Vaping use climbs with teenagers, amid stagnant smoking rates

According to new federal research, E-cigarette use continued to rise among young teenagers and adolescents in the United States in 2015, but cumulatively, cigarette smoking did not increase. These findings suggest that, in the short term, the relatively new cigarette devices haven’t hooked a new generation of smokers, The New York Times reports.

But experts are cautious with these results. Questions remain if vaping will cause fewer people to smoke. And the overall trend in youth cigarette smoking has dropped in recent years, researchers observe. Kenneth E. Warner, a professor of public health at the University of Michigan, said,“We do not have any strong evidence that it is encouraging smoking among kids but neither do we have good evidence that it won’t over time.”

Roughly 5 percent of middle-school students were surveyed using e-cigarettes last year, up from 4 percent in 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. This is a significant escalation from 2011 when less than 1 percent of middle schoolers were vaping.

Data also indicated that high-school use was also trending upward, with 16 percent using in 2015, up from 13 percent two years ago; but the change was not statistically relevant because of the sample distributions and sizes. The rate was just 1.5 percent for high-schoolers in 2011.

Health experts have argued that e-cigarette usage is a gateway to traditional cigarettes, but as of yet, data hasn’t confirmed the prediction. Roughly 9 percent of high-schoolers reported smoking cigarettes last year, the same as in 2014 but down 16 percent from 2011.

E-cigarettes, manufactured to deliver nicotine without the toxic effects of regular cigarettes, has divided the health community, with some believing that vaping could cause a new wave of addiction to standard cigarettes counteracting progress towards smoking rates; others believe e-cigarettes could assist older addicts in quitting.

Nonetheless, cigarette smoking is still the single largest cause of preventable death in the United States, claiming 480,000 people a year. Although rates have plummeted since 1969, 40 million people still smoke.