US youth vaping drops to lowest level in a decade

Just 5.9% of American middle and high school students now vape, a big drop from the 7.7% who did so a year ago, new government data shows.

Put another way, about 1.6 million youth now say they used e-cigarettes at least once over the past month, compared to 2.1 million in 2023.

Among those who say they vape, 23.6% said they do it on a daily basis.

It was high school kids who drove the change, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), with middle schoolers still vaping at rates roughly similar to a year ago.

Still, any reduction in vaping is welcome, said Brian King, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Tobacco Products.

"The continued decline in e-cigarette use among our nation's youth is a monumental public health win," King said in an agency news release.

Yolanda Richardson, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, agreed that the new numbers are encouraging, but warned that the vaping and tobacco industry isn't through with the nation's kids yet.

"Youth e-cigarette use has fallen sharply, sparing many young people from the severe nicotine addiction and other health consequences that can result from e-cigarette use," she said in a statement.

"Despite this progress, youth e-cigarette use remains a serious public health problem in the United States, and the industry remains relentless in finding new ways to addict kids," Richardson added.

The NYTS survey is taken each year and involves U.S. middle (grades 6–8) and high school (grades 9–12) students. This year, kids were surveyed between late January and late May.

After decades of steady declines in cigarette smoking among youth, health experts have been disheartened by the quick rise of nicotine-laden vaping instead.

According to the FDA, rates of e-cigarette use among school kids peaked in 2019, when over 5 million reported using the addictive devices.

However, rates have begun to fall, and now that number is only a third of the 2019 tally.

The vast majority of youth who vape use flavored e-cigarettes (87.6%), with with fruit (62.8%), candy (33.3%) and mint (25.1%) the top flavors of choice.

The most popular brands in 2024 are Elf Bar (36.1%), Breeze (19.9%), Mr. Fog (15.8%), Vuse (13.7%) and JUUL (12.6%).

Elf brand—whose products have never been authorized by the FDA—has seen its share of the market fall after the FDA issued "focused compliance and enforcement actions" in early 2023, the agency said.

Perhaps trying to counter the pressure put on vaping devices, the tobacco industry is pushing new means of ingesting nicotine, including nicotine pouches.

"Youth use of tobacco products in any form—including e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches—is unsafe," Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, who directs the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, said in the FDA news release. "It's essential that we remain vigilant and committed to public health efforts to ensure all youth can live healthy, tobacco-free lives."

The latest statistics show no significant rise in the popularity of pouches among youth this year. Still, "of the nearly half a million middle and high school students who reported current nicotine pouch use, 22.4% used them daily," the FDA noted.

Overall, the downward trend of vaping among youth had health experts cautiously optimistic.

"The findings released today show that important progress is being made to reduce youth tobacco use in the U.S., but there is still work to be done to keep children from using these highly addictive, dangerous products," the American Heart Association said in a statement.

"These trends signal the urgent need for strong regulation and public policies that will stop the tobacco industry from targeting our nation's children with addictive products that harm health," the AHA added. "To that end, we urge the FDA to complete its review of all premarket tobacco applications and remove all unauthorized tobacco products from the market. States and communities must also continue their efforts to prohibit the sale of all flavored tobacco products."

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