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Utah Senator Calls for Research About Vaping in Schools

Earlier this month Senator Orrin Hatch R-Utah, introduced the Smoke Free Schools Act of 2018, a measure that instructs the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to partner and "study best practices for schools to implement policies to address e-cigarette use among students."

Diane Caruana

December 18, 2018

Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., introduced the bill in conjunction with Senator Hatch. Spokesperson for Hatch, Matt Whitlock, has explained that the aforementioned agencies are being urged to study “gaps in knowledge about the harms of e-cigarette use among youth and young adults.”

A 2017 survey of Utah youth in 8th grade, 10th grade and 12th grade, indicated that 23.1% of respondents reported they had tried vaping, whilst amongst seniors this rate was at 32.1%.

“The bill also encourages further research on the dose-response association between e-cigarettes and combustible tobacco, and the current efforts by schools to use federal funding to combat e-cigarette use,” added Whitlock. Two education advocacy organizations; the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the National School Boards Association, are in support of the bill.

“Congress, the FDA, and the Department of Education have made great strides in the past 30 years to discourage teen smoking and nicotine use. Now, it’s important to continue that work in the context of new devices and technologies that have been shown to lead to nicotine addiction among today’s students,” said Hatch in a statement.

A 2017 state-administered survey of Utah youth in eighth grade, 10th grade and 12th grade, indicated that 23.1% of respondents reported they had tried an e-cigarette, whilst amongst seniors this rate was at 32.1%.

Research indicates that as vaping rises, smoking is declining

Data show an inverse relationship between vaping and smoking.

On the other hand, a recent US study published in the journal Tobacco Control last month, indicated that thanks to this upward trend in vaping, smoking rates amongst adolescents are dropping 3 times faster.

The researchers used publicly available data on smoking and vaping among youth and young adults, to determine trends in smoking behaviours, and found that different data sets for both age groups indicated an inverse relationship between vaping and smoking.

Hence, they concluded, while trying vapes may causally increase smoking amongst some youth, “the aggregate effect at the population level appears to be negligible”, as smoking rates have dropped significantly during the same time period when vaping was rising in popularity.

Read Further: Deseret News Utah