New Study Concludes that Vaping is a One-Way Bridge to Cigarette Smoking among Youth

A newstudypublished online ahead of print in the journalTobacco Control concludes that vaping is “a one-way bridge to cigarette smoking among youth.”(See: Miech R, Patrick ME, O ’Malley PM, Johnston LD. E-cigarette use as a predictor of cigarette smoking: results from a 1-year follow-up of a national sample of 12th grade students.Tobacco Control.http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2016-0532910).The study involved a one-year follow-up of 347 high school seniors who were surveyed at baseline in 2014 and at follow-up in 2015. At baseline, they were classified as recent vapers (used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days) or non-vapers. At follow-up, smoking initiation was defined as having smoked a cigarette in the past year.In the key analysis, smoking initiation (smoking a cigarette in the past year) was compared between recent vapers (used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days) and non-vapers who had never smoked at the time of the baseline survey. The paper reports that the rate of smoking initiation was 31% among the recent vapers and 7% among non-vapers. In an adjusted analysis, recent vapers were 4.8 times more likely than non-vapers to initiate smoking during the follow-up period.The paper concludes that “vaping is a one-way bridge to cigarette smoking among youth.”The Rest of the StoryAt first glance, this paper appears to demolish the claim that vaping is not a known gateway to youth smoking. The conclusion that is drawn is a sweeping one: e-cigarettes are a on...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs