Teen Tobacco and E-cigarette Use in Montana at Historic Low

For policymakers in Montana, there is good news: the use of tobacco and e-cigarette products among teenagers continues to decline, with teenage smoking rates at an all-time low.

According to data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) conducted in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2021, 27.8% of high school students reported having used combustible cigarettes, with 7% reporting current use.

The Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) first surveyed tobacco use among the state's teenagers in 1993, finding that 69.7% of high school students reported having used cigarettes, with nearly one-third (30.7%) currently using them. From 1993 to 2021, cigarette use declined by 60.1%.

The use of electronic cigarettes among Montana high school students has also declined. By 2021, 48.3% of all high school students had tried e-cigarettes, and 25.5% were current users or reported using e-cigarettes at least once in the past 30 days. The use of e-cigarettes among teenagers reached its peak in 2019, when 58.3% had tried e-cigarettes and 30.2% were current users. Between 2019 and 2021, the percentage of Montana high school students who had used e-cigarettes in the past and were current users decreased by 17.2% and 15.6%, respectively.

Interestingly, in Montana, higher rates of teenage e-cigarette use are correlated with lower rates of combustible cigarette use. For example, between 2017 and 2019, current e-cigarette usage increased by 34.2%, while current combustible cigarette usage decreased by 37.4%. Between 2019 and 2021, current e-cigarette usage decreased by 15.6%, while current combustible cigarette usage only decreased by 9.1%.

For the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, these declines should be welcomed, as the department has been attempting to implement a ban on flavored e-cigarettes for much of 2020. The potential ban was introduced following a series of lung injuries primarily attributed to illegal THC vapor products, after an emergency flavor ban was implemented by then-Governor Steve Bullock in 2019.

In the press release announcing the 2019 ban, the then-president of the Montana chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics claimed that e-cigarette products were causing “nicotine addiction among an entire generation of children.” Fortunately, they were wrong. In the years following their attempt to prevent adults from accessing less harmful cigarette alternatives, tobacco and e-cigarette use among Montana's youth continued to decline.

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