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nmdental.org
Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems: Key Facts
Supplied by the CDC Office on Smoking and Health—July 2015
This document outlines key facts related to
electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS),
including e-cigarettes.
Youth use of ENDS continues to
rise rapidly in the U.S.
• From 2011 to 2014, past 30-day use
of e-cigarettes increased nine-fold
for high school students (1.5% to
13.4%) and more than six-fold for
middle school students (0.6% to
3.9%).
1
• Nearly 2.5 million U.S. middle
and high school students were past
30-day e-cigarette users in 2014,
including about 1 in 7 high school
students.
1
• In 2013, more than a quarter of a
million (263,000) middle and high
school students who had never
smoked cigarettes had ever used
e-cigarettes.
2
Most adult ENDS users also
smoke conventional cigarettes,
which is referred to as “dual use.”
• In 2012/2013, 1.9% of adults
were past 30 day e-cigarette users,
including 9.4% of conventional
cigarette smokers.
3
Among adult
past 30 day e-cigarette users, 76.8%
were also current cigarette smokers
(i.e., “dual users”) in 2012/2013.
3
Nicotine poses dangers to
pregnant women and fetuses,
children, and adolescents. Youth
use of nicotine in any form,
including ENDS, is unsafe.
4,5
• Nicotine is highly addictive.
4
• Nicotine is toxic to developing
fetuses and impairs fetal brain and
lung development.
4,5
• Because the adolescent brain is still
developing, nicotine use during
adolescence can disrupt the forma-
tion of brain circuits that control
attention, learning, and suscepti-
bility to addiction.
5
• Poisonings have resulted among
users and non-users due to inges-
tion of nicotine liquid, absorption
through the skin, and inhala-
tion.
6
E-cigarette exposure calls to
poison centers increased from one
per month in September 2010 to
215 per month in February 2014,
and over half of those calls were
regarding children ages 5 and
under.
6
• According to the Surgeon General,
the evidence is already sufficient to
warn pregnant women, women of
reproductive age, and adolescents
about the use of nicotine-containing
products such as smokeless tobacco,
dissolvables, and ENDS as alterna-
tives to smoking.
4
Any combusted tobacco use at
any age is dangerous.
• The burden of death and disease
from tobacco use in the U.S. is
overwhelmingly caused by ciga-
ret te s and other combusted
tobacco products.
4
• There is no safe level of exposure to
secondhand tobacco smoke.
7
In order for adult smokers to
benefit from ENDS, they must
completely quit combusted
tobacco use. Smoking even
a few cigarettes per day is
dangerous to your health
.
• Smokers who cut back on cigarettes
by using ENDS, but who don’t
completely quit smoking cigarettes,
aren’t fully protecting their health:
◊ Smoking just 1-4 cigarettes a
day doubles the risk of dying
from heart disease.
8
◊ Heav y smokers who reduce
their cigarette use by half still
have a very high risk for early
death.
9
• Benefit s of quit ting smoking
completely:
◊ Heart disease risk is cut in
half 1 year after quitting and
continues to drop over time.
4
◊ Even quitting at age 50 cuts
your risk in half for early
death from a smoking-related
disease.
4
continues