State regulators have determined that with the low amount of high school students smoking on a daily basis the stats are considered negligible.
This is from a statewide survey done last year as funded by the California’s Dept of Public Health’s Tobacco Control Program. Add to that data, the state’s vaping rate among students in California is also 50% less than the country average. Only 1.2% of high school students vaped in the last 30 days which is a 40% decrease from the last two years.
Among those that vaped, less than 1 in 4 vaped 20 or more days a month – which to those analyzing the data claim that this is evidence that the majority of teenage vaping is experimental. They liken it to a fad more than an “epidemic of addiction” which anti-tobacco enthusiasts would like you to believe and paints a much different picture than the panic driven anti tobacco messaging that portrays high schools packed with desperate kids needing to get a hit of nicotine between classes. What those stats mean on a whole is that across the board only one or two students in the entire school actually smoke regularly!
Check this stat out, California teens used marijuana at almost double the rate at which they vaped nicotine with 15% consuming cannabis in the past 30 days. From 2019 to 2020 when the study was done, there was a 29% national decline in vaping which could be explained by multiple factors including the incorrect questions were not asked in the survey to dial deeper into this stat, cheap prefilled THC carts and pens proliferated in the legal and illegal cannabis markets country-wide between 2018 and 2019 and then declined as word spread about EVALI – the outbreak cause by illicit THC carts diluted with Vit E acetate.
Not surprisingly, High School students primarily vape fruit flavors much like their adult counterparts – the study alluded that there was no getting around that fact in any soft way – its a real backbone of the reason kids vape. 92.6% of students vape flavored products but when only 2% of high school students are vaping – 92.6% or 2% total is not a lot.
The sensationalization of youth vaping is harmful to the overall industry that typically caters to an adult consumer that is responsible for their habit and turns to vaping as a solution to either reduce harmful nicotine and tobacco from their life and to responsibly stop smoking. The anti-tobacco campaigns only paint one picture so its mindful to be aware of both sides of the coin in such a controversial topic.