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posted by CoolHand on Friday December 09 2016, @01:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the vape-em-if-you-got-em dept.

The U.S. surgeon general has warned against surging e-cigarette use among teenagers, calling it a "major public health concern" in a new report:

The U.S. surgeon general is calling e-cigarettes an emerging public health threat to the nation's youth. In a report being released Thursday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy acknowledged a need for more research into the health effects of "vaping," but said e-cigarettes aren't harmless and too many teens are using them. "My concern is e-cigarettes have the potential to create a whole new generation of kids who are addicted to nicotine," Murthy told The Associated Press. "If that leads to the use of other tobacco-related products, then we are going to be moving backward instead of forward."

[...] Federal figures show that last year, 16 percent of high school students reported at least some use of e-cigarettes - even some who say they've never smoked a conventional cigarette. While not all contain nicotine, Murthy's report says e-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco-related product among youth. Nicotine is bad for a developing brain no matter how it's exposed, Murthy said. "Your kids are not an experiment," he says in a public service announcement being released with the report.

It's already illegal to sell e-cigarettes to minors. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration issued new rules that, for the first time, will require makers of nicotine-emitting devices to begin submitting their ingredients for regulators to review.

Also at USA Today, NYT, The Hill, and The Washington Post.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Kilo110 on Friday December 09 2016, @02:07PM

    by Kilo110 (2853) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 09 2016, @02:07PM (#439152)

    I suppose the issue is kids who pick up vaping that wouldn't have taken up smoking. Vaping is seen as safer than smoking and perhaps more fun and enjoyable considering all the different flavors out there. Therefore there would be less hesitation to try them.

    I've never touched cigarettes, and as an adult, I personally have no interest in vaping. But I do wonder what I would've done had vaping been around while I was a teenager.

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