NBC News
According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), youth e-cigarette use has fallen this year to its lowest level in a decade.
E-cigarette use among high school and college students declined from 2.13 million students in 2023 to 1.63 million in 2024, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey released Thursday.
The total is now about a third of its 2019 peak, when numbers rose to more than 5 million, health officials said.
The most recent survey was conducted from January 22 to May 22 and included nearly 30,000 students.
“These data are a good reminder that we are making progress in terms of continued declines in the major tobacco products used among minors,” said Brian King, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, on a call with reporters Wednesday afternoon. “But we need to keep our guard up.”
The decline was driven primarily by a decrease in the use of e-cigarettes. among high school studentswhich declined from 1.56 million students to 1.21 million. There was no significant difference in usage among high school students over the past year, according to the survey, though King noted that usage among middle school students has been declining since 2019.
King attributed the overall decline in part to legal actions the FDA took in partnership with the Justice Department to curb use.
Since early 2023, the FDA has issued more than 1,000 warning letters and 240 civil penalties to retailers — as well as others in the supply chain — who illegally sell Elf Bar products to teens, according to a statement. Elf Bar makes fruit- and candy-flavored disposable vapes that are popular with teens.
In addition, the agency has issued import alerts for Elf Bar brand products, and has included them on the “red list”which allows the federal government to hold products without a full inspection upon entry into the United States.
The measures appear to have had an effect: according to the survey, there has been a significant drop in consumption of the Elf bar: 36.1% of students said they had consumed it this year, compared to 56.7% in 2023.
The FDA “has been hammering the retail sector with inspections and enforcement actions against those who break the law,” King said.
Dr. Sharon Levy, chief of the Division of Addiction Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, said the latest results are good news, but there is still much work to be done.
Among young e-cigarette users, 26.3% reported using them daily. Most of them prefer flavoured e-cigarettes. The most popular flavour is fruit (62.8%), followed by caramel (33.3%) and mint (25.1%).
“Do we really need to vape blue raspberry?” Levy asked. Limiting this kind of stuff really drives down rates, so let’s get to the bottom of it. Let’s take it off the market”.
According to Levy, the way these products work is becoming increasingly dangerous. When Juul — a popular e-cigarette brand — came on the market in 2015, it was marketed as having the equivalent amount of nicotine in a pack of cigarettes — about 200 puffs, he said. Today, products on the market advertise up to 15,000 puffs.
“This is important because unlike cigarettes, there is no high when vaping,” Levy explained. “It’s like popcorn. Before you know it, you’ve eaten it all.”
The survey also found that use of nicotine pouches, including the Zyn brand, is holding steady among teens, Levy said. Tobacco-free pouches, which users stick between their lip and gum and then throw away, are often undetectable because they are not smoked or spit out.
In the survey, 1.8% of young people reported having used nicotine pouches in 2024, a figure similar to the 1.5% who reported using them in 2023. This represents around half a million people. Of these, 22.4% reported using them daily.
The most widely used in that group was Zyn, a Swedish brand acquired by Philip Morris in 2022.
Levy called the products “problematic” because they are often confused with nicotine replacement therapies used by adults to help them quit smoking.
“They are very, very different,” he said. “It’s a different form of nicotine than what’s in FDA-certified nicotine replacement, where you have a slow, steady release of nicotine that suppresses withdrawal symptoms and helps prevent cravings.”
“It’s not going to help you quit smoking,” he added.
