A new MyVoice study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association of Pediatrics provides new evidence to the counterproductive measures of flavored vaping bans pursued by lawmakers and encouraged by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to curb teenage nicotine addiction.
The report, titled, “Youth Perceptions of Juul in the United States,” published in May shows flavored cartridges played little to no role in driving up teen vaping, a hysterical epidemic to begin with. More on that here.
The authors of the study which surveyed 1,129 individuals aged 14 to 24 via text message found that a mere 5 percent reported it was the different flavors that attracted them to e-cigarettes. Instead, researchers found, young people are using e-cigarette devices as part of natural teenage experimentation and efforts to seek social inclusion. In other words, kids are doing it to look cool.
“It’s not just about the flavors, it’s about understanding the motivations for using these products, and their attitudes toward risk,” MyVoice founder and senior author Tammy Chang told RealClearPolicy. “They’re more savvy than we think they are, and they’re using it because it’s about being cool and about the experimentation that happens naturally in adolescence. Reducing teen and young adult use of these products, especially under current policies, will require an evidence-based approach.”
The FDA and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) however, have pushed forward with an aggressive campaign to curb what the federal public health agencies have declared an epidemic in teen vaping contrary to the evidence supporting such claims.
Just weeks before the U.S. was forced to confront the worst public health crisis to face the world in generations, American Greatness Senior News Editor Elizabeth Sheld pointed out in RealClearPolicy that the FDA declared in January that the agency prioritized:
Enforcement against certain unauthorized flavored e-cigarette products that appeal to kids, including fruit and mint flavors. Under this policy, companies that do not cease manufacture, distribution and sale of unauthorized flavored cartridge-based e-cigarettes (other than tobacco or menthol) within 30 days risk FDA enforcement actions.
While federal agencies continue to push its war on vaping, smokers seeking an alternative to cigarettes which are the leading cause of preventable death are the true victims from policymakers seeking to outlaw safer resources that have been shown to be the most effective form of smoking cessation. According to a landmark 2015 study conducted by the British government, researchers found that vaping is 95 percent safer than using traditional combustible cigarettes.
Flavored vaping bans strip smokers of far less harmful tools of smoking cessation in the righteous name of combating teen vaping when adolescent use of e-cigarettes has nothing to do with the flavored cartridges.
