Boys and girls will be …

Twenty-one percent of Swiss boys and thirteen percent of girls aged 11-15 have tried electronic cigarettes at least once, according to a story at swissinfo.ch reporting on a survey of addiction among schoolchildren.

The findings were said to have alarmed the group Addiction Switzerland, which carried out the study of 11,000 children between the ages of 11 and 15.

“Vaping should not become normal consumer behavior among young people,” said Grégoire Vittoz, director of Addiction Switzerland, in a statement.

Swiss law is currently being adapted in relation to vapor products, but Addiction Switzerland has called also for such products to be priced beyond the means of schoolchildren, and for advertising restrictions.

The organization said that nicotine was addictive and could damage brain development in young people.

Overall, marginally fewer 11-15-year-olds said they had tried addictive substances than was the case during the previous survey in 2014.

In 2018, 10 percent of boys and eight percent of girls said they had smoked conventional cigarettes at least once a week, while in 2014 the respective figures were 12 percent and nine percent.

About 11 percent of boys and four percent of girls said that they had drunk alcohol at least once a week (10 percent and six percent in 2014).

The survey found also that 27 percent of boys and 17 percent of girls had used illegal cannabis at least once in their lives (30 percent and 19 percent in 2014). The figures for trying CBD (cannabidiol) products were nine percent and five percent for boys and girls.

The 2018 survey was part of an international Health Behavior in School-aged Children external link (HBSC) study carried out under the auspices of the World Health Organization external link, and was financed in Switzerland by the Federal Office of Public Health external link and cantons. It was the ninth time the HSBC study has been conducted in Switzerland.