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 Forty-five percent of tobacco and vape shops sold e-cigarettes and
vaping supplies to researchers posing as underage shoppers, the
analysis also found. Sales violations were more common with vaping
products than with traditional cigarettes.
"We don't know why underage sales were more common for vape products
than cigarettes, however, young people are more likely to use vape
products rather than cigarettes," said lead study author April
Roeseler of the California Tobacco Control Program at the California
Department of Public Health in Sacramento.
Between the 2016 and 2018 school years, vaping among California high
school students increased by 27%, rising from 8.6% to 10.9%, while
use of all other tobacco products decreased, Roeseler said by email.
Only 2% of California high school students smoke cigarettes. Among
California adults under age 30, 9.4% use vape products, compared to
only 1.8% of adults over age 30.
"Flavored products seem to be fueling the rise in these products,"
Roeseler added.
Across the U.S., vaping surged 78% among high school students from
2017 to 2018, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, a spike driven largely by flavored vaping products. In
an effort to combat this trend, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration announced its intent to limit sales of flavored
tobacco products, with the exception of menthol, to age-restricted
adult-only locations like tobacco and vape shops.
The study results, however, suggest that limiting sales to tobacco
and vape shops won't help and might actually hurt efforts to curb
underage smoking and vaping.
That's a problem because habits that start at an earlier age may be
more likely to stick.
"Nicotine is very addictive and is detrimental to the developing
brain, whether administered via cigarettes or vaping products," said
Jessica Barrington-Trimis, an assistant professor of preventive
medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
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"The earlier that kids begin using nicotine, the greater the
likelihood of the development of addiction and the harder it is to
quit using nicotine products," Barrington-Trimis, who wasn't
involved in the study, said by email. "There is also a substantial
literature showing that youth who vape are significantly more likely
than those who have not vaped to subsequently begin smoking and to
follow a similar trajectory into more frequent cigarette use
patterns."
California raised the legal age of tobacco sales from 18 to 21 in
2016. Researchers posing as shoppers in the study appeared to be 18
to 19 years old, below the legal age for purchasing these products
in California.
They were randomly assigned to buy either traditional cigarettes or
vape products at tobacco and vape shops, liquor stores, small
markets, convenience stores, and pharmacies in California.
Among all the stores, pharmacies were the most likely to check for
IDs and the least likely to sell tobacco and vaping products to
underage shoppers.
"Violations could be even more frequent elsewhere, given notably
strong local tobacco control policies and anti-vaping public
messaging in California," said Benjamin Chaffee of the Center for
Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of
California San Francisco.
Still, the study findings "challenge the assumption that limiting
the sales of vape products to adult-only tobacco and vape shops will
successfully reduce youth access to these products," Chaffee, who
wasn't involved in the study, said by email. "On the contrary, these
establishments were the most likely to sell to youth."
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2XCFgEe JAMA Pediatrics, online June 24, 2019.
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