CDC Report: E-Cigarette Use Among Teens Triples

Similar trend seen in Florida, while conventional cigarette use reaches record low

ABOVE VIDEO: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in 2014, 13.4 percent of high school students reported smoking an e-cigarette within 30 days. Video courtesy of Newsy.

TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — The number of high school students in the United States who used electronic cigarettes tripled in 2014 compared to just one year earlier, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).¹

The report confirms the alarming trend that teens across the country and here in Florida are using e-cigarettes and that the rate of initiation is rapidly accelerating.

Similar trends have been reported in the state. The number of Florida high school students who were current e-cigarette users doubled in one year—from 5.4 percent in 2013 to 10.8 percent in 2014.² Current use is described as using e-cigarettes at least once during the past 30 days.

Tobacco Free Florida is alarmed by the rapid increase in e-cigarette use among youth, the possibility that e-cigarettes can be a gateway to nicotine addiction and use of other tobacco products, and the potential for e-cigarettes to re-normalize smoking.

“Tobacco products like cigarettes and dip have been banned from advertising on TV for decades, and for good reason,” said Tobacco Free Florida Bureau Chief Shannon Hughes. “Yet, new in-your-face e-cigarette ads have recently infiltrated our airwaves with commercials that seem to have taken a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook for targeting young people.”

Florida has made notable progress in decreasing the number of young people who smoke conventional cigarettes. In fact, Florida has one of the lowest high school smoking rates in the country at 7.5 percent in 2014, which was below the national average of 9.2 percent in 2014.³3

But while conventional cigarette use has reached an all-time low, Florida youth are increasingly using other tobacco and nicotine-based products at an alarming rate.

According to the new CDC report, which was drawn from survey results of the 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), hookah use among U.S. teens nearly doubled to 9.4 percent in 2014 from 5.2 percent in 2013.

In Florida, 11.6 percent of Florida high school students reported current hookah use in 2014, compared to 8.2 percent in 2013.⁴ It is a troubling and common misconception that hookah is less harmful than cigarette smoking.⁵ Hookah smoking is damaging to health⁶ and carries many of the same risks as conventional cigarette smoking.

ABOVE VIDEO: Discovery News on the latest reports regarding potential health risks from e-cigarette use. 

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