Policy

As Vaping Rises to Record Highs, Smoking Falls to Record Lows

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UCSF

The latest data from the Monitoring the Future Study, published on Tuesday, confirm that vaping rates and smoking rates among teenagers are moving in opposite directions. As I note in my latest Forbes column, that fact is inconvenient for the alarmists who keep warning that e-cigarettes are a menace to the youth of America. Here is how the piece starts:

Survey results released this week indicate that use of electronic cigarettes by American teenagers continues to rise, even as their use of conventional cigarettes continues to fall. You might think these diverging trends would give pause to critics who worry that e-cigarettes are "reglamorizing" the old-fashioned, combustible kind. Yet opponents of vaping seem undeterred by reality's failure to match their predictions. Longtime anti-smoking activist Stanton Glantz recently told USA Today "there's no question that e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking."

Read the whole thing.