Youth and Tobacco Use
Keeping Glen Cove SAFE: Youth and Tobacco Use
The SAFE Glen Cove Coalition is concerned about youth tobacco use and its consequences.
Monitoring the Future (MTF) is one of the nation’s most relied upon scientific sources of valid information on trends in use of licit and illicit psychoactive drugs by U.S. adolescents, college students, young adults, and adults up to age 60. MTF is conducted each year by researchers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health.
The MTF survey is given annually to students in eighth, 10th, and 12th grades who self-report their substance use behaviors over various time periods, such as past 30 days, past 12 months, and lifetime. The survey also documents students’ perception of harm, disapproval of use, and perceived availability of drugs and has been doing so since 1975.
In 2023 7,584 12th grade students in 83 schools distributed throughout the US. Data collection took place in both public and private high schools. MTF used an electronic questionnaire format for the fifth consecutive year. Starting in 2021, students in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades completed a web-based questionnaire on their own electronic devices during class time (which may have been at home if they were schooling remotely, for example as a result of the pandemic). In both 2019 and 2020 students also completed an electronic questionnaire that was connected to the internet, although they completed the survey on electronic tablets that MTF brought to schools. It is no longer necessary for MTF to bring tablets to schools because practically all schools now have internet access and almost all students have electronic devices to complete the MTF questionnaires. In rare cases when these resources are not available at a school, MTF brings electronic devices for students, as well as a mobile server to collect their survey responses.
The survey results divide neatly into the time periods before and after the onset of the pandemic. All surveys in 2020 were completed before March 15, when national social distancing policies were enacted, and data collection was halted due to pandemic concerns. Consequently, results from 2020 and previous years are pre-pandemic, while results from 2021 and afterwards took place after the onset of the pandemic and the associated national response. The COVID-19 pandemic is a historical event of particular interest for the 2023 results. From 2020 to 2021 MTF documented some of the largest one-year declines ever recorded by the survey across a wide variety of drugs from. It is possible that these decreases will hold for future years going forward, or, instead, drug prevalence levels may bounce back to where they were before the pandemic, as recorded by MTF with the 2020 results.
Nicotine Use in the past 30 days dropped markedly in 12th and 10th grades in 2023, and held steady in 8th grade.
Today most youth use nicotine by vaping it, and the 2023 decline in any nicotine use is driven in large part by the decline in nicotine vaping. This decline, in turn, is in large part a delayed effect of the pandemic (see commentary on nicotine vaping for more detail). Any nicotine use was indicated by any use of any of the following: cigarettes, large cigars, flavored small cigars, regular small cigars, tobacco using a hookah, smokeless tobacco, or vaping nicotine.
Any Nicotine Use Other Than Vaping Past 30-day prevalence levels of any nicotine use other than vaping had not returned to their 2020 levels by 2023. In 12th grade prevalence decreased significantly to 6%, which is the lowest level recorded by the survey since first tracked in 2017.
In 10th grade prevalence also decreased, although not significantly, and the 4% level is also the lowest tracked by the survey since first tracked in this grade in 2019. In 8th grade past 30-day prevalence was unchanged at 3%, where it has been the past three years.
Overall this outcome has declined markedly since first tracked by the survey. The decrease is quite dramatic in 12th grade, falling more than threefold from 21% in 2017 to 6% in 2023; it fell by roughly half in 10th and 8th grade in the four-year interval from 2019 to 2023.
Any nicotine use other than vaping was indicated by any use of any of the following: cigarettes, large cigars, flavored small cigars, regular small cigars, tobacco using a hookah, or smokeless tobacco. All results from 2020 are from surveys completed before March 15, 2020, when national social distancing policies were implemented and the survey halted due to pandemic concerns.
New York State Department of Health Reports Indicate State’s Tobacco Control Polices Are Effective In Reducing Tobacco Use, Including Smoking and Vaping
Three New Reports Show Tobacco Control Policies Help Reduce Tobacco Use by Adults and Youths Highlights Importance of Education and Strong Public Health Policies to Prevent Tobacco Addiction from Starting
The State continues to adopt evidence-based measures intended to prevent cigarette use by youths who have not yet started to smoke, as well as those who currently smoke, including increasing the price. The American Lung Association reports that every 10% increase in the price of cigarettes reduces consumption by about 4% among adults and about 7% among youth. The State’s 2024 enacted budget includes an increase in the tax on a pack of cigarettes by $1.00, to $5.35, the highest and strongest cigarette tax in the country.
