(WASHINGTON) — Fewer adolescents are vaping this year than at any point in the last decade, government officials reported Thursday, pointing to a shrinking number of high school students who are using Elf Bar and other fruity, unauthorized e-cigarettes.
The latest survey numbers show the teen vaping rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% in 2023. More than 1.6 million students reported vaping in the previous month — about one-third the number in 2019, when underage vaping peaked with the use of discrete, high-nicotine e-cigarettes like Juul.
This year’s decline was mainly driven by a half-million fewer high school students who reported using e-cigarettes in the past month, officials said. Vaping was unchanged among middle schoolers, but remains less common in that group, at 3.5% of students.
“This is a monumental public health win,” FDA’s tobacco director Brian King told reporters. “But we can’t rest on our laurels. There’s clearly more work to do to further reduce youth use.”
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King and other officials noted that the drop in vaping didn’t coincide with a rise in other tobacco industry products, such as nicotine pouches.
Sales of small, flavored pouches like Zyn have surged among adults. The subject of viral videos on social media platforms, the pouches come in flavors like mint and cinnamon and slowly release nicotine when placed along the gumline. This year’s U.S. survey shows 1.8% of teens are using them, largely unchanged from last year.
“Our guard is up,” King said. “We’re aware of the reported growing sales trends and we’re closely monitoring the evolving tobacco product landscape.”
The federal survey involved more than 29,000 students in grades 6 through 12 who filled out an online questionnaire in the spring. Health officials consider the survey to be their best measure of youth tobacco and nicotine trends. Thursday’s update focused on vaping products and nicotine pouches, but the full publication will eventually include rates of cigarette and cigar smoking, which have also hit historic lows in recent years.
Officials from the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attributed the big drop in vaping to recent age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers, including Chinese vaping companies who have sold their e-cigarettes illegally in the U.S. for years.
Use of the most popular e-cigarette among teens, Elf Bar, fell 36% in the wake of FDA warning letters to stores and distributors selling the brightly colored vapes, which come in flavors like watermelon ice and peach mango. The brand is part of a wave of cheap, disposable e-cigarettes from China that have taken over a large portion of the U.S. vaping market. The FDA has tried to block such imports, although Elf Bar and other brands have tried to find workarounds by changing their names, addresses and logos.
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Teen use of major American e-cigarettes like Vuse and Juul remained significant, with about 12% of teens who vape reporting use of those those brands.
In 2020, FDA regulators banned fruit and candy flavors from reusable e-cigarettes like Juul, which are now only sold in menthol and tobacco. But the flavor restriction didn’t apply to disposable products, and companies like Elf Bar stepped in to fill the gap.
Other key findings in the report:
— Among students who current use e-cigarettes, about 26% said they vape daily.
— Nearly 90% of the students who vape used flavored products, with fruit flavors as the overwhelming favorite.
— Zyn is the most common nicotine pouch among teens who use the products.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
