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After successfully combating teen smoking, tobacco use is spiking again, with one in five US teens having vaped in 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found while also drawing the condemnation of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
According to both the CDC and the FDA, E-cigarettes are a tobacco product. Here are some distinctions worth considering:
E-cigarettes contain no actual tobacco.
E-cigarettes contain nicotine, that is derived from the tobacco plant (although not the same kind of tobacco that smokers inhale).
The CDC has found some concerning statistics about teen tobacco use in its annual National Youth Tobacco Survey.
The rise in teen tobacco use is driven almost entirely by e-cigarettes, the CDC says, noting that the use of other types of tobacco products remains stable.
The overall number of high school teens using some type of tobacco product is approximately 27 percent.
But what is most concerning to the FDA is that some studies show that teenagers who use e-cigarettes are more likely to eventually switch to tobacco cigarettes, and this includes some who never would have taken up smoking at all.
Last year, in conjunction with the CDC’s prior release of 2017 vaping data, the FDA announced it was going to enact restrictions on the sale of flavored e-cigarette products in stores. The FDA
After the dire results of the CDC’s latest study, the FDA announced that it is going to look at all potential civil and criminal enforcement options “to target potentially violative sales and marketing practices by manufacturers as well as retailers.”
