Highly Interactive & Engaging Educational Speaker
Highly Interactive & Engaging Educational Speaker
On September 21, 2026, McGregor middle and high school students spent an hour with vaping awareness speaker Robert Hackenson Jr. on vaping, THC, and how they make decisions. They heard who's really behind the products, what's actually in them, and how to say no without making a scene. Watch the full student presentation, then open any section below to keep the conversation going at home.
"You only live once" usually gets said right before something stupid. Students heard the opposite: if you only get one life, that's the reason to make the smart choice. Every decision is a building block.
Make your decisions with purpose.In a live demonstration, students picked poker chips "freely," then found out every choice had been predicted in advance. The point: marketing, social media, and the people around you shape your choices more than you realize.
The only people calling vaping safe are the people who use it and the people who sell it. Students heard that cigarette makers once ran ads claiming "More doctors smoke Camels," and that Altria, the maker of Marlboro, bought a 35% stake in JUUL in 2018.
It isn't water vapor. It's an aerosol made mostly of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin, plus flavorings and nicotine or THC. Those ingredients are approved to eat, not to inhale.
There's a difference between eating and inhaling.E-cigarettes were first sold to adult smokers. Then came USB-shaped devices, candy flavors, and influencers in their twenties. When the 2020 federal flavor rule covered pods but not disposables, disposables took over. Most are made in China and sold without FDA authorization. In 2025, Geek Bar was the brand teens used most.
One student agreed to a coin flip before hearing the stakes: guess right and get nothing, guess wrong and get punched. (Nobody got punched.)
Nicotine plugs into a developing brain like a puzzle piece. Later, the brain wants that piece back. Nearly 9 in 10 adults who smoke daily tried their first cigarette by age 18.
Today's THC is far stronger than it used to be, and with vapes you often can't tell what's inside. Students heard about lung injuries, psychotic episodes, and vape pens found to contain fentanyl.
It's not friends forcing you. It's facing a split-second decision you weren't ready for while you worry what everyone thinks. And everyone else is busy worrying about themselves.
"Nah, I'm good." That's it.Stress is like a lobster outgrowing its shell: a sign to grow, not a reason to escape. When life feels unfair, using a substance to cope teaches the brain to need it every time things get hard.
It's not about the hand you're dealt. It matters how you play the hand.Try one in the car, where nobody has to make eye contact. Prefer paper? Print these as cards.
"How many kids at your school do you think vape? Where do they even get them?"
Asking about other kids gets more honest answers and tells you what they're seeing.
"He said only the people who use it and sell it call it safe. Do you buy that?"
Let them argue it. A teen who reaches the conclusion on their own owns it.
"If someone handed you one at a party, what would you actually say?"
Practicing the line ahead of time is what makes it come out in the moment. Offer to be the excuse: "My mom tests me."
"Let's pick a code word. If you text it, I'll call and be the bad guy who makes you come home."
The speaker's family uses "fine." It gets your teen out without losing face, and no questions get asked that night.
"What do you do when you're really stressed? What works?"
Substances get used as an escape. A teen with two or three healthy ways to cope has less need for one.
McGregor middle and high school students learned who profits from vaping, that vape "vapor" is an aerosol rather than water, how nicotine affects a developing brain, and the risks of high-potency THC vapes. They also learned three rules for decisions: get all the information first, don't put your health in someone else's hands, and don't flip the coin when there's nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Minnesota teens 13 and older can text Start to 36072 for My Life, My Quit, free and confidential coaching from the Minnesota Department of Health. In McGregor, you can also call McGregor Schools at 218-768-2111 and ask for the counseling office.
Look for small devices that look like USB drives or highlighters, a sweet fruity smell, more thirst or a lingering cough, irritability when they can't use, and unexplained spending.
For an adult smoker who switches completely, it is likely less harmful. For a teen who doesn't smoke, "safer than cigarettes" isn't the comparison. It's new risk they didn't have before. As students heard: "That's like choosing between getting punched in the face or in the stomach. You don't have to get punched."
Youth pouch use roughly doubled between 2021 and 2025. Pouches deliver the same nicotine to the same developing brain, and nicotine raises heart rate and blood pressure. No smoke doesn't mean no risk.
In Minnesota, cannabis and tobacco are legal only for adults 21 and over, for the same reason alcohol is: the brain is still developing. Today's products are far more potent than in the past, and the risk of dependence and psychosis is higher for people who start young.
Not always. Testing has found nicotine in some products labeled nicotine-free, and "tobacco-free nicotine" is just synthetic nicotine. It's equally addictive.
That's a family decision, and opinions vary. Students were told they can use "my parents test me" as an easy out. Whatever you decide, telling your teen they can use you as the excuse costs nothing and helps.
It makes you credible. "I got hooked, and here's what it cost me" is one of the strongest things a teen can hear from a parent.
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Robert Hackenson Jr., MBA, CAOL, is a prevention educator and professional speaker with 20+ years of experience. He presented this program to McGregor Schools' middle and high school students and speaks to schools, parent groups, and prevention coalitions across Minnesota and nationwide.
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