The results of the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), which is funded by taxpayers, were announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and partners in a closed-door meeting in the United States. Among the partners at the meeting were well-known anti-smoking organizations such as the Parent Anti-Vaping E-Cigarette Organization and the Truth Initiative.
Opponents of marijuana use rejoice as a report from 2022 shows that there has been an increase in marijuana use among young people in the period 2021-2022. However, contrary to what is still being referred to as an "epidemic" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overall, marijuana use among young people has significantly decreased. Unfortunately, as the CDC and other national organizations continue to denounce the false notion of a so-called "teen vaping epidemic", this message is being ignored.
In 2022, 3.3% of middle school students and 14.1% of high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the past month, meaning they had used e-cigarettes at least once in the 30 days before the survey. Among middle school students, there was an increase of 17.9% in e-cigarette use in the past month, and for high school students, there was an increase of 24.8%.
Overall, in 2022, approximately 2.55 million American middle and high school students reported using electronic cigarette products in the previous month, according to a survey. This represents a slight increase from the previous month's figures of 1.72 million high school students and 320,000 middle school students in 2021. However, these numbers are significantly lower compared to 2019 when 5.3 million middle and high school students reported using electronic cigarette products in the 30 days prior to the survey, including 4.1 million high school students (27.5%) and 1.2 million middle school students (10.5%).
In fact, there are nearly 2.75 million fewer young people in 2022 compared to 2019. Between 2019 and 2022, the usage of steam products among high school students decreased by 48.7% last month and by 68.6% among middle school students.
Of course, as they did for 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and their "partner" organizations quickly stated that the surveys for 2022 and 2021 cannot be compared to previous years due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and changes in survey methodology.
In 2021, around 50.8% of student survey respondents were surveyed at school, while 49.2% were surveyed at home. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2022, 99.3% of survey respondents were surveyed at school. If there are any differences, the results from 2019 and 2022 are more comparable than those from 2021 and 2022.
During a closed-door meeting, a participant questioned the appropriateness of using the term "youth e-cigarette epidemic". Dr. Linda Neff, Chief of Epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, promptly responded that the organization has never stopped using the term "epidemic". It is clear that the agency refuses to acknowledge a decrease in smoking among young people and continues to conflate a nonexistent crisis.
The number of young smokers has decreased, and instead of continuing to demonize alternatives to cigarettes, the American public health system should address policies that could lead to this sharp decline while also not hindering adults from accessing products that reduce the harms of tobacco.
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