[TheBeardKing]

>The 2017 Monitoring the Future survey on adolescent drug use found that 11 percent of 12th graders, 8.5 percent of 10th graders and 3.5 percent of 8th graders had vaped nicotine in the previous 30 days. Of those high school seniors, 24 percent reported vaping daily, which the study defined as vaping on 20 or more occasions in the previous 30 days

I'm sorry, but is <10% of high schoolers an "explosion"? Obviously e-cigarettes are more appealing than tobacco products, but regular cigarette use was 15.8% in 2011 [1]. Marijuana use is at close to 6%, so not that big a gap from the apparent "explosion" of kids vaping.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/yout...

[cbhl]

Yes. That means that in a school of of 360 kids (30 students * 3 classes * 4 grades), ~36 of them are now nicotine users through vaping. You may as well dedicate an entire classroom to holding detention.

The US was slowly reducing the number of middle schoolers who smoke cigarettes. According to the CDC, cigarette use dropped from 4.3% in 2011 to 2.2% in 2016. [1]

This would be a 5x reversal in less than a year. That's huge.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/yout...

[lern_too_spel]

You're both citing the same source, but you're comparing 12th grade usage to middle school usage.

[cbhl]

Ah, whelp. I forgot that high school is 9th-12th grade.

Re-reading the high school numbers cigarettes are down 15.8% -> 8.0% (2011-2016) but eCigs are up 1.5% -> 11.3% (2011-2016).

The gains in eCig usage still appear to cancel out the reduction in cigarette usage ("(20.2%) reported current use of some type of tobacco product"). But definitely a less dramatic effect than I originally claimed.

[TeMPOraL]

> The gains in eCig usage still appear to cancel out the reduction in cigarette usage

And that's still a significant net victory, given that eCigs don't have the awful health consequences regular cigarettes have.

[jacobolus]

Cigarettes cause high rates of lung cancer, killing tons of people. It makes sense to heavily discourage teenagers from using them. As far as I am aware (I am not an expert about or user of any of these products) the risks from vaping are much less severe.

Is the concern just that the activity is nominally unlawful? Or that it will be a “gateway drug” (is there any evidence of that)? Or that it is a waste of students’ time? Or ...

Or are we worried about stimulants in general? Or is there still some significant cancer risk from vaping? (Are people freaking out about high school students drinking too much coffee?)

If students are just replacing cigarettes with vaping, that seems like an unambiguously positive development.

[ams6110]

Yeah I don't endorse vaping especially for young kids but it's better than smoking, and that was even allowed at my high school (in specific places).

We've eliminated all the really worrying stuff but people like to worry about kids so now we're down to sugar and vaping. Of the two I'd bet sugar is a lot worse, long term. Though since vape juice is unregulated and kids probably buy the cheapest they can find, I'd wonder what kind of chemicals are actually in it.

[nv-vn]

The good thing is that kids mostly use high quality vapes. For example, the Juul is cited as the most popular in the article. Other popular ones are Junos, Phixes, and Suorins. All of these have their own juices manufactured by the companies, and all these companies are pretty reputable to my knowledge. The Juul has succeeded in part because they designed their own pods that nobody else was producing, so they could guarantee high quality juices.

[tinus_hn]

Vaping is not better than smoking, it’s less bad.

If you think getting addicted to inhaling chemicals is not harmful you are deluding yourself.

Just like there are no ‘safe’ cigarettes, there is no ‘safe’ vaping. Even inhaling nicotine itself is harmful.

[hanklazard]

My concern would be around the long-term effects of inhaling vapor from heated metal alloys. I doubt that we have enough safety data, given the newness of the tech and (I assume) the variety of metals being used. That being said, I’m no expert so please chime in if you have information around this concern.

[algorias]

I don't understand exactly what you're afraid of. I often prepare the food I eat in a contraption of "heated metal alloys". We know perfectly well how to make such things safe.

[code_duck]

Different metals are in use, at different temperatures, and inhalation rather than ingestion.

Vape coils are typically kanthal, the same material as in my ceramic kiln wires, and were not designed for food/smoking purpose before people started using them for that.

[algorias]

I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to sell a pot made out of unsafe materials and market it as a cooking implement. I'm also quite confident that it's technically possible to make a safe vaping device. So the issue would be a lack of regulation?

[Scaevolus]

It's less severe, but nicotine alone is carcinogenic.

[jacobolus]

Okay, but so is standing near combustion-engine vehicles, cooking, soldering, shopping at stores full of air freshener, and many other things. There are many other common activities that have even higher risk of death/injury.

When walking around town with my 1.5 year old, I commonly see people smoking cigarettes outside freak out and start apologizing, worried that they might blow one puff of smoke in the general direction of a baby. But at that point we are talking about a ridiculous level of concern for a trivial risk.

As they say, the dose makes the poison. We should make public policy based on careful risk analysis, not absolutist reflex.

