Hundreds of thousands of U.S. College students Nonetheless Vape, Regardless of Yearly Declines

Oct. 7, 2022 — Greater than 2.5 million center faculty and highschool college students within the U.S. use e-cigarettes, in keeping with a new study from the CDC and FDA.

The 2022 Nationwide Youth Tobacco Survey, carried out between January and Might, confirmed that 14% of highschool college students and three.3% of center faculty college students used nicotine units at the very least as soon as throughout the previous 30 days. A yr in the past, the survey confirmed that 11.3% of highschool college students and a pair of.8% of center faculty college students reported vaping prior to now month.

The numbers stay beneath 2019 information, which confirmed that greater than 25% of highschool college students vaped. Even nonetheless, anti-tobacco and anti-vaping teams have urged federal regulators to remove flavored vaping merchandise which can be fashionable amongst teenagers. 

On this yr’s survey, 85% of teenagers who vaped stated they used flavored e-cigarettes. Essentially the most used flavors had been fruit (69%); sweet, desserts, or sweets (38%); mint (29%); and menthol (27%).

“It’s unacceptable that over 2.5 million youngsters nonetheless use e-cigarettes when there’s a clear resolution to the issue — remove all flavored e-cigarettes,” Matthew Myers, president of Marketing campaign for Tobacco-Free Children, told USA Today.

The FDA has banned flavored vaping merchandise derived from tobacco. Nevertheless, customers have more and more turned to artificial nicotine merchandise, which are sometimes disposable and bought in quite a lot of flavors, the newspaper reported.

In 2022, teenagers reported a number of completely different favourite manufacturers, in distinction to 2019, when JUUL was essentially the most acknowledged model. Amongst those that at present vape, 14.5% stated their standard model was Puff Bar, adopted by 12.5% for Vuse, 5.5% for Hyde, and 4% for SMOK. As well as, almost 22% stated their standard model wasn’t among the many 13 listed within the survey.

About 28% of youth reported utilizing e-cigarettes each day, and 42% reported utilizing them on 20 or extra days throughout the previous 30 days.

As well as, about 55% of teenage vapers stated they use disposable e-cigarettes. About 25% use prefilled or refillable pods, and seven% use tanks or mod programs. One other 23% stated they didn’t know what kind of machine they used.

“This research exhibits that our nation’s youth proceed to be enticed and hooked by an increasing number of e-cigarette manufacturers delivering flavored nicotine,” Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of the CDC’s Workplace on Smoking and Well being, stated in a statement.

“Our work is much from over,” she stated. “It’s vital that we work collectively to stop youth from beginning to use any tobacco product — together with e-cigarettes — and assist all youth who do use them, to stop.”