Study: Vaping up as Smoking Stabilizes

In 2019, 14 percent of U.S. adults smoked cigarettes, essentially unchanged from 13.7 percent in 2018, according to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

However, e-cigarette use among adults rose to 4.5 percent, up from 3.2 percent in 2018, and almost one in four e-cigarette users had never been smokers.

E-cigarette use was highest among young adults aged 18-24 (9.3 percent), with more than half (56 percent) of these young adults reporting that they had never smoked cigarettes. E-cigarette use among young adults increased by 79 percent between 2017 and 2019 (5.2 percent to 9.3 percent).

The overall number of U.S. adults who use any tobacco product increased from 47.4 million in 2017 to 50.6 million in 2019.

“It is troubling that declines in adult smoking appear to have stalled at the same time that e-cigarette use has increased—a finding that raises further questions about the effectiveness of e-cigarettes in helping smokers quit, said Matthew L. Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) in a statement.