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Science

Teens Are Struggling To Quit Smoking and Vaping (theverge.com) 164

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
More adolescents failed to quit smoking in 2020 than in any of the previous 13 years, according to new data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 2020 was the first year the research team had data on attempts to quit e-cigarettes, and it showed that around 4 percent of adolescents unsuccessfully attempted to quit e-cigarettes. From a report: E-cigarettes have been pushed to adult smokers as an alternative to traditional, combustible cigarettes -- some evidence shows they might be less dangerous, and there's mixed evidence that they could push adults to quit smoking altogether. But the picture might be different for teens, who started vaping in droves in 2018 and are far less likely to be cigarette smokers first. The new analysis shows that for younger people, the introduction of e-cigarettes made quitting more difficult.

The new study includes data from the Monitoring the Future study, which surveys eighth, 10th, and 12th grade students. It includes a question asking the participants if they had ever tried to stop smoking and found that they could not. In 2020, it added a question asking if they'd ever tried to stop vaping nicotine and found that they could not. From 1997 to 2019, the survey found that the number of students who reported using cigarettes and the percent of adolescents estimated to have tried and failed to quit smoking both dropped.
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Teens Are Struggling To Quit Smoking and Vaping

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  • "We don’t smoke that shit. We just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black, and stupid."
    -RJ Reynolds Executive as told by Dave Goerlitz, "Winston Man" Ad model

    • It would be interesting to see what proportion of executives at Philip Morris, etc, smoke as compared to the general population. I assume that they are very aware of the health issues; although they could be just as stupid as the typical smoker.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        It would be interesting to see what proportion of executives at Philip Morris, etc, smoke as compared to the general population. I assume that they are very aware of the health issues; although they could be just as stupid as the typical smoker.

        I watched a documentary years ago where they were interviewing tobacco bailers in Virginia. The interviewer asked this guy if he smoked and he laughed out loud and said, "Do you know what this stuff does to you? No one here smokes that I know."

        • I watched a documentary years ago where they were interviewing tobacco bailers in Virginia. The interviewer asked this guy if he smoked and he laughed out loud and said, "Do you know what this stuff does to you? No one here smokes that I know."

          Depending on what safety gear they used and precautions they took, those bailers may already have been addicted to nicotine. According to this source [cdc.gov] "Occupational handling of tobacco leaves may result in green tobacco sickness caused by dermal absorption of nicotine". I'm not sure, but I imagine that regular transdermal absorption of smaller amounts would result in addiction.

      • I knew 5-6 people that worked for them in the 70's through the 90's, and they smoked heavily at the time. They were down to 2/day when they hit 75 or so, but plenty of damage.

      • If you are asking about today I would guess that very few if any of the executives smoke. Why would they? It is dumb. We know it is dumb. Everyone has known it is dumb for several decades. It has been very well known as being dumb for the entire lifetimes of these people discussed in the article.
        • Everyone has known it is dumb for several decades. It has been very well known as being dumb for the entire lifetimes of these people discussed in the article.

          And yet, as we've seen with covid and drug use, people ignore the facts because they know more than the experts. Always have, always will.
        • Yup. Last time a company exec got hooked on his own product he ended up yellng "say hello to my liddle friend!" and getting shot in the back. Stay away from your own product.

  • No shit (Score:3)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @11:21AM (#62380167)
    Not surprising. That shit is addicting.

    • I must admit that I carry in me some kind of curiosity to know what it is actually like to try to quit smoking. — A part of me want to become addicted to it, simply to see how hard it is to stop. But this is probably a very bad idea.

      • The science behind why it's so difficult to quit smoking is crystal clear: Nicotine is addictive – reportedly as addictive as cocaine or heroin. https://www.heart.org/en/news/... [heart.org]

        And just like alcohol addition and drug addiction, the craving NEVER goes away. You have to decide to stay smoke free every time you smell cigarette smoke. Not the bad smell you get when a smoker walks past, but the smell of a burning cigarette actively burning. For years, you subconsciously reach for a cigarette after ever

    • The major problem these things have is they put way more nicotine into it than what is in regular tobacco.
      The government needs to put a limit on nicotine content.

