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PARIS, April 2 – According to a new study, the rapid rise in the use of electronic cigarettes among young teens has not slowed the decline in smoking in the same age group, and even less the reverse.
Vaccination research has also not prompted 13- to 15-year-olds surveyed in Britain to see smoking in a more positive light, researchers said today.
The results, published in the BMJ newspaper Thorax, are the last to conclude that nicotine-releasing e-cigarettes are not, as once feared, a staple drug for tobacco.
"Our research does not support the hypothesis that e-cigarettes" renormalize "youth smoking during a period of increasing but largely unregulated use in the UK," the study concluded.
But this has not alleviated the growing concern over the health consequences of vaping, which remains largely unknown, partly because of the novelty of this practice.
Experts point out that it has taken decades to determine that smoking tobacco – which accounts for more than seven million premature deaths each year worldwide – is really dangerous.
A study conducted in the United States of nearly 100,000 adults – presented at a major conference last month – showed that the use of electronic cigarettes increases by 34%, 25 and 55% the probability of heart attacks, coronary heart disease and depression.
Rates of these conditions were much higher among smokers.
Another February study, published in the Nature Journal Scientific Reports, related chemicals used in 90% of vaping systems to impair lung function.
"We need to take strong action to protect our children from these extremely potent products," said the US Surgeon General in a public statement issued in December, warning of the harmful effects of nicotine on developing brains .
The new findings focused on behavioral and attitudinal changes in a quarter of a million young British teens from 1998 to 2015.
During this period, they found that the percentage of 13- to 15-year-olds who had smoked at least once had dropped from 70 to 27 and that the proportion of regular smokers had dropped from 19 to 5%.
Non-renormalized smoking
Perceptions have also changed. In 2015, only 27% of young teens said that it was "OK to try a cigarette", compared to 70% 15 years earlier.
It is crucial to note that the pace at which these changes occurred has barely slowed, if at all, from 2011 to 2015, when e-cigarettes took off.
"Favorable perceptions of regular smoking in this age group have also fallen at a faster pace following the proliferation of electronic cigarettes, something that could not be expected if smoking was taking place. To be "renormalized", the authors concluded.
Figures from the rest of Europe and North America suggest similar trends.
In the United States, the use of electronic cigarettes jumped more than 75% in 2018 compared to the previous year, prompting the US Food and Drug Administration to claim last fall stricter regulation.
According to the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), teenagers of all ages are now more likely to vaper than smoking cigarettes.
Nearly 10% of young people aged 13 to 14 said they were vaping last month, but less than 4% had lit a cigarette, NIDA reported in November.
The gap is narrower for 17 to 18 year olds, but the number of smokers was still 50% lower than that of electronic cigarette consumers.
In the United States, today, one in 20 adults – more than 10 million people – use the electronic cigarette, while three times more people are smokers. – AFP
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