The debate as to the merit or otherwise of electronic cigarettes has never been more intense. During the same week another teenager suffered horrific injuries when a vaping device exploded in his face, new data suggests that e-cigarette use among teenagers has increased ten-fold since 2012.
Revealed by the CDC, the report paints a worrying picture of the devices and related hardware, which are still being routinely sold to minors all over the United States. But while e-cigarette use among teens has increased by around 1,000% in just four yers, tobacco smoking rates among teens have remained relatively fixed.
But while this suggests that e-cigarettes are not encouraging kids to move onto cigarettes, it also shows that more youngsters than any before are using nicotine products. In addition, claims the electronic vaping devices could help reducethe number of tobacco smokers appear to have been discredited.
This is something that has health authorities deeply concerned.
“Tobacco use and addiction mostly begin during youth and young adulthood,” the CDC reports.
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“We’re very concerned that one in four high school students use tobacco, and that almost half of those use more than one product,” commented Dr. Corinne Graffunder, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.
“We know about 90% of all adult smokers first try cigarettes as teens,”
“Fully implementing proven tobacco control strategies could prevent another generation of Americans from suffering from tobacco-related diseases and premature deaths.”
Flying in the face of the single most important argument from those advocating the devices, research actually suggests that electronic cigarettes may in fact may it more difficult for smokers to kick the habit. Designed and market primarily as smoking cessation tools designed to help gradually steer smokers away from dangerous nicotine addictions, critics have long argued that e-cigarettes represent more of a curse than a benefit for public health in general.
Delivering a dose of nicotine that can be taken pretty much anywhere at any times appears to be having a counterproductive effect on the efforts of those trying to quit smoking for good.
A recent study published in The American Journal of Public Health found that when and where a smoker has ‘ever’ used and electronic cigarette they are considerably less likely to kick the habit for a full month than those that have never tried ‘vaping’. In addition, the data produced also suggested that a smoker’s long-term changes of cutting down on tobacco use may decrease in accordance with whether or not they have used e-cigarettes at any time.
The researchers accounted for various other factors including how long the individual had been smoking, their daily smoking habits and the strength of their intention to quit – the same result perpetuated throughout.
“Based on the idea that smokers use e-cigarettes to quit smoking, we hypothesized that smokers who used these products would be more successful in quitting,” wrote Dr. Wael Al-Delaimy, chief of the division of global public health at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.
“But the research revealed the contrary.”
“One hypothesis is that smokers are receiving an increase in nicotine dose by using e-cigarettes.”
This report came shortly after separate reports slammed e-cigarette manufacturers for using toxic flavoring chemicals in their products which escape FDA regulation by way of a loophole with regard to method of ingestion.
Ongoing studies suggest that many of the compounds found in liquid tobacco products could in fact be considerably more harmful than initially thought, with toxic flavoring chemicals having recently been identified in multiple popular US brands.
By: Ed Jones (Modern Readers).
Review: Emerging Market Formulations &
Research Unit, Flagship Records.
For The #FacebookTeam