  • In European countries, vaping is still considered as a lesser evil than cigarette smoking. We have too much cigarette lobbying for that. I am not stating that vaping is healthy, but if my mother and grandfather only vaped, they might be, as you fear: addicted, but they might still be alive today. Perhaps if vaping were available, I would not have smoked, and might night have collapsed my lung, which gave me problems through my whole life.

    • My anecdotal experience is that Europeans took longer to get to a serious realization that smoking is bad than Americans did.

      Roughly 30 years ago I was working as part of a large (several dozen people) American research group in the Arctic - pretty much no one smoked in our group. At one point we had a get-together with a similarly-sized European group of researchers who were working 30km or so away from our camp. We walked into their dining hut... and I swear you could've cut the air in there with a knife,

      • My non-anecdotal source says that you are right in that smoking is more common in Europe than in the U.S.A.

        https://ourworldindata.org/exports/daily-smoking-prevalence-bounds_v13_850x600.svg

    • I am pretty sure that if I had got onto vaping, I would not have ended up in hospital with throat cancer. I got nicotine patches while I was in hospital, which seemed to do the trick. I had a couple of attempts at getting myself off the patches after I left hospital. My radiotherapy consultant advised me to keep up with the patches, until I had completed my treatment. There were withdrawal side effects, which combined with the radiation effects in a nasty way.

      One of the side effect of nicotine withdrawal ap

  • Less unhealthy (Score:3)

    by doconnor ( 134648 ) on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @11:34AM (#62380201) Homepage

    Believing it to be less unhealthy means less pressure on yourself to quit, so they fail more often.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      Except that addiction isn't quite so simple. Addiction is about changes to the amygdala, septum, and thalamus. Nicotine also screws with the dopamine system. Peer pressure has an impact, sure, but overriding the neurological impact of addiction goes well beyond anything involved here.

      To complicate things further, nicotine actually boosts the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, acting as a mood stabiliser and boosting fine motor functions, attention, working memory, and episodic memory. In consequence, those

      • This doesn't explain why vaping is harder to quit then smoking.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jd ( 1658 )

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]

          "Twenty-four vapers and 23 smokers participated to the study. They were asked to obtain 10 puffs in 5minutes and then use the EC ad lib for 60 more minutes (total duration of use: 65minutes). An 18mg/mL nicotine-containing liquid was used. Blood samples were obtained at baseline, 5-minutes and every 15minutes thereafter, while number of puffs and average puff duration were recorded. Although at baseline both groups had similar plasma nicotine levels, smokers consistently exh

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          I'm still waiting for an analysis that actually shows vaping to be harder to quit. Based on what I can see (since I don't have an account to read the actual paper), they compared the percentage of all teens that tried and failed to quit smoking to the percent of all teens that tried and failed to quit vaping.

          The latter was higher, but that isn't controlled for the percentage of all teens that smoked or vaped in the first place. For all we know based on those figures, 2 percent of teens tried smoking, tried

    • Well, it is less unhealthy, but you're probably right. I think a bigger factor though was that in 2020, people were under quite a bit of stress. Nicotine treats the symptoms of stress. Quitting nicotine greatly increases stress. Being stuck in your house instead of having your hands, mind and mouth occupied with being at school or work is exactly the sort of thing that turns light smokers into chain smokers
  • "...Some evidence shows they might be less dangerous". I don't think there's any evidence that PG/VG/nicotine e-cigarettes are dangerous at all. What's dangerous is assuming that e-cigarettes are dangerous, that justifies destructive laws like the PACT act.
    • Selling something based on a model of addiction is bad, mmK? Even alcohol had it's rough times of being legal. Everyone generally agrees making money off other people's addiction is basic Scum mentality. SCUM.

      Hey it's a free market, but I am also free to think these companies are SCUM.
      • Wait, I'm not saying vaping is good or bad, I'm saying that it's not dangerous to one's health. Yes, it's a real drag being addicted to something (I know, I'm addicted to nicotine) - but thank goodness there's a non-dangerous way (e-cigarettes) for me to get by (even though I have to mix my own juice because of the PACT act).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        Note that most studies of the addictive nature of nicotine are actually studies of the addictive nature of nicotine plus the MAO inhibitors in cigarettes that potentiate addiction.

