Editorial: The worrisome news on teens and e-cigs

More information is now available on the use of e-cigarettes and, from our vantage point, the news isn't good.

A report released Tuesday by the National Institutes of Health shows nearly 9 percent of eighth-graders said they had used an e-cigarette in the previous month while 4 percent reported smoking a regular cigarette.

As kids get older, the usage increases: 16 percent of 10th-graders and 17 percent of high school seniors have used an e-cig, according to an Associated Press story on the survey.

Those ages also saw a decline in traditional smoking, leading some people to herald the news as welcome because e-cigarettes could be a substitute for regular smoking and be helping smokers to quit.

However, between 4 percent and 7 percent of students who have tried an e-cigarette have said they'd never smoked a traditional cigarette, and therein lies the danger, as e-cigs could be a gateway to regular smoking later.

"I worry that the tremendous progress that we've made over the last almost two decades in smoking could be reversed on us by the introduction of e-cigarettes," said University of Michigan professor Lloyd Johnson, who was in charge of the annual survey.

Local health experts expressed the same misgivings, especially after another survey, published this week in the journal Pediatrics by the University of Hawaii, found that nearly 30 percent of the more than 1,900 teens surveyed had tried an e-cigarette. Of those, 17 percent used only e-cigarettes and 12 percent had smoked both.

"There's no question in my mind that use of e-cigarettes is going up among teens and young adults," said Dr. Kamala Ghaey, a pediatrician with Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago in a story published on the Advocate site. "For some, their parents are approving their use. They don't realize they can get hooked on them as much as they can on tobacco products. In my mind, they're just as bad."

The goal should be to discourage the use of either kind of cigarette, especially for teens. That's why we have been strong proponents of more regulation on the e-cigarette industry nationwide. Clearly the use of fruit flavors is a way to market the product to young people and encourage its use or experimentation. It was a successful marketing ploy for tobacco companies years ago until regulations were put in place.

In addition, more communities should regulate sales and use of the e-cigs just as they do regular cigarettes. Moving the smoking of e-cigs outside with those smoking regular cigarettes is one way to help eliminate the assumption that using an e-cig is healthier.