Fewer US Teens Vaping
There has been a big drop in the number of teens vaping in the ‘Land of the Teen Epidemic’, mirroring recent studies showing similar behaviour in the UK and Eire
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by Dave Cross
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Matt Myers at the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK) is the beneficiary of millions of dollars flooding in to his organisation thanks to the fake fears he’s stoked over a so-called “epidemic” in teen vaping. He commented, “As long as any flavoured e-cigarettes are left on the market, kids will get their hands on them and we will not solve this crisis,” but an imaginary crisis can never be solved.
“It’s possible that some of the heightened awareness could have influenced decline in use,” said the CDC’s Brian King.
The report goes to great pains not to step back from the CDC’s nonsensical ideologically driven, scientifically illiterate position. It bangs on about “youth-appealing flavors” and “product innovations” that are targeting American youth, and praises the Food and Drug Administration’s response in (effectively) crushing the industry and fighting to restrict flavours to just tobacco or menthol…because giving teens a taste of tobacco is certain to prevent them from moving on to smoking actual tobacco.
There has been a drop of almost 30% in high school students who claimed they’d ever vaped recently. The figure soars to a 55% drop in middle school students.
As anyone literate in such studies knows, the ‘ever use’ figure is loved by organisations like the CDC and CTFK because it spreads more fear, which is why they do not report actual regular use with such gusto.
It means people at the CDC can talk about the survey suggesting the number of vaping teens fell by “1.8 million in a year, from 5.4 million to 3.6 million”. It keeps the numbers big, but wholly unreflective of the real picture. There aren’t 3.6 million teens in the United States vaping, there were a predicted 3.6 million teens experimenting – with the vast majority never vaping again.
“Comprehensive implementation of evidence-based strategies at the national, state, and local levels, in coordination with FDA regulation, can prevent and reduce youth tobacco product use,” write the report’s authors. Recent and long-term experience is that there is virtually nothing about the American approach to vaping that is “evidence-based”.
Rather than their ignorant tactics, the truth hiding behind the new figures may have more to do with something we reported last month. A study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy showed young people's use of e-cigarettes in Wales, England and Scotland has waned, with evidence indicating that it was never anything more than a fad – and one that appears very easy to stop doing.
This won’t stop Matt Myers though, his addiction to income is far more powerful than his belief in evidence, the truth, or the lives of smokers and ex-smokers.
Related:
- “E-cigarette Use Among Middle and High School Students”, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – [link]
- “Young people's use of e-cigarettes in Wales, England and Scotland before and after introduction of EU Tobacco Products Directive regulations: a mixed-method natural experimental evaluation” by Moore et al. – [link]
Photo Credit:
Image by krzysztof-m from Pixabay
Image by Zac Gnadinger from Pixabay
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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