Vaping doubles risk of smoking cigarettes for teens
The study -- from the University of Waterloo and the Wake Forest School of Medicine -- found that students in grades seven to 12 who had tried an e-cigarette are 2.16 times more likely to be susceptible to cigarette smoking. "Since e-cigarettes came on the market there has been a debate about whether their use may lead to cigarette smoking," said Bruce Baskerville, co-author on the study and a researcher at the Propel Centre for Population Health Impact at the University of Waterloo. "The answer among adolescents is yes." Using data from the Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey, the study found almost 10 per cent of students in grades seven to 12 reported ever having used e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes can contain nicotine but not many of the harmful substances produced by smoking tobacco, such as tar or carbon monoxide. These products work through an inhalation-activated system that heats a solution to create an inhalable aerosol, often known as v...