Young parents take to e-cigarettes first and foremost to protect the people around them. These users consider them to be less dangerous than traditional cigarettes.
According to a study conducted across the Atlantic, young American adults adopt e-cigarettes for a specific purpose. According to them, it would be less harmful than a traditional cigarette. To reach this conclusion, researchers at the University of Colorado (Denver) surveyed a random sample of 3,253 adults in September 2013. Of these respondents, 88% answered the entire questionnaire. In detail, 8% were young adults aged 18 to 24, and 22% were young parents.
Young parents fear secondhand smoke
Among the latter, the results showed that 13% had already tried an electronic cigarette, and 6% said they had used one in the last 30 days. Moreover, more surprisingly, 45% of these young parents who had already tried electronic cigarettes, and 49% who declared having used one in the last 30 days, had never smoked traditional cigarettes, or were former smokers. .
Among the reasons given by these parents to justify their choice to use electronic cigarettes: 81% said they thought they were less harmful than standard cigarettes. Especially for the people around them, like their children for example.
In addition, 72% of them confided in making the switch because they appreciated the fact of being able to use these products in places where smoking is prohibited.
Flavored e-liquids are popular among young adults
Finally, the last highlight of this survey, almost all young adults who vaped reported using e-liquids containing menthol or aromas with fruit flavors. By way of comparison, this figure is only 65%, among adults aged 25 and over. Young adults were also less likely than older adults to use e-cigarettes to help them quit smoking (7% vs. 58% for others).
For its part, this younger population mainly vaps because it is convinced that the product is less harmful compared to tobacco.
“This study has two worrying conclusions,” says lead author Professor Robert C. McMillen. “First of all, the risks of e-cigarettes and their passive exposure are unknown, but many parents report using it to reduce harm to others. Second, here half of the vapers were non-smokers or ex-smokers. In my opinion, this suggests that the e-cigarette maintains nicotine addiction and renormalizes tobacco use, ”he concludes. A notion that will undoubtedly need to be confirmed by other work.
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