Survey: Teens More Into E-Cigs Than Regular Ones

9% of 8th-graders used e-cigarette in past month, study finds
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 16, 2014 9:04 AM CST
Survey: Teens More Into E-Cigs Than Regular Ones
Electronic cigarettes have surpassed traditional smoking in popularity among teens, the government’s annual drug use survey finds.   (AP Photo/Tim Ireland)

Electronic cigarettes have surpassed traditional smoking in popularity among teens, the government's annual drug use survey finds. Even as tobacco smoking by teens dropped to new lows, use of e-cigarettes reached levels that surprised researchers. The findings marked the survey's first attempt to measure the use of e-cigarettes by people that young. Nearly 9% of eighth-graders said they'd used an e-cigarette in the previous month, while just 4% reported smoking a traditional cigarette, said the report being released today by the National Institutes of Health.

Use increased with age: Some 16% of 10th-graders had tried an e-cigarette in the past month, and 17% of high school seniors. Regular smoking continued inching down, to 7% of 10th-graders and 14% of 12th-graders. "I worry that the tremendous progress that we've made over the last almost two decades in smoking could be reversed on us by the introduction of e-cigarettes," says the 41,000-student survey's leader. Between 4% and 7% of students who tried e-cigarettes said they'd never smoked a tobacco cigarette, notes another study investigator. "They must think that e-cigarettes are fundamentally different," he says. (More e-cigarettes stories.)

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