Just as a new report indicates a big jump in e-cigarette use among U.S. teenagers, a conservative think tank is arguing against FDA regulation of the devices, claiming that it will do more harm than good when it comes to public health.
The data published this week by the CDC and the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products from the National Youth Tobacco Survey show that three million middle and high school students are current users of e-cigarettes in 2015, up from 2.46 million in 2014. That amounts to16 of high school and 5.3 percent of middle school students using e-cigarettes in 2015, making the devices the most commonly used tobacco product among youth for the second consecutive year. During 2011 through 2015, e-cigarette use rose from 1.5 percent to 16.0 percent among high school students and from 0.6 percent to 5.3 percent among middle school students. Cigarettes are the second-most-used tobacco product among both middle and high school students.