Teen e-cig users more likely to smoke tobacco

The researchers found that students who had ever used e-cigarettes (222 students at the start of the study) were more likely to report initiation of combustible tobacco use over the next year. The American Vaping Association, an e-cigarette industry group, asserts that the devices have helped several million adults quit smoking since their introduction almost 10 years ago. The Food and Drug Administration proposed rules more than a year ago that would give it the authority to oversee the industry and require e-cig manufacturers to submit products for federal approval. Rome recommends parents include e-cigarettes when talking to kids about the dangers of smoking.

Fresh Smoke Free North East is the first region in England where all local NHS stop smoking services are actively promoted as “e-cigarette friendly”.

There is also no evidence so far that e-cigarettes are acting as a route into smoking for children or non-smokers, it said.

National data show e-cigarettes have become more popular among teens than regular cigarettes.

The study found out that the students who admitted to having tried e-cigarettes were more than twice as likely to take up smoking later in comparison to the students who had not tried e-cigarettes.

“While reasonable measures to control youth access are warranted, all policy decisions about vaping must consider not just youth, but also the adults who would otherwise be smoking in the absence of these innovative technology products”, Conley noted.

An global review of published research by the Cochrane Review in December concluded that the devices could help smokers quit but said much of the existing evidence on e-cigarettes was thin.

What this all tells us is that, while young people are experimenting with e-cigarettes and the proportion who say they’ve tried them is rising, only very small numbers of young non-smokers are attracted to these products on any regular basis.

Some people believe that e-cigarette is a healthier option and substitute to tobacco.

Smoking is 95 percent more harmful to the body than alternative e-cigarettes – but nearly a quarter of us think it is the other way round, latest Government figures reveal today.

That would mean that “onset of e-cigarette use relative to combustible tobacco use may not be determined by a causal sequence”.

The review was led by Professor Ann McNeill, of King’s College London, and Professor Peter Hajek, of Queen Mary University of London. “Instead the evidence consistently finds that e-cigarettes are another tool for stopping smoking”.

It’s unclear why some teens who vape turn to tobacco, said Adam Leventhal, an associate professor and director of the USC Health, Emotion and Addiction Laboratory (USC-HEAL) at the Keck School of Medicine who led the study.

Non-smoking teens who try electronic cigarettes are more likely to later try smoking combustible tobacco, a research team reports in JAMA.

Rigotti said that the findings were not definitive, it does raise uncomfortable question about the use of e-cigarettes for tackling an evil that it propagates in the long run.