[Pulcinella]

Auto emissions are heavily regulated and many states also regulate in-door air quality including cooking so I am not sure what you are arguing for.

[jacobolus]

I speculate that standing near existing (heavily regulated) combustion vehicles, going to existing (heavily regulated) restaurants, cooking using existing (regulated) methods and tools, etc. has a decent chance of being a greater health risk than breathing nicotine alone. I am not an expert though, so would love to hear some actual evidence about it.

We have now had decades of (publicly beneficial) propaganda effort driving home the “frequent smoking = deadly” message. In many peoples’ minds that message has been broadened by association “frequent smoking = deadly” ⇒ “any smoking = deadly” ⇒ “breathing any second-hand smoke in any context for any amount of time = deadly” ⇒ “any use of nicotine = deadly”, so there is a natural inclination to reflexively ban the use of vaporizers as well.

But if the vaporizers are largely being used as a replacement for (orders of magnitude more dangerous) cigarettes, that seems like an unambiguously positive development which should be applauded, not restricted. Fears about second-hand smoke from vaporizers in well-ventilated spaces seem likely to be entirely baseless.

[bjlorenzen]

Could you please source this claim? A quick google search is revealing a lot of contrary evidence.

[haZard_OS]

This summary is a few years old but still relevant :

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363846/#__ffn_...

Long before that publication, however, Wright SC (et al) published a paper still referenced today in toxicology textbooks entitled "Nicotine inhibition of apoptosis suggests a role in tumor production" [ FASEB J. 1993; 7:1045-1051 ]

[eagletusk]

Nicotine is considered a nootropic that increases cognitive ability. Perhaps the kids are using it to up regulate their brains?

Studies here: https://www.selfhacked.com/blog/28-proven-health-benefits-ni...

[vkou]

From what I recall of being a kid, kids are using it to get social validation.

Also, because once you get addicted, nicotine withdrawal is bloody awful.

[lstyls]

Citation? NICE, for one, says there is no known cancer risk from nicotine alone: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ph45/chapter/3-Consideratio...

[gwbas1c]

The risks of vaping are unknown. Just look for the mention of "popcorn lung" from the chemicals used for flavoring.

It's also more addictive than cigarettes because the devices can be tuned to deliver much more nicotine than a cigarette.

[mistermann]

More addictive than cigarettes....sorry but that isn't true. There is a lot more in cigarettes to addict a person.

[s73v3r_]

Not if more are taking up vaping than would otherwise be taking up cigarettes.

[ghayes]

Couldn't this be explained by a substitution effect? The numbers from the CDC article discuss only the changes from the period starting in 2011 until 2016; where do you justify "a 5x reversal in less than a year?"

[extrememacaroni]

Explosion refers to the increase rate in those percentages, not to the percentages themselves. Example: expecting in a relatively short amount of time, say, 0.1% and getting 4% qualifies as explosion to me.

[vkou]

Yes, but what if it correlates with a decrease in cigarette smoking from 15% to 11%?

Sure, there's been an explosion in vaping, but no change to overall nicotine consumption.

[TheBeardKing]

Obviously the rate increased, it's a fairly new device. Nintendo Switch must've went nuclear. Pokemon Go caused utter annihiliation.

[wyldfire]

It's a public health concern, so it's prudent to sample how much it's consumed.

> Obviously the rate increased, it's a fairly new device.

It's not necessarily so that "new device" therefore "rate increase." It could be flat or declining since earlier surveys. The fact that it isn't flat means that it's popular and likely warrants further study and/or intervention. The descriptor "explosive" applies here because many other similar public-health-impacting behaviors which are studied by similar researchers change much more slowly over time.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

The rate of tobacco consumption overall is what's important. So we would do a comparison like high school upperclassmen who smoke cigarettes in 2010 (or maybe even a bit earlier) to high school upperclassmen who smoke cigarettes and/or vape in 2018. The difference would tell us what we want to know.

[dajohnson89]

switch and Pokemon can't be smoked inside a school

[ggggtez]

This comment doesn't add anything to the conversation. Besides, obviously you can smoke pokemon in a school: https://redeyesonline.net/pokemon-bong/

[gowld]

> 8.0% reported in 2016 that they smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days—a decrease from 15.8% in 2011.

The CDC report doesn't report clearly on the overlap between modalities, but if e-cigarette uptake is cancelling all the reductions in non-e-cigarettes, it's quite alarming that nicotine consumption isn't being reduced as previously though.

[Anon1096]

Just above that in the article it states that 45 percent of the students at the Boulder school admitted to vaping. So yes, I would consider that an explosion.

[steve_musk]

Maybe it is region dependent? I have some younger relatives and high school/middle school and they make it seem like almost every at their school is vaping (mostly the new juul things)

[MaxLeiter]

Juuls are incredibly common in a lot of schools. At my school, the number of high schoolers that use a juul more than once a week is at least 20%. (Small school)