Education
New Zealand officials tap VCU professor’s expertise to learn about potential vaping hazards
Michelle Peace, Ph.D., an associate professor and a forensic toxicologist in the Department of Forensic Science in the College of Humanities and Sciences, visited New Zealand as this year’s International Vision Fellow of the Institute of Environmental Science and Research.
By Brian McNeill
A Virginia Commonwealth University professor who studies illicit drug use and e-cigarettes traveled throughout New Zealand this summer as part of a fellowship to inform law enforcement and health officials about how e-cigs work and potential misuse of the devices.
Michelle Peace, Ph.D., an associate professor and a forensic toxicologist in the Department of Forensic Science in the College of Humanities and Sciences, visited New Zealand as this year’s International Vision Fellow of the Institute of Environmental Science and Research. She has received funding the past four years from the National Institute of Justice to evaluate e-cigarettes’ potential for abuse and the subsequent impact on the criminal justice system.
As part of the fellowship, which each year brings an international scholar to New Zealand to provide expertise on emerging scientific topics, Peace delivered a number of talks about her research on the rise of e-cigarettes in the United States and their evolution as drug paraphernalia. She spoke to officials with New Zealand’s Ministry of Health; police units focused on organized crime, drugs and intelligence; coroners; crime labs; poison control offices; and university researchers.
“They have a motto of ‘Prevention First,’” Peace said. “‘How do we get ahead of this?’ ‘What’s happening in the United States?’ Because they tend to see things flow culturally from the United States two to three years after something’s rise in the U.S. They figured if the United States is dealing with electronic cigarettes now, then we need to get educated about this.”
