A lot of e-cigarette users can’t wait to have their first vape of the day, so much so that a huge proportion of adolescent vapers are ‘lighting up’ within five minutes of waking up.
A survey of 151,573 teenagers in the US revealed the percentage of vapers who used their e-cigarettes when they first woke up rose from one per cent between 2014 and 2017 to 10.3 per cent from 2017 to 2021.
The study, which was published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open, also revealed the use of e-cigarettes among teenagers has increased from nine or fewer days a month in 2014 to ten or more in 2021.
Researchers from San Francisco and Massachusetts General Hospital wrote that the pandemic could have had an impact on why teens are picking up vaping more than ever before.
It noted that many people are self-medicating with nicotine to cope with adolescent depression, anxiety, tic disorders, and suicidal thoughts, as a result of Covid-19 restrictions.
Indeed, the percentage of teens who used e-cigarettes before any other tobacco product rose from 27.2 per cent in 2014 to 78.3 per cent in 2019, before dropping slightly to 77 per cent in 2021.
“The pandemic has also been a lost year for school-based prevention,” the researchers added, which is why teens have become more used to vaping over the last few years.
There has clearly been a shift in the adolescent e-cigarette market lately, with more young people taking up vaping instead of cigarettes.
According to ASH, the percentage of regular smokers at 15 years old in England has dropped from 25 per cent in 1982 to five per cent in 2018.
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