Tobacco No More: Teenagers Now Prefer E-Cigarettes

The number of teenagers smoking traditional cigarettes has decreased in recent years. Recent reports found that the continuing popularity of electronic cigarettes or vapes has enticed more and more young people.

According to recent federal information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, about 5 percent of middle school students used e-cigarettes in 2015. Sixteen percent of high school students used e-cigarettes last year, which is a 13 percent increase from 2014, as per the New York Times.

Long-Term Effects

E-cigarettes, which were launched in the mid-2000s, still contain nicotine, although not the toxic tar of traditional cigarettes. Although that lowers any health risks in is users, experts believe that the device's nicotine component can still have harmful effects.

CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden said nicotine is addictive and can have long-term damage to the brain's development if used as early as the adolescence stage. Past research found that teenagers using e-cigarettes are more susceptible to use traditional cigarette smoking later on, Tech Times reported.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said restrictions on tobacco merchandise and e-cigarettes can prevent as much as 223,000 premature deaths. They also believe that the new ruling will reduce lung cancer-related deaths by 50,000.

Ads Entice E-Cigarette Smokers

Middle and high school students are vulnerable to advertisements promoting e-cigarettes. Patricia Folan, director of the Center for Tobacco Control at Northwell Health, said ads featuring e-cigarettes should be regulated and limited, WebMD wrote.

The study, headed by Dr. Tushar Singh from the CDC's Office of Smoking and Health, found that the number of middle school children who use e-cigarettes tripled in size when they are exposed to these ads. The same cannot be said when it comes to people who didn't see the ads.

The U.S. federal government regulated television ads about traditional cigarette use in 1971. E-cigarettes, however, don't have the same treatment. Folan and her team suggested for extensive efforts to control and prevent tobacco use to limit the youth's contact to e-cigarettes and ads about them.

Dr. Ron Marino, Winthrop-University Hospital's associate chair of pediatrics, said the e-cigarette industry goes to great lengths to entice young people into using their products early on, WebMD added. It will be difficult to attract people to use e-cigarettes if they are already adults.

Specific School Environments Have A Hand

A study from the University of Colorado Denver found that specific school environments encourage young people to indulge in e-cigarettes, EurekAlert reported. This means that schools with a large percentage of e-cigarette teenage users are more likely to entice their peers into their ways. One of the reasons behind this trend is some students think that e-cigarettes are not that harmful compared to traditional ones.

What do you think about this issue? Would you let your child use an e-cigarette in lieu of tobacco? Share your thoughts below!