Jan. 25--New survey results from high school students suggest that health officials have good reason to fear electronic cigarettes: Teens who said they had used the vaping devices were far more likely than their peers to try regular cigarettes over the next year.
Among nonsmoking students who had vaped when they took an initial survey, 20% said they had smoked their first regular cigarette by the time they took the survey again one year later. Among nonsmokers who hadn't used e-cigarettes when they took the first survey, 6% had tried regular cigarettes a year later.
"E-cigarettes had a risk-promoting effect for onset of smoking," researchers reported Monday in the journal Tobacco Control.
The study authors, led by Thomas Wills, a cancer-prevention expert at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, surveyed more than 2,000 high school students from around Oahu. In 2013 and again in 2014, the students were asked whether they had ever smoked electronic or regular cigarettes. Those who answered yes were asked whether they did so only once or twice, a handful of times, or used them monthly, weekly or daily.
To encourage honest answers, the students were assured that their survey responses would remain anonymous.
The researchers also asked students a series of questions to gauge their rebelliousness and willingness to seek out new experiences, among other psychological and demographic factors.
The results revealed that 31% of the students had tried an e-cigarette by the time they took the first survey. Most of them were casual users at best -- 21% of the survey-takers said they had vaped no more than four times in their lives, while 2% said they vaped daily and 3% said they vaped a few times per week.
All of these students were more likely to give regular cigarettes a try compared with their classmates who had never used electronic cigarettes. It didn't matter how much or how often they used e-cigarettes -- all vapers were more susceptible to traditional smoking than their nonvaping counterparts, the study authors found.