      • > Everyone generally agrees making money off other people's addiction is basic Scum mentality. SCUM.

        People who don't understand basic economic think this, but most economists consider those people to supplying things that people want, the same way people want potatoes (have you tried to quit eating?).

        If you prohibit things then you turn people from being 'slaves' of their addictions into *slaves* of criminal organisations.

        Prohibition leads to worse results than the problems with the commodities prohibite

        • Yes, I used to pay someone to mix my nicotine ejuice. Now that person doesn't have a job. Thank you government.
      • But since the context is medical, not ethical, that's a non-sequitur.
    • Yeah, logic alone indicates that common food additives that we know aren't harmful, plus nicotine is going to be far less harmful than everything in cigarette smoke, which we know is harmful.

  • Cigarette companies used propaganda and industrial marketing to get young women to start smoking by calling them Torches of Freedom [youtu.be] (Century of Self documentary)

  • For me it was Copenhagen. I started in the army and enjoyed it immensely. I've got a fondness for bitter flavors and I really liked the taste of Copenhagen. I quit whenever someone I was dating asked me to but I always went back. After 20 years of it I finally got tired of it and I was surprised at how easy it was to put it down for good. That was around 16 years ago. Never give it a thought now.

  • it's a mystery! (Score:4, Funny)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Tuesday March 22, 2022 @12:07PM (#62380319) Homepage Journal

    Teens Are Struggling To Quit Smoking and Vaping

    It's almost like it's addictive or something?

  • As a vaper... (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by cloud.pt ( 3412475 )

    and knowing full well that nicotine is addictive and that the long-term effects of vaping are still hard to fully visualize, I find it abhorrent that vaping and smoking are still put together in these propaganda-style anti-everything articles.

    Vaping got me to quit smoking, in so much better ways than cold turkey, or any other doctor-sanctioned method that gets my entire mind and system fucked up ever did, and I'm way better for it.

    It's like the MRNA vaccine: we know it works, we all accept it against the mu

  • Should never have been allowed by the FDA in the first place, and should be removed from the market now. Proven to be bad for your lungs, and now proven to be just as addictive as smoking tobacco.
    Humans, why do you continue to be so fucking stupid about some things? The only thing you should be intentionally inhaling into your lungs is fresh, clean air, not tobacco smoke, and not this chemical shit.
    Don't even start with 'muh freedom of choice' or a perversion of 'my body my choice', either, you can't use those to defend something this fucking stupid.

    • Don't even start with 'muh freedom of choice' or a perversion of 'my body my choice', either, you can't use those to defend something this fucking stupid.

      Meanwhile we have an horrible obesity epidemic in this country that is killing far more people then vaping.

      Eating yourself to death is far more stupid only being fat is now so previlent that I'm sure plenty of people don't even feel the social pressures they should to take control of their lives.

      If you wanted to ban something in the name of saving idiot's lives fast food should be the very first thing that comes to mind. This is not something I'm advocating for with this post however, I'm just pointing out

      • This is why nothing ever gets fixed, as soon you try to discuss fixing one thing everyone starts bringing other problems into the conversation which eventually causes it all to get overwhelming and in the end nothing gets done.

        -Too many cooks.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          All I'm saying is if you're going to take away people's freedom of choice you should start with the real major problems. Vaping is not creating a health crisis in this country, being fat is.

          • I've read anecdotal accounts about smoking fixing obesity (something about increased metabolism, appetite suppression, etc). Does vaping do the same and more?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by skam240 ( 789197 )

              Nicotine acts as an appetite suppressant like some other stimulants so I would imagine vaping would do the same as smoking.

      • Don't even start with 'muh freedom of choice' or a perversion of 'my body my choice', either, you can't use those to defend something this fucking stupid.

        Meanwhile we have an horrible obesity epidemic in this country that is killing far more people then vaping.

