PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE Editorial: …E-cigarettes come with dubious claims: They are not real cigarettes, so they aren’t regulated yet by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. No need to restrict their sales then. They’ll keep kids from moving to real cigarettes. They’ll help smokers quit their habit.
These assertions deserve as much credence as those made by the tobacco industry over the years in falsely defending regular cigarettes. This is becoming increasingly clear from scientific studies, just as it did with tobacco products.
According a new study by the University of California, San Francisco, published online in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, adolescents who used e-cigarettes were more likely to be smokers of traditional cigarettes and less likely to quit smoking than those who did not use e-cigarettes. The study of nearly 40,000 young people around the country also found that e-cigarette use among middle and high school students doubled between 2011 and 2012, from 3.1 percent to 6.5 percent. That’s no surprise — e-cigarettes come in flavors appealing to a young market… (more)
