Smoking and Vaping Keep Moving in Opposite Directions Among Teenagers

[5150sick]

Smoking and Vaping Keep Moving in Opposite Directions Among Teenagers
Where is this "gateway effect" we keep hearing about?


https://reason.com/blog/2015/04/16/smoking-and-vaping-are-still-moving-in-o

 

[NightOwl]

This story is all over the wires today. I find it interesting which news sources choose which facts to report.

Yes, ecigs went from 1.5% of high school students to 13.4%, hookahs 4.1% to 9.4%, sounds 'scary' until you see the rest of the stats.

First off 24.2% of HS students self-reported using one of their definition of tobacco products in 2011, 24.6% in 2014. No real change there. The great news is cigarette use is down from 15.8% to 9.2% and cigars 11.6% to 8.2%. That is a pretty substantial drop in smoking tobacco. Middle school numbers followed the same trend.

Ecig use went up substantially between 2013 and 2014 which the CDC report partly attributes to the questionaire

"Finally, changes between 2013 and 2014 in the wording and placement of questions about the use of e-cigarettes, hookahs, and tobacco pipes might have had an impact on reported use of these products."
CDC report http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6414a3.htm?s_cid=mm6414a3_w
​

I think the report shows vaping is getting students away from smoking.

Cigarette smoking among >18 adults has dropped to 17.8% down from being stuck around 20-22% for years before ecigs came out in a big way in 2009-10. Cigarette smoking actually rose during the 2007-8 crash years.

The state coffers have to be feeling the pain from the drop in sin tax revenues.