The number of high school students who reported using e-cigarettes fell to 10 percent in the spring of this year from 14 percent last year, according to the results of an annual survey released on Thursday by federal health agencies.
Vaping rose just slightly among middle school students, to 4.6 percent this year from 3.3 percent in 2022. The use of traditional cigarettes among high school students remained at a record low of less than 2 percent. Disposable Vape
The decline in high school vaping rates was “encouraging,” said Linda Neff, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the lead author on the latest survey report. But she said the results for older teenagers were tempered by very small increases in middle school students reporting tobacco use.
One thing is clear about underage e-cigarette use: Adolescents like flavors. About 90 percent of the students who reported vaping said they used flavored products, citing favorites that tasted like fruit and candy.
Teenagers identified Elf Bar and Esco Bar as their favorite brands, well-known for flavors like strawberry kiwi and watermelon ice.
Public health advocates in California recognized the allure, leading to a yearslong fight to pass a ban on flavored tobacco products, which took effect in December. It quickly led to falling sales, according to data from the C.D.C. Foundation. From December 2022 to June of this year, flavored e-cigarette sales fell by nearly 70 percent, to 179,000 from about 575,000 vapes or refills.
The ban no doubt made it harder for young people to buy vapes in California, where you must be 21 to buy tobacco products.
Public health experts also linked other state and local flavor bans and education campaigns to the falling high school vaping rate, which is the lowest in nearly a decade. And a few years ago, under public pressure, Juul, which had once been the most popular brand, withdrew most of its flavors from the market.
The survey was given in about 180 schools nationwide, and was released by the C.D.C. and the Food and Drug Administration. It reported on e-cigarette use in the last 30 days but did not include any state-specific information.
In all, about 2.1 million middle and high school students reported using e-cigarettes, down from 2.5 million last year. But surveys conducted during a few previous years since the peak of the vaping crisis in 2019 have carried notes of caution about drawing strict comparisons year-to-year because of pandemic conditions when students were in and out of school.
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