Researchers say MPs should focus on reducing e-cigarette use and stopping uptake

Research finds that among vapers, one third are continuing to smoke cigarettes. Photo / 123 rf

Teenagers who vape are also smoking cigarettes at 1970s levels, leading to fears that the devices are providing a gateway to tobacco addiction.

Although there has been a substantial fall in cigarette smoking by young people over the last 50 years – accounting for just 1.5% of teens – among vapers, one third are continuing to smoke.

It is the same level at which teenagers were smoking in 1974, researchers from the University of Michigan in the United States have said.

Dr Jessica Mongilio, of the centre for the study of drugs, alcohol, smoking, and health at Michigan, said: “From the data I have seen, overall nicotine use rates are still continuing to decline, but more slowly than before.

“The plateauing of those declines is likely due to the uptick in e-cigarette use, especially by teens and young adults.

“Although this study doesn’t examine vaping as a gateway or catalyst to cigarette smoking, there is a substantial amount of research that does come to that conclusion. For teenagers, it does appear that vaping leads to cigarette smoking.”

Impact of ban on disposable vapes

It has been illegal in Britain to sell vapes to under-18s since 2015, but despite the ban it is estimated that one third of young people have tried vaping by the age of 15. The number of 11- to 15-year-olds using e-cigarettes has doubled in recent years.

The Government has become increasingly concerned about vaping among young people, and a ban on disposable vapes came into effect in June to stop children and teenagers becoming hooked on nicotine through cheap, throwaway devices.

The United Kingdom health service warns that vapers can become addicted within days, and the nicotine can affect concentration, impact young people’s ability to learn and study, as well as increasing fatigue, stress and anxiety.

The new research found that, at the age of 17, fewer than one in 50 young people reported weekly cigarette use.

But the figure rose to one in 10 for those who had previously tried e-cigarettes and increased to 33% for current vapers.

“The decline in the likelihood of cigarette smoking is waning for youth who have used e-cigarettes and has reversed for those currently using e-cigarettes,” the researchers concluded.

Researchers said MPs should focus on reducing e-cigarette use among current users and stopping its uptake.

However, some experts warned that the link between smoking and vaping may not be causal and that young people at risk of smoking, because of risk factors like poverty and poor education, were also likely to vape.

Peter Hajek, a professor of clinical psychology at Queen Mary University of London, is an advocate of vaping as a quitting aid.

“It is more likely that the finding just shows that people attracted to vapes are also attracted to cigarettes, in the same way that compared to teetotallers, drinkers of white wine are more likely to also try red wine,” he said.

In response, Mongilio said that the study had examined whether teenagers were simply more “at risk”, leading them to smoke or vape and found that even high-risk teens were still unlikely to smoke unless they vaped.

“That is a very common perception, but it doesn’t ring entirely true,” she added.

“We looked at the probabilities for high-risk and low-risk teens and found that e-cigarette use was really driving the high probabilities.

“That is, high-risk teens who had never used e-cigarettes still had pretty low probabilities of cigarette smoking.”

The research was published in the journal Tobacco Control.