- For 5th year in a row, e-cigs were most popular product amongst high school students, erasing all the progress made to lower smoking rates.
There’s a growing epidemic of tobacco products currently used by children — 4.9 million high school and middle school kids used tobacco products in 2018 up from 3.6 million in 2017 — mainly due to a growth in e-cigarette usage. 1 of every 5 high school students (20.8%) reported in 2018 that they used electronic cigarettes in the past 30 days—an increase from 1.5% in 2011.
For the fifth year in a row, e-cigs were the most popular product amongst high school students. 20.8% of US high school students are using e-cigs, followed by cigarettes at 8.1%, cigars at 7.6%, smokeless tobacco at 5.9%, hookah at 4.1%, and pipe tobacco at 1.1%.
Overall, 27.1% of all high school students use a tobacco product in 2018.
While e-cigs don’t have the heavy carcinogenic toll that traditional cigarettes do, they do have high levels of addictive nicotine. One vaping pod can equal roughly one pack of cigarettes for nicotine.
The Juul, made by PAX Labs, became the most popular e-cigarette in the United States and has a market share of ~70%. Its rise in popularity is a main reason why smoking rates are up among American youth. In December 2018, Juul maker received $12.8 billion in funding from Altria, the maker of Marlboro, in exchange for 35% of the company. This valued PAX Labs at $36B, led by Juul’s annual revenue of about $2B.
Article By: Fatimah Aminu
Fatimah is an experienced editor at various financial and consumer publishing houses. She obtained a master’s degree in Publishing from NYU, where she earned a bachelor of fine arts degree. She is currently earning a second masters degree at CUNY online in Psychology. Fatimah covers healthcare, cannabis and technology.