E-cig use among kids doubles in England ; enthusiasts still trying to ignore it

[MarylandQuitter]

February 27, 2019

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/e-cig-use-among-kids-doubles-england-enthusiasts-still-trying-ignore-it?fbclid=IwAR0-SzVIKc_Un6QLkvaosKHV1mhOtSBKoL0DV5oVk1UMgJ1EwcDybBaN4iM

 

E-cig use among kids doubles in England ; enthusiasts still trying to ignore it

 

After years of arguing that people didn’t need to worry about increasing e-cig use among kids in England, because of the different (from the USA) regulatory environment, e-cig cheerleading Public Health England announced e-cig use among kids doubled in the last 4 years.  And that was before Juul invaded.

 

As expected, the Public Health England (a government agency) minimized the effect, as did, ASH England and other e-cig enthusiasts minimized this huge increase on the grounds that few kids were “regular” e-cig users.  This argument ignores the fact that the evidence (collected by e-cig enthusiasts!) shows that among kids who use tobacco in England, more than half are initiating nicotine use with e-cigs and any e-cig use predicts future smoking.  Indeed, the “gateway” effect in England is about 12, compared to 3-4 in the USA. 

 

And even if the kids did not add cigarettes later, bathing developing brains in nicotine is a very bad thing because the neurological changes are permanent. 

 

This argument that “experimentation” with cigarettes among kids is not important is something that the tobacco industry has used for a long time to try and minimize youth smoking.  Lauren Dutra and I showed that any cigarette smoking among young teens predicts smoking in their 20’s.

 

At least the media is figuring out that this is a problem.  Here is some of the coverage:

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8516445/number-of-under-18s-using-e-cigarettes-doubles-in-four-years-figures-show/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/27/number-children-vaping-doubles-five-years-new-research-shows/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6747813/amp/Number-children-young-people-vaping-DOUBLES-four-years.html?__twitter_impression=true