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New Survey Shows Record 3 Million Kids Used E-Cigarettes in 2015

The government’s 2015 National Youth Tobacco Survey released yesterday shows that while youth cigarette smoking remains at historically low levels, the alarming increase in youth use of electronic cigarettes continues and overall youth use of any tobacco product has not fallen since 2011.
 
The survey shows that a record-high 3 million middle and high school students were current (past 30-day) users of e-cigarettes in 2015, while 1.4 million youth used cigars and 1.2 million used hookahs.

None of these tobacco products is currently regulated by the FDA to stop marketing and sales to kids or otherwise protect public health. It has been five years since the FDA first indicated it would seek to regulate these products, nearly two years since the FDA issued a proposed rule on April 24, 2014, and almost six months since the FDA sent the White House Office of Management and Budget a final rule for review on Oct. 19, 2015.
 
This new survey shows that the huge increase in youth e-cigarette use since 2011 is continuing. From 2014 to 2015, current e-cigarette use rose from 13.4 percent to 16 percent among high school students and from 3.9 percent to 5.3 percent among middle school students. From 2011 to 2015, there was a more than ten-fold increase in current e-cigarette use among high school students – from 1.5 percent to 16 percent. Just between 2014 and 2015, the total number of youth e-cigarette users increased from 2.46 million to 3 million. For the second year in a row, e-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among both middle and high school students – in fact, nearly twice as many youth reported using e-cigarettes compared to cigarettes (3 million to 1.6 million).
 
Cigar use among teens also remains a serious concern. The survey shows that high school boys now smoke cigars at a slightly higher rate than cigarettes – 11.5 percent for cigars and 10.7 percent for cigarettes.
 
The best news in the survey is that cigarette smoking among high school students has fallen by 41 percent since 2011, with the smoking rate declining from 15.8 percent to 9.3 percent in 2015. But this finding is tempered by a lack of decline from 2014 to 2015.
 
The survey also shows that overall youth use of any tobacco product has not changed since 2011, holding steady at about a quarter of high school students. The big increase in e-cigarette use is a major factor. In addition, more than 2.3 million youth were current users of two or more tobacco products.
 
Full statement at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
 
Report at the CDC website

Find out more about youth and e-cigarettes at our website.

 




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