Are Electronic Cigarettes Leading Teens Directly to Bad Smoking Habits?

According to the latest research in the area, e-cigs are actually acting as a prerequisite to teen smoking habits. It’s no doubt that vaping is a much better alternative for many adults who smoke, however, it’s actually causing other teens who use said e-cigs to go forth and try conventional cigarettes. The report, namely The National Academy of Sciences Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) report was published last Tuesday. IT focused on the publish health consequences that occur due to the continued use and promotion of E-Cigarettes.

The NASEM report is summed up in the following quote directly from their journal publishing “Millions of Americans use e-cigarettes, even as rates of smoking combustible tobacco cigarettes continue to decline among youth and adults. In 2016 youth e-cigarette use was substantially higher than cigarette smoking or use of any other tobacco product. The Center for Tobacco Products of the Food and Drug Administration requested that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convene a committee of experts to conduct a review the available evidence of the health effects related to the use of e-cigarettes and identify future federally funded research needs.”

They go on to confirm “The resulting report is a comprehensive and systematic review of the literature that evaluates the evidence about e-cigarettes and health, highlights gaps that are a priority for future research, and makes recommendations to improve the quality of this research.”. The report’s own authors have been in the process of evaluating over 800 scientific studies that were drawing dozens of conclusions about the potential and relative risks of the electronic cigarette devices.

The authors of the study came to a joint conclusion that e-cigs contain much fewer toxic substances than regular, commercial cigarettes. However, on the flip side to that they also discovered that teenagers who had previously attempted e-cigs were now more likely to buy and use conventional cigarettes too. The Seattle chair of the whole committee, David Eaton is quoted saying “E-cigarettes cannot be simply categorized as either beneficial or harmful, in some circumstances, their adverse effects clearly warrant concern. In other cases, they offer an opportunity to reduce smoking-related illness.” he advocates.

In addition to this research, medical director Orly Avitzur, M.D., is quoted in the consumer reports saying that “More research is needed to look at the long-term effects of e-cigs, but what we do know today is that some users will become smokers, and that will put them at risk of developing emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease, and a number of other serious ailments.” she says. With so many health professionals synonymous with these findings it begs the questions as to what will be done to combat it in the future.