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A new study by investigators from Mass General Brigham examined the effects of policies banning flavored e-cigarettes on adults and young people. Investigators found that e-cigarette use significantly declined among young adults and adults in states that had enacted flavor bans relative to states that did not.
However, declines in cigarette smoking also slowed in those states with flavor bans relative to other states—a potential unintended consequence of the bans. Results are published in JAMA Network Open.
"Both e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes are essentially a source of nicotine for people who may have nicotine dependencies," said Douglas Levy, Ph.D., Director of Policy Research at the Tobacco Research & Treatment Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham health care system.
"We're trying to solve the problem of youth vaping, but we need to carefully consider the impacts of more harmful combustible cigarette use."
Flavored e-cigarettes are extremely popular among teens and young adults, raising public health concerns due to the addictive nicotine they contain. To reduce youth vaping, states including Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Maryland and Utah banned the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, with many policies going into place in 2020.
Levy and other researchers at Mass General Brigham evaluated how those laws have influenced e-cigarette and cigarette use in youths and adults.
The study, led by first author David Cheng, Ph.D., used data from large-scale surveys administered in 50 states and D.C. from 2019 to 2023, tracking changes in the prevalence of tobacco use before (2019) and after (2020–2023) six states introduced flavor bans.
Significant decreases in e-cigarette use among young adults aged 18–24 and adults over 25 were found in states with flavor bans relative to trends from other states without the bans. However, increases in cigarette smoking were also found among teenagers and young adults in those same states relative to other states.
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