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Teen E-Cigarette Use Tripled In One Year, CDC Survey Finds

Teen E-Cig Use Triples

E-cigarette use has tripled in middle and high school students in just one year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s latest annual National Youth Tobacco Survey.

The survey, which was accompanied by a press release issued on Thursday, also indicated that hookah use had doubled and that overall tobacco use among middle or high school students remains consistent.

The data was published by the CDC as well as the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) in Thursday’s edition of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

Back in March, reports indicated that e-cigarettes are, for the first time ever, to now be targeted by the CDC’s $68 million anti-smoking ad campaign.

Not only has teen electronic cigarette use tripled—increasing from 1.1 percent to 3.9 percent—in just one year, e-cig use has, for the first time since the survey began collecting data on e-cigs back in 2011, surpassed current use of all other tobacco products; this includes conventional cigarettes.

CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., was quoted in the release as having said that the CDC wants “parents to know that nicotine is dangerous for kids at any age, whether it’s an e-cigarette, hookah, cigarette or cigar,” and that “exposure” to nicotine at a young age could induce “lasting harm to brain development, promote addiction, and lead to sustained tobacco use.”

We want parents to know that nicotine is dangerous for kids at any age, whether it’s an e-cigarette, hookah, cigarette or cigar […] Adolescence is a critical time for brain development. Nicotine exposure at a young age may cause lasting harm to brain development, promote addiction, and lead to sustained tobacco use.

In an unrelated published last month in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, researchers at the University of North Carolina found that minors in the state could easily buy electronic cigarettes online.

What are your thoughts on the CDC’s recently published findings indicating a tripling of e-cigarette use among middle and high school students?

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