Growth in the use of e-cigarettes has not led to more young people taking up tobacco smoking, new research suggests. The latest in a string of studies on a subject that continues to divide opinion found perceptions against tobacco smoking have hardened in recent years, although it does not establish why. The results of ‘Have e-cigarettes re-normalised or displaced youth smoking?’ were published in Tobacco Control by the British Medical Journal (BMJ). According to the researchers in the latest study, surveys in several countries indicate that smoking rates have dropped among young people although the speed of decline is less well understood. The latest study will feed a growing debate on “vaping” which, as pointed out by the Irish Heart Foundation’s Dr Patrick Doorley in a letter to The Irish Times last February, is “very much in progress”.

Source: The Irish Times April 01, 2019 22:30 UTC