When Maya Terrell saw the anti-smoking television commercial, she knew she would never try a cigarette.
It featured an ex-smoker with a hole in her throat where her larynx used to be.
“I was like, ‘Never!’” recalled Terrell, 18. “I was scared.”
Besides, she said, smoking is just plain gross.
“My friends don’t smoke cigarettes,” said Terrell, of Sacramento, Calif. “It’s nasty.”
Terrell is emblematic of a generation of teenagers who appear more knowledgeable about the risks of tobacco — and are smoking fewer cigarettes than ever before.
When researchers first started consistently tracking teen cigarette use in 1999, 29 percent of high schoolers reported smoking a cigarette in the past 30 days. That’s compared with 8 percent in 2016, according to data released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Reported use of e-cigarettes, known as vaping, also fell for the first time since e-cigarette tracking began in 2011, dropping from 16 percent in 2015 to about 11 percent in 2016. However, non-Hispanic white students remained more likely to use e-cigarettes than their Hispanic or non-Hispanic black peers.
It featured an ex-smoker with a hole in her throat where her larynx used to be.
“I was like, ‘Never!’” recalled Terrell, 18. “I was scared.”
Besides, she said, smoking is just plain gross.
“My friends don’t smoke cigarettes,” said Terrell, of Sacramento, Calif. “It’s nasty.”
Terrell is emblematic of a generation of teenagers who appear more knowledgeable about the risks of tobacco — and are smoking fewer cigarettes than ever before.
When researchers first started consistently tracking teen cigarette use in 1999, 29 percent of high schoolers reported smoking a cigarette in the past 30 days. That’s compared with 8 percent in 2016, according to data released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Reported use of e-cigarettes, known as vaping, also fell for the first time since e-cigarette tracking began in 2011, dropping from 16 percent in 2015 to about 11 percent in 2016. However, non-Hispanic white students remained more likely to use e-cigarettes than their Hispanic or non-Hispanic black peers.
on Thu, 07/06/2017 - 00:38 admin
