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A new research conducted by Dr. Adam Leventhal and his associates on the usage of Vapes by Teens in the US has come up with shocking results. The research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that high school teens who use 'Vapes', that is e-cigarettes are likely to develop heavy smoking habits in the later stages.

Increasing Popularity of Vaping

The level of smoking vapes has doubled from 2008 through 2012 among both adults and adolescents. The first-time vaping among the middle school and high school students of the USA has gone up to 2.7 percent and 10 percent respectively.

Two-time survey confirms "Vaping leads to Smoking"

The research was conducted on 3,084 10th graders at Los Angeles high schools. The students participated in two surveys conducted during the fall and a follow-up in the spring after 6 months.

The follow-up study showed that the frequency of smoking went up proportionally with the frequency of vaping; that is more the respondents had been vaping in the fall, the more they smoked after 6 months.

Leventhal says that "The amount of vaping mattered as the more you vaped at baseline, the more you smoked at the follow-up."

37 percent of high-school goers in the US are Vaping

Only 0.7 percent of respondents who have never vaped have turned out to be frequent smokers, and 0.9 percent of the respondents who have never vaped were smoked cigarette rarely. 4.1 percent respondents who vaped earlier in the fall have become rare smokers, while 3.3 percent have developed a regular smoking habit.

Nine percent and 5.3 percent of infrequent vape-users have developed infrequent and frequent smoking habits, respectively. Also, a considerable portion of frequent vape-smokers became regular (11.6%) or rare (19.9%) smokers. On the contrary, 98.5 percent of the respondents who had never smoked vapes reported being a non-smoker of cigarettes 6 months later.

To Sum it up...

Thus, a first of the kind research has proved that there is a positive association between vaping at baseline and follow-up smoking. It also shows that those teens who have not vaped are less likely to become smokers in the later stage. 

Although vapes that do not contain nicotine are popular among the teens, the very habit of smoking will make them grow fond of inhaling something, in-turn "making them more inclined to experiment with other tobacco products" says Leventhal.

Also, the habit of using e-cigarettes is said to aid in quitting smoking tobacco, the study has not recorded any instance of the association of vapes to smoking reduction.