While often justified to protect teen health, regulators have begun treating vaping products as equally, if not more harmful, as smoking traditional tobacco products. This push means that more teen and adult nicotine users will use cigarettes, which are far more dangerous.
More effort is needed to prevent teen nicotine use. Still, in doing so, we should make sure not to encourage teens and adults to use products that could cut an additional 10 years off their lives.
Vaping is not harmless. Not using any tobacco product is always the healthier choice. However, the risks are not the same between nicotine delivery methods, and regulators should consider this when setting rules for each.
The United Kingdom Royal College of Physicians has found vaping to be 95 percent safer than smoking. Another study in 2018 calculated that if all American smokers switched to vaping over 10 years, as many as 86.7 million years of life would be gained for the whole U.S. population. The current trend of smokers switching to vaping has prevented years of life from being lost, including for current high school students.
More can be done to prevent youth use of nicotine. But when choosing how to do so, we should make sure not to push those who still choose to smoke nicotine products to the most harmful nicotine delivery method. For example, limits on flavored e-cigarette sales are intended to curtail teen use. However, the National Youth Tobacco Survey shows that for high school seniors, flavors are low on the reasons they start vaping. To the degree that teens care about the flavors, there is also evidence that flavor bans push youth that already vape to smoke instead. The result is more years of life lost due to the drastic difference in health effects, even if only a tiny portion switched to cigarettes.
While teens rate flavors low on their reasons for vaping, adults are the opposite. Evidence not only suggests a link between vaping and smoking cessation, but studies also show that flavored vapes are more likely to help people quit smoking. Banning e-cigarette flavors increases youth and adult smoking, costing years of life for both groups. Instead of banning or denying approval for flavored products, addressing youth access to nicotine would be a more effective way to reduce risks.
Vaping may even be better than nicotine replacement therapy for getting people to quit smoking. But, instead of providing smokers with options to quit, the Food and Drug Administration has been slow to approve products for sale. Meanwhile, the FDA is choosing to not police unregulated products in the market. The lack of transparency about product safety introduces unnecessary risks for people trying to quit smoking that may discourage switching to less harmful options.
Smoking is disappearing among high school students as they switch to vaping yearly, despite claims by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that vaping may be a gateway to smoking. According to the National Youth Tobacco Survey data, the number of high school seniors smoking or vaping between 2012 and 2022 fell from 19.5 percent to 18.3 percent.
However, in 2012 nicotine users were almost exclusively smoking, while in 2022, they were almost exclusively vaping. The data on dual use of smoking and vaping also show that while most high school seniors who smoke also vape, almost none who vape also smoke. While it is ideal that teens do neither, it would be reckless to push them back to smoking, given that it is 20 times more dangerous.
Nicotine products are unhealthy, and more can be done to keep them out of the hands of teens. But in looking for ways to do that, regulators must be careful not to expose teens and adults to increased risks. The FDA and other regulators should more strictly police unregulated products and the sale of all nicotine products to anyone under the age of 21 while not restricting smokers’ options to quit. Our laws and regulations should not encourage children to make worse decisions that would adversely affect their health, nor should they make it harder for adults to quit smoking.
Sometimes poor regulations cost money, but in this case, the regulations are costing lives.
