Vape pens designed with packaging and flavors designed to appeal to children continue to pose a challenge to parents and educators, and recently news has spread of such devices literally disguised as school supplies in order to facilitate their illegal use by minors.

[Hear our KRMG In-Depth Report on vape pens disguised as school supplies here]

Jim Carroll served in the Trump administration as Director of National Drug Control Policy.

He tells KRMG it’s a national problem, with international origins.

“We’re now seeing traffickers, based in China, going after our children with disposable, illegal vaping devices that (have) cartoon characters on them, they have, you know, kid-friendly names... kid-friendly flavors,” he told KRMG Tuesday.

“They’re being marketed to our children with nicotine that is so much more powerful than what’s in a cigarette, as well as dangerous contaminants, including what we’re hearing are multiple reports of them containing fentanyl,” Carroll said.

It’s unclear if the fentanyl is deliberately introduced at the manufacturing level, and investigations into that possibility are ongoing.

What is clear is that the marketing and sale of such devices to children is already illegal in the United States, and Carroll says it’s time to crack down on stores which sell them.

Those stores, he said, “are really, as far as I’m concerned, breaking the law when they’re selling a product that is so obviously intended to target our children, who are so at risk for this. The government has begun to take action, but what we really need to see are strong enforcement actions against the marketing of these dangerous products to children.”

He hopes parents, and voters in general, hold elected leaders’ feet to the fire on the issue.

“The folks in Oklahoma should be very concerned about this. They need to talk to their kids, but they also need to talk to their lawmakers and say ‘this ends,’” Carroll said. “The vaping products that are disposable, that are marketed to children, are dangerous and they should not be in the hands of our children, and we are asking you, our government, to step in.”