Most young e-cigarette users say they want to quit vaping in 2021

Previous Truth Initiative research published in Addictive Behaviors shows that teens and young adults enrolled in This is Quitting said they were driven to quit because of concerns about health (50.9%), cost (21.7%), the desire to be free from addiction (16%) and social factors such as others’ impressions of them (10.1%).

While health topped the list of reasons that drove young people to quit vaping, with some reporting concerns such as “I can’t breathe. My lungs are weak” and “I want my lungs back,” the study highlights the diverse experiences that motivated young e-cigarette users to quit. Researchers noted that the respondents were more likely to report “freedom from addiction” as a reason for quitting vaping compared to a similar study that examined motivations to quit among young adult smokers. They suggest that since teens included in the current survey grew up in the context of a national, decades-long opioid epidemic, they may have a more acute understanding of addiction than teens who came before them.

Youth and young adults overwhelmingly believe that tobacco and vaping companies lie about the harm of their products, spread faulty research, attract kids with flavored products and should be regulated more, according to the new Truth Initiative report “Seeing Through Big Tobacco’s Spin.” This distrust was reported even among a large majority of tobacco users.

Faced with dramatic declines in smoking, the tobacco industry has been rolling out and aggressively marketing flashy new electronic and flavored products to grow its market among youth and young adults while trying to rebrand its image with large-scale public relations investments disguised as public health initiatives. Young people see through these tactics: In addition to believing that vaping companies lie about how harmful their products are (92%) and believing them to be dishonest about the health effects of their products (69%), young people didn’t buy that tobacco companies are part of the solution to end smoking (65%). They also overwhelmingly believed that the tobacco industry uses fruit and candy flavors to get young people to try e-cigarettes (79%). In fact, research tells us that 97% percent of youth who vape use flavors and more than 80% of youth 12-17 who have used tobacco report that they began with a flavored product.

The coronavirus pandemic is also motivating many young people who use e-cigarettes to quit vaping. An April 2020 Truth Initiative survey found that nearly two-thirds – 62% – of young vapers say they are more interested in quitting vaping now compared to before the coronavirus pandemic, with 57% saying they worry that their vaping puts them at risk of serious illness from coronavirus/COVID-19.

They have good reason to be concerned: Teens and young adults who have vaped may be up to five times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than their non-vaping peers, according to research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Those who reported both e-cigarette and cigarette use in the past 30 days were nearly seven times more likely to test positive and were also almost five times more likely to experience COVID-19-related symptoms compared to those who had never vaped or smoked.