- The New York Youth Tobacco Survey, a school-based survey of middle and high school students, found a decrease in the use of all tobacco products. The report shows cigarette smoking fell from 27.1% in 2000 to an all-time low of 2.1% among high school students, which represents a decline of 92% in youth smoking rates. Their e-cigarette use, or vaping rate, dropped from a peak of 27.4% in 2018 to 18.7% in 2022, representing a 32% decline.
- The cigarette smoking brief using data from the NYS 2019-2024 Prevention Agenda, the State’s health improvement plan, and is advancing in on the goal of reducing cigarette smoking among adults to 11% by 2024.
- A third independent report examining the impact of tobacco control policies adopted in 2019 and 2020 also confirms the effectiveness of the State’s tobacco control policies. The report, which is part of an independent evaluation of the tobacco control program required by law, found that flavored vaping product sales and use decreased across the State following the implementation of a ban on flavored vaping products and new limits on the legal age to purchase other products.
Earlier this year, a policy that would ban the sale of menthol-flavored tobacco products was found to have widespread support from community partners and the public, with surveys showing more than half of New Yorkers supporting such a measure. The NYS Tobacco Control Program website has more information about the Department’s efforts to promote a tobacco-free and vape-free society.
Annual National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) data collected March 9-June 16 2023:
The NYTS is a cross-sectional, school-based, self-administered questionnaire administered to U.S. middle (grades 6-8) and high school (grades 9-12) students since 1999 to obtain a nationally representative sample of U.S. students attending private or public schools in grades 6-12. In 2023, data were collected from 22,069 students for ever use and current use (use on ≥1 day during the past 30 days) of nine tobacco products. Current e-cigarette use was reported by frequency of use, device type, brand, and flavor. Data on flavored e-cigarette use by device type and flavored product use overall and by flavor type used by tobacco product were also reported.
Current Use: NYTS 2023 says about 2.8 million youth currently use any tobacco product
- 10.0% of students (2.80 million) reported current use of any tobacco product
- 12.6% (1.97 million) high school students and 6.6% (800,000) middle school students reported current use of any tobacco product.
- 3.4% of students (920,000) reported current use of any combustible tobacco product
- 3.4% of students (940,000) reported current use of multiple (≥2) tobacco products
Most Commonly Used Types of Devices
- E-cigarettes (7.7%)
- Cigars (1.6%)
- Cigarettes (1.6%)
- Nicotine Pouches (1.5%)
- Smokeless (chewing tobacco, snuff, dip, or snus) (1.2%)
- Other oral nicotine products (lozenges, discs, tablets, gums, dissolvable tobacco products, and other products) (1.2%)
- Hookahs (1.1%)
- Heated Tobacco Products (1.0%)
- Pipe Tobacco (0.5%)
The CDC’s 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey shows that e-cigarette use among U.S. youth declined significantly this year.
2023 NYS Quitline Sustainability Report: Statewide Highlights
The American Lung Association 22nd Annual State of Tobacco Control Report
This report evaluates the actions taken by states and the federal government to enact evidence-based commercial tobacco control laws and policies that are necessary to save lives.
Resources
For help Quitting smoking/vaping or to help a loved one beat a Nicotine Addition. The Lung HelpLine, is available via phone or online and is ready to assist teens between the ages of 13 -17 in quitting tobacco, including vaping. Call 800-LUNGUSA or chat online through their website at Lung.org.
NYS Smoker’ Quitline
For Quit help the NYS Smoker’ Quitline provides free and confidential services that include information, tools, quit coaching, and support in both English and Spanish. Services are available by calling 1-866-NY-QUITS (1-866-697-8487), texting (716) 309-4688, or visiting www.nysmokefree.com, for information, to chat online with a Quit Coach, or to sign up for Learn2QuitNY, a six-week, step-by-step text messaging program to build the skills you need to quit any tobacco product. Individuals aged 13 to 24 can text “DropTheVape” to 88709 to receive age-appropriate quit assistance.
Tobacco Action Coalition of Long Island (TAC)
TAC is funded by the NYS Tobacco Control Program through a grant administered by the American Lung Association made up of two components—community engagement and a youth action team called Reality Check LI. TAC works throughout Long Island to promote environments that are open to creating a tobacco-free norm to educate and empower youth to become change agents in their communities. TAC also supplies free tobacco education and cessation literature to local agencies and schools.
This fact sheet for teens provides facts about tobacco use. It describes short- and long-term effects and lists signs of tobacco use for youth. The fact sheet helps to dispel common myths about tobacco use.