        Eating yourself to death is far more stupid only being fat is now so previlent that I'm sure plenty of people don't even feel the social pressures they should to take control of their lives.

        If you wanted to ban something in the name of saving idiot's lives fast food should be the very first thing that comes to mind. This is not something I'm advocating for with this post however, I'm just pointing out that even our children are fat as fuck now and that we have a far bigger health crisis than vaping in this country.

        Sorry, no. You don't need to vape to survive, but you do need to eat. Not everyone can afford quality, healthy food. Yes, I know you technically can subsist on lettuce and cabbage, but anything that's healthy AND doesn't taste like green cardboard is much more expensive than junk, processed food. Getting into vaping on the other hand is pure moronism, plain and simple, no excuses.

        • Not everyone can afford quality, healthy food.

          You're perpetuating a myth. I can make a variety of very healthy and tastes meals for half the price or less of your average fast food meal and at one point in my life that was my life style as I was pretty money poor and I straight up couldnt afford fast food. I ate very healthy though, you just have to know how to shop and cook.

          Again though, I'm not advocating for shutting down fast food, I'm just saying it would make infinitely more sense then banning vaping as it does have its place as alternative to sm

          • Not everyone can afford quality, healthy food.

            You're perpetuating a myth. I can make a variety of very healthy and tastes meals for half the price or less of your average fast food meal and at one point in my life that was my life style as I was pretty money poor and I straight up couldnt afford fast food. I ate very healthy though, you just have to know how to shop and cook.

            Again though, I'm not advocating for shutting down fast food, I'm just saying it would make infinitely more sense then banning vaping as it does have its place as alternative to smoking for people who can't quit.

            What's fast food? McDonalds? KJC? Subway? What about people who can eat there 1/2 times a week and still be very healthy? Everyone needs to eat, and the line of what's unacceptably unhealthy is very difficult to draw.

            Vaping/smoking however isn't a necessity of life, and there aren't really any "healthy" uses. You can't really ban smoking because of historical and cultural factors, but vaping? There was no need to allow that.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by skam240 ( 789197 )

              Please, your attempt to make things look vague are ridiculous. A caloric or saturated fat limit could easily be applied to food served at restaurants.

              Meanwhile while vaping isn't necessary (neither are high calorie, high fat meals) it is a healthier alternative for those who can't quit smoking. In other words it actually solves a problem for a lot of people.

              Vaping is not at all causing a public health crisis in this country, this is just some bullshit think of the children nonsense. Meanwhile obesity is act

            • Vaping/smoking however isn't a necessity of life, and there aren't really any "healthy" uses. You can't really ban smoking because of historical and cultural factors, but vaping? There was no need to allow that.

              There is a healthy use. Quitting smoking the real stuff.

          • Not everyone can afford quality, healthy food.

            You're perpetuating a myth. I can make a variety of very healthy and tastes meals for half the price or less of your average fast food meal and at one point in my life that was my life style as I was pretty money poor and I straight up couldnt afford fast food. I ate very healthy though, you just have to know how to shop and cook.

            Again though, I'm not advocating for shutting down fast food, I'm just saying it would make infinitely more sense then banning vaping as it does have its place as alternative to smoking for people who can't quit.

            Take the "afford" from my post to mean both "money-" and "time-wise" and the point still stands. Also, note I don't mean fast-food as in outlets, yes, that's somewhat more expensive, I mean the cheap, processed food that you can buy in supermarket. Your hyper-tasty cookies full of trans fats, corn flakes that send your insulin into the sky, cold cuts made of meat ground up with foot-long ingredient list, that kind of stuff.

      • Meanwhile we have an horrible obesity epidemic in this country that is killing far more people then vaping.

        A problem that objectively is being worked on far more so than the problem of vaping.

        I always like when people make a whataboutism comment that actually reinforce the other person's point.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          You're duping a response some one already made. Here's my response.

          "All I'm saying is if you're going to take away people's freedom of choice you should start with the real major problems. Vaping is not creating a health crisis in this country, being fat is."

    • > Don't even start with 'muh freedom of choice' or a perversion of 'my body my choice', either, you can't use those to defend something this fucking stupid.

