University of Florida Teen E-cig Survey

[Bob Chill]

I couldn't find a thread on the study released on the 6th. If there is one, please delete this thread There's a lot of news stories saying the same thing so I don't see the need to break a link and post it here.

Some interesting findings that even though are presented improperly, once you filter the spin it does in fact support that e-cigs don't appear to be a gateway to traditional cigs (shocker!). Also, the increase in teen ecig use appears to be directly tied to a decrease in teen tobacco cigarette use. Kind blows a few holes through the agenda driven certainty that teens that use ecigs will quickly jump on the tobacco cig bandwagon. I've been blowing up Disqus comments with various article just for fun.

Here's the important quote from the study that can only be found in a few news articles. Most leave it out:

“Our cigarette rates for teens were actually headed downward, and we were much lower than the national level," Barnett said. "The problem is, we also look to be a state that is leading the way in both e-cigarette and hookah use. It just was a really frustrating thing to see cigarette use heading downward and then other product use heading up.”

Of course Barnett calls it "frustrating" when it should be considered "encouraging" but that will never happen. The short story of the study is that ecig use appears to be replacing regular cigarette use among teens and there is no connection that teen ecig users are moving towards regular cigarette use after trying ecigs. It appears to be the other way around and contrary to what public health organizations and the Gov wants us to believe. Not that anyone here should be surprised. We knew it all along.

Of course I don't condone or encourage teen use of either but teens are teens. They will experiment. It's what they do. And they will do it with things far more dangerous than ecigs. They actually have a choice now other than yes or no to tobacco cigarettes (unlike the vast majority of us on the forum).

I try to quote this as much as possible in my comments to articles:

As a father of 4 children and ex-smoker, I'm thrilled there is an alternative out there. Of course I don't encourage my kids to try anything but all parents know life isn't that simple. There's a big difference between nicotine consumption and cigarette addiction. It took cigarette companies decades to perfectly engineer their addiction sticks and it has nothing to do with nicotine. Cigarette companies realized long ago that just tobacco leaves wasn't addictive enough so they figured out that adding thousands of chemicals to the mix did the trick in pinning millions into a powerful addiction.
Ecigarettes aren't even in the same universe as what the big tobacco companies concocted. But for some twisted reason everyone wants us to believe they are the same. Thankfully I can think for myself and not fall for lies, misinformation, and half truths spewing incessantly out of the mouths of people that the public is supposed to trust.