Vaping acts as a gateway drug to more dangerous substance abuse, a study claims.
Researchers found that e-cigarette use among teens was “strongly linked” to alcohol abuse and marijuana use.
Compared to people who didn’t smoke at all, teen vapers were up to 20 times more likely to also use cannabis.
The Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health scientists said the “magnitude of the effect is concerning given the harm these substances do to adolescents.”
They didn’t speculate on why, but it could be that vapers were more inclined to try other substances due to peer pressure and a tendency toward risky behavior.
The survey asked young people if they had used nicotine – through smoking or vaping – in the past 30 days, and if they had used cannabis in the past 30 days
The above shows how the number of kids and teens vaping has risen after 2021, despite growing evidence of the dangers of the devices
Dr. Noah Kreski, a data analyst at Columbia University, said: ‘While the overall health risks of vaping are lower than smoking, e-cigarettes are still harmful to adolescents and warrant continued surveillance – especially as the long-term consequences are unknown. to stay.
‘Our results indicate that vaping is not an isolated behavior, but rather is strongly linked to other substance use that can harm adolescents and make nicotine withdrawal more difficult.
“Recognizing the strong overlap between different forms of substance use, effective intervention efforts should work to simultaneously address vaping, drinking and cannabis use to promote youth health and well-being.”
In the study, scientists looked at survey results from nearly 52,000 children ages 12 to 18 in the United States. They were surveyed between 2017 and 2019.
They had participated in a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-supported survey that tracked their drug use over their lifetime, over the past year and over the past month.
In the survey, young people were asked whether they had used nicotine – through smoking or vaping – in the past 30 days, and whether they had used cannabis in the past 30 days.
They adjusted for demographic factors such as age, gender, race, parental education, and how urban they lived.
The researchers found that adolescents who smoked e-cigarettes or vaped were eight times more likely to use cannabis than peers who did not use nicotine products.
The association between recreational marijuana use and alcohol use was most significant among younger adults ages 18 to 24, although the association between the two is likely not due to college partying
An increase in vape use in the US has been fueled by an increasing number of non-smokers picking up the habit. Researchers found 3.35 million former non-smokers are now vaping, up from 2.55 million in 2019
Vaping is now more common than smoking among US adults under 30, according to the most recent data. About 27 percent of American youth under 30 vape, while only 12 percent smoke
Younger people who do not smoke cigarettes and have never smoked before are more likely to pick up vaping than their peers, and they are responsible for most of the growth in vaping use from 2019 to 2021
However, those who vaped were 20 times more likely to use cannabis than those who did not use nicotine products.
In contrast, teens who both smoked and vaped were found to be a shocking 40 times more likely to use cannabis than those who did not use nicotine.
When focusing on binge drinking, the researchers also found a strong correlation between those who smoked and vaped.
Tellingly, the correlation between smoking and vaping with binge drinking tended to “increase in magnitude with greater levels of binge drinking.”
For example, those who both smoked and vaped — compared to those who didn’t use nicotine products — were 5.6 times more likely to ever engage in binge drinking.
This same group was also 21.6 times more likely to have participated in binge drinking between three and five times and a whopping 36.5 times more likely to have participated in binge drinking 10 or more times.
Mr Kreski said: ‘The links between vaping alone, or both smoking and vaping, and adolescent cannabis use and binge drinking are particularly striking, particularly at the highest levels of binge drinking.
‘While the causal direction of these associations is unclear, the magnitude of the effect is concerning given the harm these substances cause to adolescents.
“Given the strong association between nicotine use and both cannabis use and binge drinking, there is a need for sustained interventions, advertising and promotional restrictions, and national public education efforts to reduce adolescent vaping — efforts that recognize co-occurring substance use.”
Despite the success of their study, the team acknowledges the limitations of the data used – such as the data collected from students during the school day, excluding those absent that day, and the fact that vaping and smoking was from nicotine itself. reported, making them vulnerable to measurement and memory bias.
The research has been published in the journal Substance use and abuse.
Vaping became mainstream in the 2010s and was seen as a safe smoking cessation tool that could finally wean millions of tobacco users from cigarettes.
Not too long ago, someone could vape indoors, in some cases even on the grounds of a hospital.
The collective acceptance of vaping as, at least on the face of it, a safer smoking alternative obscured the real health damage caused by the devices.
Early studies warning of their harmful effects were initially dismissed as outliers, or criticized as disinformation spread by the tobacco industry suddenly threatened by the advent of smokeless nicotine products.
But scientific evidence pointing to their harmful effects has been accumulating, showing that they do nearly as much damage as traditional cigarettes.
Early studies warning of their harmful effects were initially dismissed as outliers, or criticized because disinformation spread by the tobacco industry was suddenly threatened by the advent of smokeless nicotine products.
Meanwhile, new data for Britain showed an increase in the number of 11- to 17-year-olds trying to vape ‘once or twice’, from 7.7 per cent last year to 11.6 per cent this year.
Disposable vapes turned out to be the e-cigarette of choice among young people, with most saying they bought them from bodegas.
It is illegal in the UK to sell vapes to under 18s, but social media has seen posts of teens showing off vapes and discussing flavors such as pink lemonade, strawberry, banana and mango.
Experts have previously warned how the new generation of disposable vapes known as ‘puff bars’ – which contain nicotine – have flooded the market.