JUUL Got a Million American Kids Hooked on Nicotine, Researchers Say

Despite decades of legislative action and campaigns against the substance in the US, it seems that nicotine use by American teens has soared to astonishing new levels since the mid-to-late 2010 popularity of the fashionable,usb-drive-shaped vapes.

Despite some pretty damning evidence, JUUL has fought back against allegations of marketing to kids.

An alarming picture of the impact on youth tobacco use has been painted by public health researchers at UC San Diego.

The recent evidence of the potential health consequences of e-cigarettes requires urgent public health attention and action, according to a researcher at UC San Diego who worked on the study.

The researcher believes that the rise in sales of e-liquids was a result of the rise in nicotine use among young people.

The team looked at data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH), a longitudinal study conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the FDA, to compare youth nicotine consumption before and after hookah went mainstream.

The researchers pointed out in the press release that 64.6% of the users who started using tobacco in the last year were under the age of 18.

That is not all. They were four times more likely to become everyday vapers than the 2016 cohort, even though they weren't as likely to smoke conventional cigarettes. The growth of these little devices at the time of the market boom is hard to ignore.

Prior to the implementation of tobacco control measures, the rate of youth tobacco initiation has not been seen.

Vaping was often seen as a safer alternative to smoking. The view that smoking cigarettes is still dangerous has been changed by research, but doctors are more concerned about the health risks of e-cigarettes.

There is a public health crisis because many young people seem to be jumping straight into vaping instead of using it as an harm reductionist offramp from a cigarette habit.

Regulators have taken notice of that view. Only a few limited flavors are now allowed by the manufacturers.

Given the health stakes and the fact that the US Surgeon General now considers Vaping an epidemic, more action is probably needed.

There are a lot of pro-vaping studies.