Teenagers who vape are four times more likely to try smoking, finds study

Delhi, India

According to a new study published in the journal Tobacco Control, teenagers who had vaped when they were of the age 13 or 14 were about four times more likely to have tried a tobacco cigarette a year later than those who had not. This comes at a time when last year, a major report by the Royal College of Physicians had concluded that e-cigarettes are much less harmful to health and smokers should be encouraged to use them. 

According to the report, it is suggested that use of e-cigarettes portrays a better image of the user which could ultimately encourage people who had never smoked to try them. This could translate to becoming a nicotine habit that encourages users to smoke cigarettes in the coming years. 

The report has also found that 9 per cent of 13 and 14-year-olds who had not tried e-cigarettes reported trying a tobacco cigarette a year later. However, among those who had tried an e-cigarette, the figure for tobacco use a year later rose to 34.4 per cent.

Th researchers wrote: “We showed that ever use of e-cigarettes is associated with initiation of cigarette use; an effect that remains when controlling for various predictors of smoking. Our study in UK adolescents found patterns similar to those reported in longitudinal studies among adolescents aged 13 to 14 years and older in the USA.

“A significant minority of adolescents try cigarettes first (19.9 per cent here) and later initiate cigarette use.

“Our findings also indicated that the association between ever use of e-cigarettes and initiation of cigarette use was particularly strong among adolescents with no friends who smoked, a group usually considered to be less susceptible to smoking initiation.”

However, they added: “While acknowledging that a causal relationship may be plausible, we cannot confirm this, based on our findings and the trends observed over the same period in the UK.

“Given the lack of clarity regarding the mechanism linking ecigarette and cigarette use, we need to be cautious in making policy recommendations based on our findings.”

Some health experts believe that while this might be true, it also must be taken into consideration that those kids who try vaping are the ones who would in most likelihood, also try smoking and not necessarily in any order. They say that if e-cigarettes were acting as a ‘gateway’ to tobacco for teenagers then smoking rates would be rising among that age group, but they are actually at an all-time low. 

(WION)