New York – The popularity of hookah, e-cigarette tripled among high school teens last year, while teen smoking has hit a new low. The number of teenage students trying the electronic cigarette crossed more than 13 percent, whereas around 9.4 percent teen students used other smoking mediums like hookahs and water pipes. Due to increased […]
New York – The popularity of hookah, e-cigarette tripled among high school teens last year, while teen smoking has hit a new low. The number of teenage students trying the electronic cigarette crossed more than 13 percent, whereas around 9.4 percent teen students used other smoking mediums like hookahs and water pipes.
Due to increased popularity of the e-cigarette, the high school students have lost their interest in the traditional cigarette. Last year the number of students preferring traditional smoking went down to 9.2 percent from 13 percent in the earlier year.
These reports suggest that traditional smoking in high school is less popular as compared to hookah or e-cigarette. According to Robin Koyal, an anti-smoking organization, President of Legacy this decline is a positive and encouraging sign.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released this report on Thursday that covered a national survey on 22,000 students’ middle and high school levels in private, as well as public educational institutions.
Drop in the Use of Traditional Cigarettes
Apart from the declining interest in traditional smoking, there has been a dramatic drop in the use of cigars or chewing tobacco among the high school students. Although the change of interest is being appreciated, it should not be forgotten that e-cigarette could also lead to addiction to nicotine.
E-cigarette does not produce smoke or contain tobacco in any form, but addiction to it can cause several side effects such as restricting brain development.
The study shows that 90 percent of the high school students have tried smoking. Dr. Tom Frieden, CDC Director, has not taken this new development of interest about the hookah and e-cigarette among the teens positively.
According to him, although the use of tobacco-based products has declined, the growing popularity of nicotine-laden hookahs and e-cigarettes are equally serious and alarming.
On the other hand, a health professor at the University of Michigan, Kenneth Warner has said that CDC has provided only one-sided insight into the e-cigarette issue.
Actually, it’s a report (survey) from the CDC, not the FDA, and the press release that accompanied the report is biasing the actual data the report provides. What isn’t highlighted in the press release is the fact that the 2014 rate of teen cigarette smoking are historically low (since these surveys started), which is great. What the press release decided to emphasise was that teens are using vapor products more, and they try to make this sound like a bad thing. What the press release decided to leave out is that if you look at the overall usage (including vapor products) of all nicotine products remained fairly constant, and just the type of consumption changed.
While I don’t condone teens using nicotine products, I would much rather they experiment with the far safer vapor products than combustible cigarettes.