Research shows that teens and young adults who have never smoked but use e-cigarettes are 3.5 times more likely to start smoking conventional cigarettes than those who have never used e-cigarettes.
In fact, countries that allow e-cigarette and heated tobacco products but have enacted policies prohibiting sales to minors have failed to prevent youth use.
In these countries, e-cigarette use has also not accelerated the decline in conventional cigarette smoking rates, with a large proportion of e-cigarette users becoming dual users (using e-cigarettes with tobacco and/or heated tobacco products simultaneously) rather than quitting smoking.
In the United States, e-cigarette use jumped from 11.7% to 27.5% among high school students between 2017 and 2019, and from 3.3% to 10.5% among high school students. In the United Kingdom, e-cigarette use among 15-year-old girls increased from 10% in 2018 to 21% in 2021, while in New Zealand 27% of young people use e-cigarettes.
In Korea, after 1 year of heated tobacco products being introduced to the market, 2.8% of middle and high school students had used this product. Of these, 40.3% were users of both heated tobacco products and cigarettes.
Although e-cigarette and heated tobacco manufacturers claim that their products are an alternative to smoking and are not aimed at young people, evidence suggests that they are targeting a large number of new (never-smokers) consumers, including women and children.
Manufacturers have been using various methods to attract young people to use e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products through attractive flavors, eye-catching product designs, fashion, technology trends, online sales (selling via smartphone apps, advertising and buying and selling on the internet) which are commonly used by young people, sponsoring celebrities and social media influencers to help advertise products and easily reach young people.
Nicotine use is highly detrimental to adolescent brain development because the brain is still developing until age 25. Nicotine has been shown to impair adolescent brain maturation with serious short-term and long-term consequences including addiction, cognitive and emotional disorders, learning disabilities, and psychiatric disorders.
