A new study released on Thursday has found that middle school and high school students who use electronic cigarettes are more likely to start smoking real cigarettes and less likely to quit than those who did not use the devices.
Stanton Glantz, a medicine professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and the study's lead author, said the growing use of e-cigarettes among kids and adults is leading to less people quitting, according to News-Journal.
"The use of e-cigarettes does not discourage, and may encourage, conventional cigarette use among U.S. adolescents," the study said.
Some experts are not convinced by the findings of the study, and believe instead that the results are being interpreted in the wrong way, Guardian Liberty Voice reported. Critics say that the people using e-cigarettes may be the cause of the decreasing amount of quitters, not the device itself. Experts said that many of the people who choose to use e-cigarettes do so because they have trouble quitting.
Thomas J. Glynn, Researcher at the American Cancer Society, said the information from the study may not be correct, News-Journal reported.
"The data in this study do not allow many of the broad conclusions that it draws," Glynn said.
Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health, said the study drew a correlation between smoking and e-cigarettes, but the evidence did not prove that e-cigarettes led to smoking. Siegel has also spoken public in favor of the use of e-cigarettes, according to Reuters.
"The authors seem to have an axe to grind," Siegel said. "I could equally argue that what this study shows is that people who are heavy smokers are attracted to e-cigarettes because they are looking to quit."
E-cigarettes contain a nicotine liquid that creates an inhalable vapor when heated, Reuters reported. Although nicotine is not considered as harmful as cigarettes, data is limited on the long-term effects of e-cigarettes. This lack of information has resulted in cities such as New York, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles restricting the use of e-cigarettes in public places, including nightclubs and bars.
