Drew Wilson
A new survey shows teens aren’t smoking as much as they used to, but they are still finding a way to get nicotine.
The Florida Youth Tobacco Survey, released Tuesday, found that 6.9 percent of Florida high school students smoked cigarettes, a 1.7-point drop from the 8.6 percent who said they smoked “conventional cigarettes” – the kind you light – in 2013.
Shannon Hughes, who directs the Florida Department of Health division overseeing the survey, said the numbers are less than half of what they were when Tobacco Free Florida launched in 2007.
That decrease was outshone by the surge in e-cigarette use among teens, though. Nearly 16 percent of respondents said they used e-cigarettes, up from 5.4 percent in 2013. E-cigarettes vaporize liquid nicotine, often with added flavorings, to give an experience similar to smoking without some of the negatives from conventional cigarettes, such as odor and tar.
“This alarming increase in e-cigarette use among teens has the potential to normalize smoking again after decades of hard work in Florida and across the country to reverse that norm,” Hughes said in a news release. “We are evaluating the best way to address this trend because, while there is much debate about e-cigarettes, we can all agree it is vital that we prevent our youth from becoming addicted to anything, including e-cigarettes and tobacco products of any kind.”
The release said FDOH has a “watchful eye” on e-cigarettes, but is waiting for regulation from the Food and Drug Administration. Florida banned e-cigarette sales to minors in 2014, though many retailers sell the devices online without age verification.
The Florida Youth Tobacco Survey has been put out since 1998, with state level results released every other year.
