to a video and I'm sharing
with the homies I'm working and so me personally right now what I was going to say is I didn't get an off I did a cleansing and what that looked like Anything that came up that I felt like was not my unfollow I
so a lot of the females were following me lost a lot of the left right you're going to die everybody's bad and then I stop looking for people that spiritual thoughts people
that had me and I was literally always what am I going to do I people that have like blue nutrition diet and exercise tips like things that are going to feed my mind and my spirit rather than just that toxic trash that brain
strongly suggest all people to take a look at that. So almost done how to improve self-esteem and one of the kids said this which I thought was so y like full of slides ago. I don't even know what I said that triggered her. because you know what you're going
to do is you can go holes and then when you conscious those goals and I'm not making fun of you over here so you go feel good about myself as let's go let's take her on the road you know what I'm saying like for a 12year-old to have
insight to know if I made a little way so that made me so happy I love Thank you, but also hang around positive people, right? Hey, look, there's certain people in my life and there's certain family members. I love you. I respect you. I
want to help you get better. I'll help you. Because you are here toxic, unhealthy people that no, it's bad. They share the bad news, too.
I'm good. Not negative. They're not making me feel bad about myself. They're trying to encourage me to do better and do more. Give me those people. You give that a couple of those people, those people will change your life. I'll take two little people over
25 weather social media pig like I post friends and volunteering. I'm a big fan of volunteering. If you've never done it, I highly suggest it. A big part of the 12step recovery says you can make time to help others off camera. Not funny. No one's
looking. Don't take a picture. That's not altruistic. That's not my power. And guess what? I am not a good guy. My baseline is I am selfish, self-centered,
aggravated, judgmental, greedy. I want all the things left to my own devices. It's the Kevin Rosario show all day. There's other people that need help. And sometimes I do inconvenient things after a long day of work to try to call
someone else. Inconvenient service work I believe is the thing that makes me feel best when I'm tired and I don't want to do it. Maybe it's a certain thing I'm super passionate about. I know they need help. And every minute I spend helping someone else just really puts
money in my spiritual thinking. It makes me feel good. It might sound corny, but try it. Try home here. Last couple. So, refusal skills. I told young people, I need you parents to help me like it.
Sounds corny, but like the first time I smoke weed, I was just cut off. I was the older kids. I smoke it. So what's helpful is like if you are kind of hey maybe no one's offering you
alcohol baby yet but a thousand% someone will in the next 1 to 3 years when that happens what are you going to do what are you going to say you want to not just say no blow whistle and run down the street that's not real life but if
you're say hey look my family I can't take the risk I'm good. Like I play sports or I play an instrument. Like I'm not willing to take the risk or not like I would but like I heard my brain not fully developed and I'm like I'm really
willing to take that risk. Like you got to have a winning prepared rebuttal and then you're put in that situation so you don't freeze up like I did. You can also be like a positive influence until they don't stop and then you got to let them go. Like if it's a
one time thing and someone's like, "Hey, you want to go do whatever destructive behavior?" I'm good. You want to go basketball? You want to go fishing? You want to go dirt biking? You want to hit the trail with the mountain bike? Whatever. You could be the guy or girl to help someone not to do unhealthy thing.
I'm doing this thing over and over and over again. It's like the last thing I think is the most important thing. Give your kids now. They can blame you and you can blame me. Leave here today.
Buy drug tests, buy breathalyzes, right? Have them take a picture of it on their phone. Then the next time you're out in public and someone comes up to you and tries to say that I would, but my mom cuckoo for cocoa
puffs. Okay. Now they think I'm going to smoke and [ __ ] and be homeless. I can't do it. If I got one red eye in the peak of allergy season, she's going to test me and I'm Wi-Fi password gone. iPhone gone,
PlayStation gone. These are real. This is like oxygen. You ever been in a full panic? What's going on? We set the modem. I'm calling off
the paid $3,000. I show the easiest of all up to you. I'm a mother. >> She disrespects a little bit. And it might spot it once or twice
that I'm all set. And a friend group just last, you know, if you need help talking to somebody, get professional advice. Um, I'm someone an adult or anybody can
talk to. I should not be alive but instead I'm a happy kids home and I travel all over the world but I'm not saying that to brag. bragging on
recovery and I want you to know some struggling hope for them to come back as bad as anyone could have been back. I'm good. Thank you so much. One comment before we all leave. One comment.
>> Yo yo, hang on one minute. >> One comment before we all leave. So, we know that we're not going to get all of our kids to stop vaping in school. We're realistic and our goal is that we help teach our kids about making the right decisions. And and just today I had a
young lady in our school come up to me towards the end of the day and say, "What would happen if I told you I had a baby?" I said, "I take it from you." She goes, "What else would happen?" I said, "That's the end of it because you did the right thing." She reached in her pocket, pulled out her vape, and handed
to me, got a little emotional, said, "I want to do this anymore." And was on her way. Honestly, if 10% of our kids that are vaping, if if this works, then this is worth it to me. All right? I worry about our kids. I want them to be safe. I want them to be smart. And I want them
to know what they're doing. So, if you need help with your child, if you want to talk to your child, we can support you in any way. Please reach out to me. Thank you for coming tonight, everybody.