E-cigarettes are “gateway devices” for smoking among young people, say researchers

Adolescents who use electronic cigarettes were more likely to smoke conventional cigarettes and less likely to quit smoking, a study from the United States has found, leading the researchers to conclude that the nicotine delivery devices are “unlikely to discourage conventional cigarette smoking among youths.”

The researchers from the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) looked at the tobacco use of more than 40 000 pupils from middle and high schools across the US who completed questionnaires as part of the 2011 and 2012 National Youth Tobacco Survey.

The data, published in JAMA Pediatrics, showed that the number of adolescents who had tried e-cigarettes more than doubled in a year, from 3.1% in 2011 to …