The researchers note that although the smoking prevalence has declined among adolescents in California over the past 20 years, “the high prevalence of combined e-cigarette or cigarette use in 2014, compared with historical Southern California smoking prevalence, suggests that e-cigarettes are not merely substituting for cigarettes and indicates that e-cigarette use is occurring in adolescents who would not otherwise have used tobacco products”. But when teens were asked to include e-cigarettes in their assessments, the smoking rate jumped back up to 14% in 2014. In 2004, prior to the release of electronic cigarettes, only around 9 percent of surveyed students within the same age group reported smoking.
Advertisement
“E-cigarettes, which entered the US market in 2007, vaporize liquids that may or may not contain nicotine”.
The figures pose concern because it is possible that teens would be introduced to nicotine use via e-cigarettes since the latter are perceived to be less risky and less harmful compared with combustible cigarettes.
Tobacco use is now the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States, with approximately 480,000 deaths annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Geoffrey T. Fong, professor of psychology at Waterloo, who is founder and chief principal investigator of the ITC Project, is heading one study across three countries-Canada, the US and England-that focuses on patterns of use of e-cigarettes among adult smokers and ex-smokers.
Aruni Bhatnagar, lead author of the American Heart Association’s policy statement on e-cigarettes, said even if teens don’t switch to other tobacco products, nicotine itself isn’t benign. In a commentary on the study, Bates said that similar signs of cardiovascular disease potential had been linked to coffee consumption in a previous 2005 study. This makes e-cigarettes a substitute for real cigarettes among teens. “We therefore should not prompt them until we know all the risks associated with them to better inform the public about such risks for current and future users”.
Tobacco use and addiction mostly begin during youth and young adulthood. However, some products labeled nicotine-free may actually contain nicotine, it added.
Collectively, the proposed set of studies is created to examine how different policies are likely to influence the use of e-cigarettes and smoked tobacco products, with the goal of developing forecasting models to predict the population health impact of different policies and regulations.
The new rules ban the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under 18 and require manufacturers to register with the FDA, disclose detailed reports of their products’ ingredients and obtain permission to sell their products.
‘But what we’ve seen is a downward trend in cigarette use from 1995 to 2004 but no further decrease in the cigarette smoking rates in 2014.
Carter, who has a background in clinical psychology, argues it is highly premature to conclude that “something bad is going on” with youth e-cigarette use. “To suggest anything more concrete than this is to be very unscientific by touting speculation as fact”.
They say the signs of potential cardiovascular damage point to a new factor not sufficiently considered by e-cigarette advocates.
Advertisement
“If the effects are similar to those experienced by coffee drinkers, that might have provided valuable reassurance for smokers making an informed choice about quitting smoking by switching to e-cigarettes”, Bates said.
