E-Cigarettes are a Gateway to Smoking, so as Teen Vaping Dramatically Increased from 21% to 28%, Smoking Plummeted to Lowest Historical Level

Countering the claims of anti-nicotine groups that electronic cigarettes are a gateway to smoking,data released yesterday from the National Youth Tobacco Survey indicate that while the rates of teen vaping continued to increase dramatically (from 21% in 2018 to 28% in 2019 and from 12% to 28% from 2017-2019), the rate of decline in youth smoking accelerated in 2019, dropping to its lowest level in recorded history.If vaping was a gateway to smoking among youth, one would expect to see some sort of positive correlation between youth vaping rates and youth smoking rates. And in fact, there is aHUGE correlation between the rates of youth vaping and youth smoking during the period 2011-2019.The Rest of the StoryTo cut to the chase, the rest of the story is that there is indeed a huge correlation between the rates of youth vaping and the rates of youth smoking, which is at thevery high level of 0.89. In fact, this is about as close to a perfect correlation as you can get with public health surveillance data.So, you say, this proves - beyond a doubt - that the anti-nicotine groups were right and that e-cigarettes are a gateway to youth smoking.There ' s just one thing I forgot to tell you ...... I forgot the minus sign.The correlation between the youth vaping and youth smoking rates during this decade is actually--0.89 (that ' sNEGATIVE 0.89).Here is the scatter plot (the smoking rate is the x-axis; the vaping rate is the y-axis):As you can see, there is a dramatic relationship her...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs