E-cigarette use among youth points to a shift to more chronic use, Elizabeth Tracey reports
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Youth who take up vaping may have difficulty quitting, a recent analysis from the Monitoring the Future study looking at nicotine use among US 8th, 10th and 12th graders finds. Michael Blaha, an anti-smoking advocate and cardiologist at Johns Hopkins, says he’s seen another disturbing trend.
Blaha: During the pandemic we’re seeing a decrease in occasional use of e-cigarettes, particularly amongst youths and young adults. But of those users we’re seeing a greater percentage of which are daily users that seem to be addicted to nicotine. I think we’re shifting in the research about e-cigarettes and vaping toward more like a product that people are using more like they used to use cigarettes. More daily use, more addiction, and less of the occasional use that we used to see with experimentation with electronic cigarettes early in their development. :29
Blaha notes that while vaping may be somewhat less harmful than combustible cigarettes harms do exist, some of which won’t be fully known until much more data accumulates. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.