When e-cigarettes, battery-powered devices that deliver nicotine through a vapor, first became popular, health professionals warned that not enough was known about the devices to deem them safe.
After all, while many considered them to be safer than traditional cigarettes because there is no smoke, only water vapor, they still contain nicotine and can still be just as addictive.
Yet, e-cigarettes are marketed as a tool smokers can use to quit that can also be smoked in public. They also tend to be popular among teens and young adults.
A new study out of the University of Southern California indicates we may want to rethink how “safe” e-cigarettes really are.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that out of the nearly 2,500 Los Angeles high school students followed, 222 of them were e-cigarette users. In six months, these students were almost four times more likely to smoke tobacco products such as cigarettes, cigars and hookahs than those who had never smoked e-cigarettes.
“While teen tobacco use has fallen in recent years, this study confirms that we should continue to vigilantly watch teen smoking patterns,” Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said in the press release. “Parents and teens should recognize that although e-cigarettes might not have the same carcinogenic effects of regular cigarettes, they do carry a risk of addiction.”
In July, we reported that teen e-cigarette use has soared. In fact, it tripled between 2013 and 2014, surpassing teen use of all tobacco products, which were down from 36 percent in 1997 to just 9.2 percent last year.
While more research needs to be conducted to confirm whether e-cigarettes cause teens to smart smoking or whether they are simply more likely to smoke in general, the findings are still significant. Parents should be wary of the devices and the harmful effects they may carry until more is learned about e-cigarettes and how addictive they truly are.
