By Angela Garrity

Brinkwire reports that young adult vapers are not turning to tobacco.

 

A new study from Georgetown University Medical Center is offering reassurance over the panic that has ensued, regarding young adult vapers.

 

The new study suggests that if more young adults were going to move from e-cigarettes to regular cigarettes, it would have happened at the 2014 “tipping point”. What the evidence is showing, is that young adult smoking is declining even more rapidly than it has so far.

 

In 2013, cigarettes were almost three times more popular for high school students than vaping was. By 2015, those statics were completely flipped, as 2.39 young adults had vaped and just 1.37 million has smoked combustible cigarettes in the past year.

 

By 2016, 1.7 million young adult aged Americans admitted to vaping regularly in the month prior to being surveyed.

 

The bottom line is, cigarettes are losing popularity in the US in general and particularly among young adults. The cigarette declines really took off in 2013, which coincides with the vaping surge for 18 to 21-year olds.

 

“If vaping was being so widely adopted and so significantly pushed more young Americans to picking up combustibles, we would have already seen smoking take an upward turn or at least for its sharp decline to slow”, the researchers state.

 

“While caution is warranted in interpreting our findings, they paint a consistent picture of accelerated reductions in youth and young adult smoking prevalence as vaping became more widespread,” the researchers add.

 

“If our primary concern is population level trends in youth and young adult smoking, which we believe is appropriate, then vaping has not shown to be a serious cause for concern … and may be playing a contributing role to the recent steep declines in youth and young adult smoking.”