Analyzing data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey, a new study published in JAMA Pediatrics debates whether e cigarettes could be encouraging the use of conventional cigarettes in adolescents.

Recently, Medical News Today ran a feature examining the boom in popularity of e cigarettes, which some experts believe will become more widely used than conventional cigarettes by the next decade.

In that feature, we also debated the conflicting data on e cigarettes from scientific studies and looked at how these currently unregulated products might be controlled in the future.

Many observers have commented that e cigarettes are sold and promoted in a way that is similar to how cigarettes were aggressively marketed in the 1950s and 1960s, before cigarette advertising was banned from television and radio.

But in addition to these traditional media, e cigarettes have a strong advertising presence on the internet, where they can be purchased.

This raises concerns over the accessibility of these devices to children. E cigarettes are also sold in strawberry, licorice and chocolate flavors. These kind of flavorings are banned in conventional cigarettes in the US because they appeal to children.

The National Youth Tobacco Survey 2011 12

The new study analyzed National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) data from 2011 and 2012 to see what the relationship is between e cigarette use and conventional cigarette smoking in American adolescents.

It is difficult to say whether adolescents are beginning to smoke with conventional cigarettes and then moving on to e cigarettes, or whether it is the other way around.

The NYTS shows that e cigarette use doubled among adolescents in grades 6 through 12 between 2011 and 2012, from 3.3% of adolescents to 6.8%. The survey also reported that 76.3% of e cigarette users also smoke conventional cigarettes.

The researchers found that adolescents who had ever used an e cigarette were more likely to have smoked at least 100 conventional cigarettes and be current smokers than adolescents who had never used an e cigarette.

Adolescents who use e cigarettes were also less likely to abstain from using conventional cigarettes over 30 day, 6 month and 1 year periods.

This challenges the assumption that e cigarettes are effective as tools for quitting smoking which has been a major claim attributed to these products. The researchers found there was no significant association between using e cigarettes and attempting to quit smoking.

It is difficult to say whether adolescents are beginning to smoke with conventional cigarettes and then moving on to e cigarettes, or whether it is the other way round. This study can only report a link between conventional cigarette and e cigarette use. But the authors do conclude that “e cigarettes are not discouraging use of conventional cigarettes.”

E cigarettes may also contribute to nicotine addiction, according to the researchers, who consider that the still developing adolescent brain may be more at risk from the adverse effects of nicotine than adults.

In an editorial linked to the study, Frank J. Chaloupka PhD of the University of Illinois at Chicago, says

“While much remains to be learned about the public health benefits and/or consequences of electronic nicotine delivery systems use, their exponential growth in recent years, including their rapid uptake among youths, makes it clear that policy makers need to act quickly.

Adopting the right mix of policies will be critical to minimizing potential risks to public health while maximizing the potential benefits.”

Written by David McNamee

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New york raising age to buy cigarettes to 21 – nytimes.com

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The legal age for buying tobacco, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, cigars and cigarillos will rise to 21, from 18, under a bill adopted by the City Council and which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said he would sign. The new minimum age will take effect six months after signing.

The proposal provoked some protest among people who pointed out that New Yorkers under 21 can drive, vote and fight in wars, and should be considered mature enough to decide whether to buy cigarettes. But the Bloomberg administration s argument that raising the age to buy cigarettes would discourage people from becoming addicted in the first place won the day.

This is literally legislation that will save lives, Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker, said shortly before the bill passed 35 to 10.

In pushing the bill, city officials said that the earlier people began smoking, the more likely they were to become addicted. And they pointed out that while the youth smoking rate in the city has declined by more than half since the beginning of the mayor s administration, to 8.5 percent in 2007 from 17.6 percent in 2001, it has recently stalled.

Besides raising the age to buy cigarettes, the Council also approved various other antismoking measures, such as increased penalties for retailers who evade tobacco taxes, a prohibition on discounts for tobacco products, and a minimum price of $10.50 a pack for cigarettes and little cigars.

The new law is a capstone to more than a decade of efforts by Mr. Bloomberg, like banning smoking in most public places, that have given the city some of the toughest antismoking policies in the world.

In one concession to the cigarette industry, the administration dropped a proposal that would force retailers to keep cigarettes out of sight. City officials said they were doing it because they had not resolved how to deal with the new phenomenon of electronic cigarettes, but others worried that if the tobacco industry lodged a First Amendment challenge to the so called display ban, it could have derailed the entire package.

The smoking age is 18 in most of the country, but some states have made it 19. Some counties have also adopted 19, including Nassau and Suffolk on Long Island. Needham, Mass., a suburb of Boston, raised the smoking age to 21 in 2005.

James Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores, warned on Wednesday that thousands of retail jobs could be lost because the law would reduce traffic not just for tobacco, but also on incidental purchases like coffee or lottery tickets. He predicted that the law would do little to curb smoking, as it does not outlaw the possession of cigarettes by under age smokers, only their purchase.

Just before the vote, Nicole Spencer, 16, was in Union Square in Manhattan with a cigarette wedged between her fingers.

I don t think that s going to work, Nicole said when she heard about the plan to raise the age.

She said she began smoking when she was about 13, and had no trouble getting cigarettes. I buy them off people or I bum them off people, she said.

She said that probably half of her friends at her high school smoked.

Nicole said she thought 18 was a reasonable legal age, echoing Councilman Jumaane D. Williams, who said he voted no because it was not right for the city to ask young people to make life or death decisions as police officers and firefighters yet to have no ability to buy a pack of cigarettes.