CDC: Teen Vaping Rates Down 27 Percent
It is the first decline in the teen vaping trend since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started surveying users back in 2011.
Under new regulations, e-cigarette manufacturers are required to submit all products, both new and existing, to the FDA for review.
Vaping rates among U.S. teens have fallen from 3 million in 2015 to 2.2 million in 2016, according to a survey released on Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vape pens, also known as e-cigarettes, are battery-powered devices that typically contain a nicotine-based liquid that is vaporized and inhaled.
Campus Safety previously reported on vape pens also being used to smoke marijuana.
“We do know that e-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product among youth and that’s been the case since about 2014,” says the CDC’s Deputy Director for Research Translation, Brian King.
The CDC cites a few possibilities as to why the trend has dropped.
One is a federal regulation that was established in August, banning the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. The regulation also requires a photo ID for purchases.
The other is the increase in ad campaigns discouraging kids and teens from smoking.
In a report from NBC News, Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, stated “Our progress stems directly from implementing proven strategies, including higher tobacco taxes, comprehensive smoke-free laws, effective FDA oversight of tobacco products and marketing, well-funded tobacco prevention and cessation programs, and hard-hitting media campaigns, like the campaigns conducted by the CDC, the FDA and Truth Initiative in recent years.”
Teen Vaping by The Numbers
The survey conducted by the CDC consists of a questionnaire that is filled out each year by approximately 20,000 students in Grades 6-12. It focuses on current users who are defined as teens who say they have used a tobacco product within 30 days of taking the survey.
In 2016, 7.2 percent of middle school students reported current use of a tobacco product and 3.1 percent reported current use of two or more tobacco products.
E-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among this group with 4.3 percent reporting its use, followed by 2.2 percent for cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco.
One such question specifically asks “During the past 30 days, on how many days did you use electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes?”
In addition to the drop in vaping, the survey provides promising numbers surrounding all forms of tobacco use by teens. Some of these statistics include:
- The number of middle and high school students using any form of a tobacco product fell from 4.7 million in 2015 to 3.9 million in 2016.
- 4 percent of middle school students said that they had vaped in 2016, compared to 5 percent in 2015.
- 11 percent of high school students said that they vaped in 2016, compared to 16 percent in 2015.
Although these numbers are promising, the American Lung Association is concerned with cuts in President Trump’s 2018 budget proposal.
The proposal will cut $1.2 billion from the CDC, eliminating the Office on Smoking and Health, according to the American Lung Association’s CEO, Harold Wimmer.
“Funding to states would also be severely cut, making it even harder to prevent and reduce tobacco use in local communities across the country. Congress must reconsider this ill-advised budget and robustly fund the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.”
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About the Author
Amy Rock, Executive Editor
Amy is Campus Safety’s Executive Editor. Prior to joining the editorial team in 2017, she worked in both events and digital marketing.
Amy has many close relatives and friends who are teachers, motivating her to learn and share as much as she can about campus security. She has a minor in education and has worked with children in several capacities, further deepening her passion for keeping students safe.
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The health risks of e-cigarettes have actually been known for years because they emit synthetic fog generated the same way as AC electricity powered fog machines. The battery power source of e-cigarettes actually adds a horrific new health risk because they explode and burn. E-cigarettes are battery powered synthetic fog toys available with nicotine and flavors. They give adults desperate to quit smoking tobacco a false sense of harm reduction, plus children who never smoked tobacco are lured into substance abuse to taste and smell flavors, with visual thrills from the fog, addicting them to nicotine, and ultimately most of them start smoking tobacco also. Occupational safety authorities have known for decades that emissions from synthetic fog machines for theatrical performances and special effects are dangerous to inhale, and they electrically heat propylene glycol/glycerin the same way e-cigarettes do. Add to that the fact that e-cigarettes often inflict property damage (e.g. car fires), third degree burns and ballistic trauma when they explode; that they emit some of the same carcinogens and toxins in tobacco smoke; that they emit some toxins and carcinogens not even found in tobacco smoke (propylene oxide, chromium, glycidol), and enough is already known for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to block e-cigarette importation plus order e-cigarette recalls, and for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate nicotine e-liquid in e-cigarettes as tobacco products. Without waiting for action by those agencies, local and state governments plus hospitals, universities and companies can protect employees and the public by making vaping e-cigarettes illegal everywhere smoking cigarettes is already outlawed in their jurisdictions. The wording of “E-cigarette: an evidence update. A report commissioned by Public Health England”, sometimes attributed to the Royal College of Physicians, that said that “best estimates show e-cigarette are 95% less harmful to your health than normal cigarettes” is flimsy, and their “95%” statistic turns out to be a feeble guess, not a real percentage based on mathematics using data or measurements. E-cigarette peddlers initially gave their customers and bystanders a false sense of safety by claiming that e-cigarette emissions are just water, but as laboratory evidence has proved that to be false they now claim that it is safer than tobacco smoke because there is no ‘tar’, however even without tobacco smoke the nicotine itself is dangerous because it damages arteries and is a powerful neurotoxin. Nicotine is so poisonous that synthetic analogs of it called neonicotinoids are used as pesticides. Inhaling nicotine by either vaping e-cigarettes or smoking tobacco is like huffing bug spray. Accounts of millions of testimonials from e-cigarette customers are not objective because they lack evidence. Finally, most people who vape e-cigarettes continue to smoke cigarettes anyway, resorting to e-cigs only when they are in places where smoking tobacco is not allowed. E-cigarettes are bogus harm reduction and a smoking cessation hoax.
Carl,
Clearly you have never vaped and I doubt you have been addicted to cigarettes. Those two things may give you insight into the other side of the argument. I am in good company when I say I had smoked for decades and tried everything known to man to kick the habit caused by the addictive substance tobacco companies deliberately put in their products. All failed and I remained unable to simply run a mile or take long hikes. Then one day, 6 years ago, a friend handed me an e-cig. From that day on I never smoked another cigarette and have no desire to. I now run a 6-munite mile and can power-hike for hours. I’ve kept my $7.00 a day (save for the dime it cost me to vape) so I’m up 15 grand and am loving life again. I’ve personally converted dozens of people over to vaping and their sentiments are the same as mine. We buy name-brand rigs and juice from trusted vape shops and have never known anyone is my very large circle who has experienced the off-brand freak battery issues that seems to be the basis of uniformed arguments. Oh and the juice, I have zero nicotine in mine, most folks use 0 or 3mg. Half that in a cigarette so there goes that argument.
I attribute the e-cig’s ability to allow tobacco addicts a way to stop smoking because it satisfies all the physical and subliminal needs the body has. (A touch of nicotine, a ‘throat-kick, the hand-to-mouth device motor function and the exhale smoke plume) Plus we are longer looked at by non-smokers as the anti-Christ so that helps socially.
In all my travels I’ve met only two people that vape and smoke. They just choose to.
So am I dying inside? Maybe – the real science is not in. It was a certainty with cigarettes. I just know I get to spend my remaining years richer – in more ways than one.