A study of Canterbury teens has found two-thirds have vaped and 43% do it regularly. Photo / 123 rf
A study of Canterbury teens has found two-thirds have vaped and 43% do it regularly. Photo / 123 rf
New research has found teenagers considered to be high risk have strong nicotine dependencies linked to vaping.
Researchers reported “shock” at how high the vaping rates were among the teenagers studied.
The NZ Medical Journal article: Vaping behaviour of high-risk and typically developing adolescents: Results from the gauging riskand resilience in teenagers study has been published today.
Those involved in the study were teenagers aged 16 to 19 years old from the Canterbury region.
A total of 53 high-risk teens with prenatal substance exposure and family psychosocial adversity took part in the study, as well as 83 teenagers randomly chosen at birth.
The paper showed that those who were regular vapers most frequently reported using the stronger vape products containing 50 to 60mg/ml nicotine.
“More than three-quarters of regular vapers had never smoked cigarettes before trying vaping, thus raising serious concerns about new pathways to nicotine dependence for youth who might otherwise have never used tobacco,” the study reads.
A study has found that high-risk teens show more symptoms of nicotine dependency linked to vaping. Photo / File
“Alarmingly, most regular users reported using very high-nicotine devices, which deliver large doses of nicotine per puff.”
“Only a small proportion” of regular vapers in the sample said they used lower nicotine strength products (less than or equal to 15mg/ml nicotine).
Results also showed that a large proportion of teens from both groups had experienced symptoms of nicotine dependence.
Up to 59% of teens in the high-risk group could not cut down when they had tried to. For those in the comparison group, that figure was 54%.
A total of 52% of teens in the high-risk group said they were unable to go a day without vaping, while 42% of young people from the other group reported the same.
‘Need a vape first thing in the morning’
A staggering 67% of high-risk teens reported that they feel tense, irritable and need a vape if they can’t vape. A total of 29% of those in the comparison group reported the same.
Of those in the high-risk group sample, 61% of teens said they want a vape “first thing in the morning”.
“Further, adolescents in the high-risk group reported a significantly higher mean number of symptoms than comparison group adolescents,” the study read.
One of the researchers of the study, Dr Samantha Lee, said they were overwhelmed by the rates of vaping among the participants involved.
“I started writing it up while we were still seeing the participants because I was just so shocked at the high rates of vaping amongst these teenagers.
“And, in particular, the high-risk group of teenagers that we’d been following in this study since they were born.”
Despite ban on disposable vapes, vaping still a big problem
Disposable vapes are now banned in New Zealand. Photo / 123rf
Lee said they wanted to show how big a problem vaping now is in New Zealand - not just among young people who were over 18 years old and purchasing vapes for themselves.
“It’s the younger people as well. The 16-year-olds [who are showing] the same sort of rates as those older participants in our study.”
Lee, 37, acknowledged the changing times and views about smoking and, in this case, what vaping had become for a new generation.
Having grown up in a non-smoking environment and being a non-smoker, she said the adults that she did know who smoked cigarettes had all moved on to vaping, as a means of trying to reduce or quit smoking, as vaping was originally intended for.
Instead of being used solely as a smoking cessation tool, vaping was now the problem itself, Lee said.
“I think it’s quite different the way that it’s normalised as being not dangerous and not unhealthy. And it’s a bit cooler, a bit sleeker - promoted as that.
