Ed note: My grandchildren in middle and high school confirm what is being reported below. There is also a second epidemic of lung injury due to vaping. Why isn’t Juul out of business?
From the February 20, 2020 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine
” The youth vaping epidemic is of longer duration. Current use of e-cigarette, or vaping, products increased by 900% among U.S. middle and high school students between 2011 and 2015, declined in 2016, and then increased again between 2017 and 2018, erasing previous progress.2 In 2019, more than 5.2 million young people in the United States reported current use, including 27.5% of high school students and 10.5% of middle school students.2 In contrast, current use among adults remained unchanged from 2014 to 2017, and in 2018, 3.2% of U.S. adults (8.1 million) reported current use of e-cigarettes, including 7.6% of adults 18 to 24 years of age (2.1 million).5 Use of these products among young people is driven by multiple factors, including advertising, attractive flavors, and the availability of easily concealable devices that deliver high levels of nicotine.1 Recent product innovation has also contributed; “pod mods,” including Juul, are often shaped like USB flash drives and are easily concealable. Pod mods also deliver nicotine in the form of nicotine salts, which allow high levels of nicotine to be inhaled more easily and with less irritation than the free-base nicotine used in older-generation e-cigarettes.2 Increased nicotine levels are a matter of concern for young people, since nicotine is highly addictive and can harm brain development, which continues through the mid-20s.1 “