In the state of Minnesota in the United States, for the first time since 2000, a survey shows that “smoking” among young people has increased. Some experts do not hesitate to openly accuse the electronic cigarette of being responsible for this increase.
SMOKING ... VAPING ... SAME FIGHT IN MINNESOTA!
According to a new survey of young people in Minnesota, “smoking” has increased in recent years from 24,6% in 2014 to 26,4% today. The results of Minnesota Youth Tobacco Survey show that the adoption of electronic cigarettes by young people would have reversed the trend of decreasing smoking in the long term. These data explain that today one in five students is a vaper, an increase of almost 50% since the last survey conducted in 2014.
At the same time, smoking among young people has reached its lowest level with less than 10% of smokers among high school students, a drop of 70% since 2000. And while health services should be satisfied with Such figures, we discover with amazement that, on the contrary, they are worried about the presence of vaping among young people.
According to Jan Malcom, Minnesota Health Commissioner: " The use of electronic cigarettes is a threat to our prevention efforts on tobacco products". He does not hesitate to draw a parallel between vaping and tobacco products: " As we were able to reduce cigarette consumption to less than 10% among high school students, which gave us hope that a smoke-free generation was within reach, the tobacco industry responded with new products »
For the Dr Peter Dehnel, pediatrician and medical director of the Twin Cities Medical Society, there is no doubt “ The use of electronic cigarettes is particularly dangerous for young people". According to him " Electronic cigarettes provide a platform for illicit drugs and nicotine, which we know is highly addictive and can interfere with brain development as adolescents grow older, impairing learning, memory, and attention. . »
Many communities are already taking action to “protect” young people. The state of Minnesota is actively working to reduce young people's access to these products by adopting new policies, including raising the minimum age for the sale of tobacco to 21 years.
