Around 2.5 million adolescents in the U.S. vape, according to the latest data.
The findings, from the National Youth Tobacco Survey conducted by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show more than 14 percent of high-schoolers and 3.3 percent of middle-schoolers are current users, defined as those who used e-cigarettes at least one day in the past month. The data was published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
CDC officials cautioned against comparing the results of the 2022 survey with those of recent years because of changes in data collection procedures during the coronavirus pandemic. In 2021, the study estimated there were 2.06 million current e-cigarette users — 11.3 percent of students in high school and 2.8 percent of students in middle school. Youth vaping peaked in 2019, with 5.4 million middle and high school students reporting use of e-cigarettes. Read more here.
Forty-six percent of older teens said they vaped nearly every day
Linda Neff, the chief of the epidemiology branch of the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, said the new numbers show that this year, 2.55 million middle and high school students in the U.S. reporting vaping.
“These numbers confirm that the e-cigarette epidemic in our country is far from over,” Neff said. “Our work is far from done.
“What is even more disturbing is the frequency of use,” she added. “Among those who currently use e-cigarettes, more than 1 in 4 use them daily.” Read more here.
Disposable vapes supplanted Juul as the youth nicotine problem
The most popular brand of e-cigarettes with middle and high school-age kids is Puff Bar, according to the data, which was collected through the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey and published by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Puff Bar makes disposable vapes that come in a variety of flavors, and it was able to skirt FDA regulation by switching to synthetic nicotine — which the agency didn’t regulate until this year. Read more here.
