Lies, damn lies and (vaping) statistics
Fewer teenagers appear to be using e-cigarettes, but the FDA and anti-nicotine crusaders see only reasons to regulate.
You wouldn’t know it by reading press releases from the FDA or CDC or by listening to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids or the Truth Initiative, but the US government released encouraging news last week about youth vaping.
The headline from the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey should have been this: Teen vaping has fallen by 60 percent in the last two years.
About 11.3 percent of high school students reported vaping, and most did so infrequently. That’s down from 19.6 percent in 2020 and far fewer than the 27.5 percent who reported using e-cigarettes in 2019.
Better yet, just 3.1 percent of high school students vaped daily, the survey reports. These are the kids who, sadly, appear to be addicted to nicotine. But their numbers are falling, too.
It would appear that the teen vaping epidemic is over, at least according to the dictionary definition of epidemic as “a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease.” In retrospect, the so-called epidemic may have been more of a passing storm than a deep-seated social problem.
