Vaping rates hit record lows for U.S. high school students

Is vaping finally losing its coolness for American teens? The latest tally of federal data finds that 550,000 school kids, mostly high schoolers, quit using e-cigarettes in 2024.

Vaping rates fell from 10% of high school students in 2023 to 7.8% this year, “reaching the lowest level ever measured” by the National Youth Tobacco Survey, reported a team of researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health. However, with more than 2 million youth using tobacco products and certain groups not experiencing declines in use, our mission is far from complete,” Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, said in a news release announcing the new data.

Rates of use of traditional cigarettes are also extremely low: Only 1.4% of middle- and high-school kids now smoke, the report found.

The only bit of bad news: A relatively new tobacco product on the scene, nicotine-laden tobacco pouches, which people place between the cheek and gum, are showing upticks in popularity among teens.

Pouches now rank as the second most popular tobacco product, with 2.4% of high school students using them regularly.

“Nicotine pouch sales have substantially increased nationwide since 2016,” noted the team led by CDC investigator Ahmed Jamal, and “nearly one million (890,000) students reported ever using nicotine pouches in 2024.”

Still, the overall trends are positive, and by 2024 only 1 in every 10 middle-and high-school students was using any form of tobacco product.

Jamal’s team attributed these declines to ongoing efforts at the “national, state and local levels” to educate kids about the harms of vaping and smoking.

The findings were published Oct. 17 in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Despite the positive trends, the tobacco industry is always ready to fight back, however.

The “availability of youth-appealing flavored [vape] products, marketing, harm misperceptions, [and] the emerge of new flavor types,” such as cooling, fruity “ice” flavors, can all lure kids back into vaping addiction, they wrote.

“We’re headed in the right direction when it comes to reducing tobacco product use among our nation’s youth,” Brian King, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said in the CDC news release. “But we can’t take our foot off the gas. Continued vigilance is needed to continue to reduce all forms of tobacco product use among youth. Addressing disparities remains an essential part of these efforts to ensure that we don’t leave anyone behind.”

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