Drop in vaping drives tobacco product use by U.S. youth to a record low
The fewest number of U.S. middle and high school students are currently using tobacco products since the National Youth Tobacco Survey began in 1999.
Handiest eight percentof teens and tweens reported current use of any tobacco product in 2024
Children gather at an anti-tobacco rally in Harlem in New York City in 2013, a component of a national event recognizing teens’s efforts towards tobacco use prevention. A record low choice of U.S. teens and tweens reported the usage of tobacco products in 2024.
Richard Levine/Alamy
The fewest choice of U.S. teens and tweens in 25 years are currently the usage of tobacco products.
Consistent with the 2024 National Early life Tobacco Survey, most efficient eight percentof middle and high school students — or 2.25 million — reported the usage of any tobacco products within the past 30 days. As recently as 2019, 23 p.c, or simply over 6 million, had reported current tobacco use, driven almost entirely by e-cigarette use, at 20 p.c.
E-cigarettes are still the foremost renowned choice, utilized by 6 percentof middle and high school students in 2024, researchers report October 17 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Nicotine pouches — a product that releases nicotine when placed between the cheek and gum — came in second for the first time at nearly 2 p.c, followed by cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco. The National Early life Tobacco Survey began measuring use among students in 1999.
More high school students, at 10 p.c, reported use of any tobacco product within the past 30 days than middle school students, at 5.Four p.c. Just less than eight percentof highschool students reported current use of e-cigarettes in 2024, falling from 10 percentin 2023. That decrease of 350,000 high school students changed into a massive reason on the back of the decline in current use of any product among all students surveyed.
Use disparities
Overall, most efficient eight percentof U.S. teens and tweens reported current use of tobacco products in 2024 (red dotted line). But taking a look at use by different racial and ethnic groups reveals that disparities remain.
Disparities in tobacco use still exist among tweens and youths from different racial and ethnic groups. Past research has found that the tobacco industry has long targeted certain groups via advertising and marketing, including promoting menthol cigarettes to Black communities and the usage of tribal icons to target American Indian and Alaskan Native people.
Tobacco use most on a normal basis begins in early life, a time when exposure to nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco, can be specifically harmful to teens’ developing brain (SN: 6/30/15). Nicotine affects the flexibleness to learn, pay attention on and pay attention. Tobacco control programs on the federal, state and native levels have contributed to the drop in use, the researchers write.
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