Teen Smoking Drops, Gateway Closes

Teen smoking rates dropped again despite the ever-popular assessment that e-cigarettes “could be” a gateway to smoking. Even this year, stories continue to manipulate public perception with titles like “heavier teen tobacco use” and content to conjure images of a pack of 8-year-olds smoking like it’s going out of style. I’ll get to the unicorns sightings, I know that’s why you’re here.

Also noteworthy, and no surprise, e-cigarette use is going up. Well, hang on to your hats. If e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking… where are the new smokers? You ponder that question, I’ll keep typing.

They’re wrong, No Gateway

With the confidence of a unicorn herder, always good for a laugh ever-so-credible Stanton Glantz just below boasts “even non-nicotine #ecigarettes are a strong gateway to cigarettes…” and he’s wrong. He uses the word “are”.  Not only is he wrong, he’s wrong at least twice.

If he were correct in his hypothesis, this would be a different blog. I trust grandstanding filled with babbling and buffoonery is forthcoming from Stan about how wrong he isn’t.  (Blatantly obnoxious and wrong.) He’ll stroke his beard,  fidget in his chair, participate in some pesky deposition, but won’t admit wrong, he and others have been wrong, and will continue to be wrong. With reports of youth smoking rates dropping to all-time lows, thousands of gateway enthusiasts like Stanton “Puff-N-Stuff” Glantz, are… well, I am happy to report as I did in August here, and here, wrong.

Teen smoking drops again

Teen Nicotine and tobacco use (smoking rates) dropped again according to the latest report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)  called “Monitoring The Future Survey”.

Use of traditional cigarettes has continued to decline to the lowest levels in the survey’s history.

Significant five-year declines-by more than half for daily use and for use of one-half pack or more per day-were reported by all grades.

Daily cigarette use was reported by 0.6 percent of 8th graders

2.2 percent of 10th graders

4.2 percent of 12th graders in 2017.

This was down from peaks of 10.4 percent and 18.3 percent among 8th and 10th graders in 1996 and a peak of 24.6 percent of 12th graders in 1997.

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Expert Integrity In Question

Gateway Enthusiasts and Unicorns are out of work

Despite the valiant efforts of “experts”, despite an uncanny desire to invest in tactics like this to keep kids smoking, they’re smoking less. Now, due to cause and effect, the country has countless unicorns displaced and unemployed. Gateway enthusiasts and Unicorns are looking for work. Kids sure don’t smoke like they used to. Do what you can to save the unicorns, continue to question the integrity of experts.

Since the definition of nicotine is now tobacco, tobacco USE rates/funding are in jeopardy. (I predict next year the “tobacco use” will be put together with smoking in this survey, with or without nicotine). To my knowledge, not one city has made an effort to focus on the intended target: children. Instead of focusing on pre-teen and teen smoking (what I would consider 8-15 year-old juveniles), to educate that age group on tobacco use, so-called “experts” are insistent, despite the lowest smoking rates in history, on half-assed efforts and a lot of money aimed at raising the age of purchasing tobacco and e-cigs to 21.

Teens Are Smoking Less

While I was writing this blog, this came across my eye. (Thanks, Jenny!)

While all the “Tobacco 21” enthusiasts are running around feeling good about themselves, the teen smokers they should be spending energy on are already smoking. In this, it states the desire to raise the age to 21. Well. The paragraph above I stated 8-15 as the age range to educate, where (bold emphasis is mine) this study says:

“The mean age for the first puff on a cigarette was 11.7 years (n = 66). Youths who had stolen tobacco from a parent reported a mean age for the first puff (11.3 years), one year earlier than youths who had never stolen tobacco from a parent (12.3 years, n = 66, p = 0.05)”

Focus time on efforts, not control

11 year olds. 12 year olds. Why are they worrying about restricting 18-20-year-old adults again? Why are they not worried about pre-teen and teen tobacco use? Oh, that’s right, they’re experts. It’s pretty obvious a quick check with my untrained eye on the target age of when children first initiate smoking *in their own study* isn’t their expertise.  Maybe no one noticed.

You would think efforts focusing on pre-teen smoking education before a potential problem occurs would be more fruitful, and the obvious primary focus. Instead, restrict adults from doing something that “they might do” as adults has become the idiotic trend.

As far as my personal view, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again:

On teens: “If “children” are *already smoking, they’re *smokers regardless of age. Think of the children™.”

If these people worked on the…. they might work themselves right out …. of… a …. job . . . wait a minute….

This was added 12/19/17.

Unpopular opinion: I am totally fine with vaping among teens. Nicotine is a performance-enhancer (like caffeine in many ways) and the fewer teens smoking cigarettes, the better for public health. They are practicing #harmreduction.

— Sheila Vakharia PhD MSW (@MyHarmReduction) December 18, 2017

Smoking Rates Among Youth Now At “Unimaginable” Levels

Added 01/18/17:

1.7 Million High Schoolers Vaped in 2016, As Both Vaping and Smoking Declined

Added 06/14/2018:

Still not smoking.

The elusive ‘epidemic’ of teen vaping

Added 8/18:

Interesting to note on 9/05/18:

Truth Initiative claims a gateway on August 6th claiming:

Even though the teen smoking rate has been declining, popular new e-cigarettes like JUUL are a gateway into traditional cigarette smoking and put a new generation of youth at risk of nicotine dependence. https://t.co/mbTOKWMGa2 via @USNewsHealth and @mg_galvin

— Truth Initiative (@truthinitiative) August 6, 2018

THEN:

a twenty-one % drop from 18-24….

According to the latest data on cigarette use from @NCHStats, the smoking rate for young adults aged 18-24 is now just 10.4%, a 21% decline in a single year. https://t.co/Lkhx0l73t5 pic.twitter.com/zuDzRdncCM

— Truth Initiative (@truthinitiative) September 6, 2018

Other related links of interest:

Electronic Cigarette Age Restrictions May Drive Teens to Traditional Cigarettes

US survey: Youth smoking rates reach historic lows despite e-cig popularity

Adolescent Smoking Rates Reach Historic Lows, Despite Vaping’s Popularity

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There is definitely more to come.

Keep ON #Vaping On.

Kevin

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