3.15 MILLION US middle and high school students use flavored tobacco – and 65% of them vape sweet e-liquids despite links to 17 deaths
- In 2018, 3.15 million middle and high school students reported using flavored tobacco products
- Of those 3.15 million, 65.2% said they were vaping flavored e-cigarettes
- Health experts say flavored e-cigarette are marketed towards teens, which could lead to a tobacco condition
- A slew of vaping related lung illnesses has swept the US, sickening 805 and leaving at least 17 dead
US teenagers are increasingly using flavored e-cigarette products, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds.
In 2018, 3.15 million middle schoolers and high schoolers reported using flavored tobacco products over the last 30 days.
Of that number, 65.2 percent used flavored e-cigarettes, up at least a 15 percent from the teens that reported vaping in 2015.
Health experts have criticized the vaping industry – and particularly brands such as JUUL- for marketing flavors such as mango and mint to teens, increasing the odds they’ll wind up addicted to nicotine.
The report, which was released on Thursday, comes as a vaping epidemic has swept the nation, sickening 805 and leaving at least 17 dead.
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that teen use of flavored e-cigarettes increased from 39.2% in 2015 to 55.1 % in 2018 (file image)
For the report, the CDC looked at data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey between 2014 and 2018.
Researchers found a decrease in overall use of flavored tobacco products, including cigars, pipe tobacco, hookahs, and menthol cigarettes.
In 2018, about 3.15 million middle and high school students said they had used at least one flavored product compared to 3.26 million in 2014.
Use of just about every single other flavored tobacco product decreased, particularly among high school students, except flavored e-cigs.
Among high school students, use of flavored e-cigarettes only decreased from 2014 to 2015, from 55.1 percent to 39.2 percent.
However, by 2018, use was back up to 51.5 percent.
There was no ‘significant change’ in use of flavored products occurred among middle schoolers.
‘The recent increase in flavored e-cigarette use among youths might be due, in part, to the recent popularity and increased market share of e-cigarettes shaped like a USB flash drive, such as JUUL,’ the authors of the report wrote.
JUUL is the most popular e-cigarette brand and currently controls about 70 percent of the e-cigarette market.
It comes in several flavors, which experts say are marketed towards teens and can fuel a tobacco addiction.
Flavored tobacco rates fell between 2014 (dark blue) and 2015 (medium blue), but spikedover the next four years
Health experts suggest that restricting or banning flavored tobacco products could help reduce teen use.
In September 2019, Michigan became the first state to ban all flavored e-cigarettes, including menthol.
New York and Rhode Island quickly followed suit, and Washington state’s ban is set to take effect later this month.
Meanwhile Massachusetts has gone the farthest, issuing a four-month ban on all vaping products – flavored or not.
President Donald Trump has also announced his administration’s plans to ban flavored vaping products nationwide.
The authors called on the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to further regulate the tobacco industry.
‘FDA regulation of the manufacturing, distribution, and marketing of flavored tobacco products…can further reduce tobacco product initiation and use among youths,’ they wrote.