Fewer adolescents are vaping this year than at any point in the last decade, government officials reported last week, pointing to a shrinking number of high school students who are using Elf Bar and other fruity, unauthorized e-cigarettes, the Associated Press reports.
(Mike Mozart via Flickr Creative Commons)Surveys conducted in the spring show self-reports from about 29,000 sixth- through 12th-grade students. The percentage of adolescents who reported vaping in the month before the survey dropped to under 6%, down from 7.7% in 2023. The number represents a decline from peak vape usage in 2019, when it was almost three times as much as teens used discrete, high-nicotine e-cigarettes like Juul.
The numbers changed mostly among high school students, while the number of middle schoolers remained unchanged. However, vaping is much less common among middle schoolers, holding steady at about 3.5%.
“This is a monumental public health win,” the AP quoted FDA’s tobacco director Brian King as saying. “But we can’t rest on our laurels. There’s clearly more work to do to further reduce youth use.”
Officials from the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention credited recent age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers, including Chinese vaping companies who have sold their e-cigarettes illegally in the US for years.
The most popular e-cigarette among teens, Elf Bar, saw a 36% decline in use this year following FDA warning letters to stores and distributors selling the brightly colored vapes, which come in flavors like watermelon ice and peach mango.
