CDC: E-cigarettes Remain Top Tobacco Product With Young Users

According to a current report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking among youth remains at a decade low.

However, its analysis of data collected through May of this year about the habits and cravings of youth who do use tobacco products on a somewhat regular basis indicate e-cigarettes continue to be the most commonly used product overall.

The ongoing trend appears in the report to be driven by product flavorings as well as curiosity, exposure to other users and advertisements and lack of knowledge about harm.

It suggests more timely intervention continues to be needed to reduce the risk of long-term nicotine addiction and associated chronic disease among such users.

The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration analyzed data from the 2019 National Youth Tobacco survey that annually assesses tobacco product use patterns and other factors among middle and high school students.

The analysis shows that students who reported as current tobacco product users during the last 30 days continued to name e-cigarettes as their most commonly used product overall as well as in combination with other tobacco products.

Among these 6.2 million students, 38.3 percent currently use any combustible tobacco product and 33.9 percent currently use two or more tobacco product types.

E-cigarettes were reported as the most commonly used tobacco product overall among this group with 20 percent or 5.4 million users; cigars followed at 5.3 percent; cigarettes, 4.3 percent; smokeless tobacco (chewing tobacco, snuff, or dip) 3.5 percent; hookahs, 2.6 percent; and pipe tobacco at less than 1 percent with the use of bidis – small brown cigarettes wrapped in a leaf – noted but no percentage given.