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E-Cig Popularity Rises Among Teens, Could Lead To Tobacco Smoking

Teens who use electronic cigarettes are far more likely to pick up the habit of smoking traditional cigarettes, suggests a new study.

In previous studies, there was a definitive link between the use of traditional cigarettes and e-cigs, however the new study suggests that teens who have never smoked are picking up the electronic cigarettes.

“There is a lot of concern by the public health community that e-cigarettes may be recruiting a whole new group of people who never smoked cigarettes,” said lead author Jessica Barrington-Trimis, PHD, a professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California.

There is a lot of concern by the public health community that e-cigarettes may be recruiting a whole new group of people who never smoked cigarettes.

Researchers discovered that many teens who admitted to using e-cigs have never smoked tobacco cigarettes, reports Reuters.

More than 2,000 high school students from Southern California were surveyed in the spring of 2014, according to Forbes. The teens were asked how often they had smoked traditional cigarettes or used e-cigs in the past month.

For the purpose of the study, teens were considered “current users” if they had smoked either product one day within the past month, and “past users” if they had smoked prior to 30 days past.

9.6% of the teenagers surveyed were current users of electronic cigarettes, while 5.7% were current smokers of traditional cigarettes. Among those considered current users of e-cigs, only 40.5% had tried traditional cigarettes.

While some of the teens might be using e-cigs instead of cigarettes, the data suggests “e-cigarettes may be recruiting new tobacco product users who might not have used cigarettes,” said Dr. Barrington-Trimis.

While it is possible that some adolescents are using e-cigarettes instead of cigarettes, our data suggest that e-cigarettes may be recruiting new tobacco product users who might not have used cigarettes. California has historically had some of the lowest rates of adolescent smoking in the country, so these results are particularly troubling and raise a lot of questions about the potential consequences of high rates of e-cigarette use for the health of adolescents.

In a previous study reported on here at Immortal News, researchers claim that while they clearly understand the health risks of tobacco and cigarettes, teens don’t understand the dangers of smoking electronic cigarettes and marijuana.

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