Schools across Canberra are increasingly finding students using e-cigarettes which are designed to look like pens, highlighters, flash drives or small flasks.

Daramalan College installed sensors which alert school staff immediately if there is an anomaly in the air in an effort to get on top of the vaping problem.

"The ultimate goal is to decrease vaping at Daramalan College and to focus on the education of our students," parents and carers were told in a letter.

"Vaping on school grounds may also negatively impact students and staff who do not want to be exposed to or breathe in vapour."

The college declined to comment further.

Australian National University professor of epidemiology and public health Emily Banks said many young people wrongly assumed e-cigarettes were harmless.

Her team did a systematic review of 25 studies which found e-cigarette users had about three times the probability of taking up regular tobacco smoking compared to people who were not using e-cigarettes.

"E-cigarettes have been promoted very heavily to young people and there's a lot of promotion on social media," Professor Banks said.

"A lot of them are being sold this lie that it's just sort of harmless water vapour. But actually, there's really quite a complex array of chemicals in e-cigarettes."

The latest figures from 2017 show about one in 10 young people aged 12 to 17 in the ACT have ever tried an e-cigarette. A 2020 survey was delayed due to the pandemic with results expected next year.

It's illegal to sell the products to minors, but e-cigarette companies are targeting children and young people to make a profit.

"I found a wrapper outside my daughter's school ... It was clearly targeting children," Professor Banks said.

"It was pink, it was bubblegum flavoured. It had lollies on the front and then the device itself contained the nicotine equivalent of nine packets of cigarettes."

The long-term consequences of e-cigarette use are not yet known.

However, the liquids inside the devices can cause poisoning while the batteries can explode, causing burns and fires.

A student in the Blue Mountains went to the emergency department this year after suffering a seizure induced by an overdose of nicotine.

ACT Health does not keep data on hospitalisations specifically linked to e-cigarettes.

Besides being more likely to take up smoking tobacco products, students who use e-cigarettes can become highly addicted to them.

Bathing the developing, adolescent brain in nicotine is itself a problem, but Professor Banks said it can also have negative social consequences if students are suspended from school as a result of their addictions.

"We are hearing reports of young people who have difficulty sitting through a lesson without having an e-cigarette," she said.

The products also create significant waste streams, with single-use plastic casing enclosing batteries and electronic components.

Cancer Council ACT chief executive Verity Hawkins said young people saw e-cigarettes as a social habit that was quite safe.

"We at the Cancer Council are just concerned that there's going to be a whole generation of people who are going to be taking up smoking, whether it's tobacco or e-cigarette smoking, that wouldn't have done so otherwise," Ms Hawkins said.

"There's strong evidence that heart and lung health is negatively impacted by e-cigarette use.

"The other point to note is that it's been found that up to 60 per cent of the e-cigarette products that are claiming to be nicotine free actually do contain nicotine."

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Smoking remains Australia's leading cause of death and disability, linked to more than 20,000 deaths annually.

Ms Hawkins said the term vape and vaping should be avoided because it downplayed the risks.

"Young people think they're breathing in and out water vapour, so they think it's quite safe and harmless when in fact, they're inhaling and exhaling more than 70 different chemicals," she said.

"These chemicals are containing heavy metals and these flavourings are potential carcinogens or they're cancer-causing."

Nicotine vaping products are only legally available through a doctor's prescription as a tool to quit smoking.

Professor Banks said the vast majority of smokers were able to quit unaided.

"Often when we think about smoking cessation, we go straight to these products, but actually two thirds to three quarters of people who quit smoking successfully do so unaided."

The ACT government has proposed legislation to engage young people to buy tobacco and e-cigarettes from retailers to test if tobacco outlets are following laws on sales to minors.

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