      Yeah! People should have to join gangs and kill each other if they want to do things that you don't approve of.

      Only bikies, thieves, murderers and sex offenders should be allowed to use drugs of their own choice.

      Prohibition has stopped people using every other drug in existence without ever causing any harm to anyone or society at all. Why wouldn't it

    • Humans, why do you continue to be so fucking stupid about some things?

      I have a rational theory about drug taking. Sometimes life is shit. Why make it even worse by being miserable about it? So people take drugs to cheer them up. It has to be said that tobacco products are one of the worst recreational drugs ever discovered. Highly addictive, with loads of cancer-causing gubbins, smells terrible, and after all that, you don't actually get high.

      • Or to put it a little differently - sometimes people self-medicate. Nicotine treats stress, anxiety and depression. Opioids and alcohol are painkillers. People who are suffering often turn to things that alleviate suffering in order to feel better.

        It's all pretty straightforward when you look at it that way.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I'm comfortable with you doing any activity that doesn't:

        a) unreasonably impact the health or safety of others. For example, driving attentively with a seatbelt on is a reasonable risk. Driving without a seatbelt, or playing on your cell phone, is an unreasonable risk.

        b) unreasonably costs others money. For example, if you get cancer because cancer happens, society should bear the cost of your medical expenses. If you get cancer because you've been smoking three packs a day, society should not bear thos

    • On the list of stupid activities that are unhealthy or risky and aren't going away, vaping isn't even going to make the top ten.

      I have no interest in it, but geez, find another hill to die on. You sound like you're going to stroke out over other people smoking and that would be silly.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dddux ( 3656447 )

      Can you tell me a secret how to find clean air in the city? Do you know what kind of air you're inhaling and how dangerously toxic it is even though you're clearly a non-smoker?

    • Should never have been allowed by the FDA in the first place, and should be removed from the market now.

      God I hope you are not American. What the FUCK kind of stance is that? You think you can tell me what the fuck to do because you have decided it is good or bad for me? Fuck off with that shit. Go start your own fucking country.

  • Subsidize the Tobacco farmers to grow something other than a poison. Nicotine can be synthesized for vapers.

  • For the younger teens at least the parents could have stepped in and stopped them. I know it's hard to control all that your kid does, but vaping costs money and that can be often be controlled.
  • Why is nicotine legal for them if alcohol isn't?

    • It's not legal. They use the black market, online, etc. It only takes a few shady operators in the neighborhood, fake ID, etc. Same way they get weed.

    • It's not. Federal age limit is the same as alcohol: 21 years old

      Glad I could clear that up for you...

  • Vaping avoids some of the risks of traditional smoking. You don't have "tar" or as many additives in the delivery mechanism. Vaping has less effect on people around the person (is second hand vaping even considered a thing?). Vaping still carries risk. As mentioned in other comments, nicotine levels are mostly unregulated in the US, so initiates aren't aware of their drug consumption. Vapes come in kid-friendly flavors (like bubble gum), but nicotine and other drugs have a bigger effect on teens than adults

    • Vaping still carries risk.

      You theoretically get rid of the damage to your respiration, but you still have an addiction problem. The drug is altering your behaviour, and not in a good way. I am not saying that nicotine addiction makes people wicked, as a drug effect, but what about the sheer waste of money? Are there any economists out there who can show any benefits to society as a whole by having a large proportion of the citizens addicted to an expensive drug with no known therapeutic benefits? I am not interested in funding the t

  • In pandemic 2020, when we were all sitting on the couch drinking, smoking weed all day long people had no reason to quit?

    Who would have thought?

  • Best thing I ever did was give smoking. The second best was give up drinking alcohol.

    These highly addictive, toxic substances are a scourge on society.

    • And yet booze is at least as old as society, so "scourge" seems a bit excessive. Hell, animals eat fermented fruit to get drunk, so you could even say it predates humanity.
  • With the incredible number of stresses in everyone's life compared to previous years, even 'just' in 2020, I'm not surprised that people are finding it harder to quit self-medication-type habits.

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