Osceola leaders approve $400K for youth vaping prevention in schools, community outreach

BY Jordan Mead

Osceola County is receiving $400,000 in JUUL settlement dollars stemming from a statewide $79 million settlement with JUUL Labs, Inc. to resolve litigation over the company’s past marketing of its flavored vape products.

Osceola County commissioners said they’re dedicating these funds to prevent teens from vaping and nicotine addiction, and this week they approved an agreement with the Florida Department of Health to allocate that money towards various county-wide prevention strategies.

“The item voted on Monday allows the Department of Health locally to create a vaping prevention program in Osceola and to be reimbursed up to the amounts indicated for demonstrated program administrators," a county spokesperson said. "The DOH itself will develop the content and carry out the program; the County is merely acting as a pass-through for these dollars to the DOH as recipient." 

The county agenda reported this will include “school-based education, cessation support, community outreach, and vape detectors in schools.”

Florida Department of Health’s Youth Tobacco Survey showed that in 2024, 6.7% of high schoolers in Osceola County had used a vape product, compared to 10.4% in all of Florida.

People in the Central Florida area with a personal connection to fighting nicotine and vaping addiction call this a huge milestone. Candace McKnight is an advocate with Parents Against Vaping, also known as PAVe.

“So, as an advocate, we are in full support of the JUUL settlement and we are in full support of really utilizing evidence-based education for not just college, not just high school. We know it’s even beyond,” McKnight said.

McKnight became an advocate in 2019 after her son, Walker, became suddenly ill.

“Walker came home from college …He was a competitive cheerleader. Very, very fit. Very athletic. He was down at Florida Atlantic University, came home very sick," McKnight said. "We got him to the closest hospital. He declined very rapidly and ended up actually spending over 100 and something days in ICU on life support.” 

At the time, Walker had been diagnosed with an adenovirus — a respiratory illness that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says can cause a wide range of symptoms. McKnight said her son was addicted to vaping, and believes his decline in health was caused by the combination of the effects of vaping and the virus.

“He lost his kidneys. They no longer worked. So, he was on dialysis and ended up actually having to have a double lung and kidney transplant in 2022," she said. "Unfortunately, he ended up passing away."

“He battled harder than anyone we’ve ever seen in our life," McKnight continued. "So, he was a warrior, and this is the least that we can do to spread the word. I would never want anyone to go through the battle that my family and that my son ended up losing his life too.”

For six years, McKnight said Walker fought to stay alive. She said vaping prevention, especially in children and young adults, is critical to her, and she hopes to see more statewide investment in therapy to help people who struggle with nicotine and vaping addiction, along with other investment.

“We need to teach them the effects of what these things do," she said. "It’s so much more than just a sticky, little yummy, sweet thing that you take in. It’s so much more dangerous, and not even just our children. We need to educate the families, and we need to educate the faculty on the realities of what this is doing to our children.”

“Air goes in your lungs, but other things like hard chemicals that are involved in these products, these heavy metals, they’re not meant for you to keep them up, aerosolize them and suck them into your lungs,” McKnight said. “It’s not meant to happen. You will end up having an effect from these products.”

Representatives from the Florida Department of Health in Osceola County declined to comment for this story, stating they were not officially informed of immediate changes.

To date, Osceola County has received $294,454.40 of its share in the settlement.

https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2025/07/09/juul-settlement-helps-create-vaping-prevention-tools