Fantastic news! The 2019 YRBS data shows youth smoking continues to decline and youth daily smoking is almost non-existent. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/factsheets/2019_tobacco_trend_yrbs.htm

I'd happily wager that within five years, daily, frequent and current smoking among youth will be eliminated. For almost a decade, we've been told the prevalence of e-cigarettes will cause a massive uptick in kids smoking. Once again, this has proven to be 100% false.

Unfortunately, youth vaping is still a problem albeit still a minority pursuit. What's interesting is the most common source of e-cigs (42.8%) was borrowing them from someone else. So not vape shops, convenience stores, or online.

Coverage will probs focus on the issue of e-cig flavors but reporters should remember Juul pulled fruity and sweet flavors in 2018. Age of purchase has now been raised to 21 and most flavors have been banned in the products most popular with youth. https://www.medpagetoday.com/pulmonology/smoking/76318#:~:text=Juul%20Labs%20CEO%20Kevin%20Burns,stores%20that%20sell%20the%20product.

More prohibitions won't solve the problem of youth vaping just like drug prohibition didn't stop kids using weed. The bans we already have are causing older vapers to go back to smoking. https://www.ocregister.com/2020/08/18/as-vaping-bans-increase-people-turn-back-to-more-harmful-traditional-cigarettes/

Vaping is dramatically safer than smoking and has helped millions quit. To pretend youth vaping presents anywhere near the harm of smoking is disingenuous. But this is precisely what YRBS does when it lumps vaping in with "tobacco product usage." E-cigs contain zero tobacco.

In 2019, 480,000 Americans died from smoking. Zero died from vaping nicotine. Let’s get some perspective before we make nicotine the focus of Drug War 2.0.