Does America Have a Youth Vaping Problem?

More than 1 million teens started vaping from 2017 to 2019, according to a new peer-reviewed study, reversing decades of declining tobacco usage in America.

😙💨 A deeper dive… The study’s authors set out to discover how the surge in Juul sales in the mid-2010s affected the smoking habits of Americans, using data from the federal government’s annual tobacco survey.

• They found the spike in US Juul sales was associated with “a sharp rise” in daily vaping and tobacco use among American youths (ages 14 to 17), but not young adults (ages 18+).

✋ Yes, but: The study didn’t account for the past two years, over which teen vaping rates have plummeted. In 2021, 11.3% of high school students reported that they vaped – down from 19.6% the previous year, and far lower than the 27.5% reported in 2019.

📸 Big picture: More than 2 million US high school and middle school students said they were vaping as of last year, with over ¼ of them being daily users.

• More than half of youth who vaped used disposable products – which aren’t covered under a 2019 FDA flavor-ban – while nearly 30% used ​​refillable or prefilled pods; the previous year, two categories were essentially flipped.