Recently, a study published in the scientific journal, Addiction showed that around 8.6% of adolescents reportedly use e-cigarettes in the last 30 days, and just 1.7% vape frequently. The results indicate that adolescents try vaping but not make it a routine.
Researchers at the University of Queensland (Australia) intended to calculate the rate of teen vaping worldwide. They took data from 151,960 adolescents from 47 countries who took part in the Global Youth Tobacco Survey of the WHO from 2015 to 2018. The share of teen vaping in the last 30 days is 8.6%, with frequent vaping rate at only 1.7%.
Dr. Gary Chan, the principal author, stated that he could explain the low levels of frequent vaping in youth in two ways. Firstly, e-cigarettes are comparatively new and are usually retailed in colorful packs containing extremely edible flavors that can be appealing to youngsters. Therefore, they go to test it but don’t take it routinely. Secondly, a high nicotine concentration is present in some e-cigarettes, but adolescents can go for non-nicotine or low nicotine-containing e-cigarettes to prevent addiction. In that case, WHO surveys in the future need to ask the participants to reveal the nicotine strength in the vaping liquid they use.
In addition, these researchers hoped to find the relationship between the execution of WHO’s tobacco control policies and adolescent vaping. WHO launched the MPOWER policy package in 2008, having six policies for tobacco use reduction. The policies included: termination programs, scrutinizing, publicity prohibition, health warnings, a smoke-free environment, and taxes. However, it’s not crystal clear if these policies influence the uptake of e-cigarettes among youths.
The research showed unconvincing evidence employing the data of 44 countries where execution data was accessible that the execution of five MPOWER policies was linked to decreasing vaping in youngsters. The execution of the sixth policy – higher taxes on tobacco products was inquisitively related to the increased adolescent vaping. It shows that some youngsters in countries having high tobacco taxes may be swapping e-cigarettes for cigarettes.
