“Sometimes I use it to relax,” the 18-year-old senior said of
the device. He also uses it to perform tricks with the vapor,
blowing smoke rings or creating funnels of smoke that look like
miniature tornadoes.
“I don’t do it to show off,” he said. “I just do them because
I’m bored.”
Tarazon’s embrace of such tricks reflects a growing trend
among U.S. teenagers, whose use of e-cigarettes tripled in the
last year alone. New research provided to Reuters has found that
performing tricks is one of the top two reasons young users say
they consider the devices cool.
Public health officials have warned for several years of the
attraction of flavored nicotine liquid to teens and tweens, and
have urged regulators to ban them. Consumers have a wide range
of flavor choices, including menthol, single-malt scotch,
cappuccino and pomegranate.
But the role of tricks in enticing young people to use
e-cigarettes has not previously been explored. Now researchers
are asking whether they could help hook a new generation who
otherwise would not have used nicotine.
"We expected the flavors were attractive," said Suchitra
Krishnan-Sarin, a psychiatry professor at the Yale School of
Medicine. “But smoke tricks were a surprise to us.”
Krishnan-Sarin and her team, with funding from the
National Institutes of Health, asked 5,400 Connecticut teens to
identify what they found "cool about e-cigarettes?"
The top two answers were: the flavors of the vaping liquids,
and the “ability to do tricks.”
Electronic devices produce much more vapor, especially when
adjusted to operate at high temperatures, than conventional
cigarettes, which helps facilitate the vapor tricks. Teen
interest in performing them comes as “cloud competitions,” are
increasing in popularity.
The contests, in which adult vapers, as they call themsleves,
compete to perform the best tricks and create the biggest and
densest vapor clouds, are becoming a regular feature at local
vape shops. Some regional competitions offer thousands of
dollars in prize money.
Thousands of videos demonstrating expert vaping and how to
perform tricks have been posted on YouTube and Instagram. “Even
if (teenagers) don’t attend these events they are exposed to a
lot of these issues,” Krishnan-Sarin said.
ALARM OVER TEEN USE
E-cigarette use by U.S. tweens and teens tripled in 2014
to 13.4 percent from 4.5 percent in 2013, according to data
released in April by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Overall tobacco use during that period dropped to
9.2 percent from 12.7 percent. For a graphic, see: http://link.reuters.com/fes54w
The data prompted new alarm among public health advocates,
who urged the Obama administration to quickly finalize proposed
rules that will allow the Food and Drug Administration to
regulate e-cigarettes for the first time.
