E-Cigarette Use Does Not Deter Teens From Smoking Regular Cigarettes: Study

Teens who use e-cigarettes end up smoking regular cigarettes as much as teens who have never vaped, a new study concludes.

The study included more than 6,000 high school students. At the beginning of the study, 14 to 17 percent of the teens used traditional cigarettes and 23 to 29 percent had tried e-cigarettes. A year later, 7 percent of the teens who had never tried regular cigarettes had started smoking them. Among teens who had been using e-cigarettes, 21 percent began smoking regular cigarettes, Reuters Health reports.

“The findings show that e-cigs do nothing to deter the amount of combustible smoking in youth,” lead author Jessica Barrington-Trimis of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles said in a news release. “On the contrary, they increase the likelihood that vaping teens will start smoking.”