A University of Buffalo (UB) study claims to have found what is driving large-scale experimentation with e-cigarettes among college students.
In contrast to older people, who typically vape to quit smoking, the survey of more than 429 college students from four universities who had ever used e-cigarettes found that more than 72 percent used them for enjoyment.
“Our findings suggest that college students and young adults may be more interested in using e-cigarettes for affective reasons, such as enjoyment or the pleasure they get from using these products, compared with use for cognitive reasons such as quitting smoking or because they perceive e-cigarettes to be a safer alternative to cigarette smoking,” the study’s lead author, Megan Saddleson, wrote.
The researchers from UB’s School of Public Health and Health Professions concluded that enjoyment was the key driver for the majority of students vaping, according to the study, which was published in December by the journal Addictive Behaviors.
“Overall, enjoyment was reported more often than was use for quitting smoking; effective reasons likely play a role in the popularity of e-cigs and should be considered in future assessments of e-cig users,” the study concluded.
The role of pleasure has been examined by the Food and Drug Administration when considering how to regulate the products. A document released in April 2014 said any benefits of regulating e-cigarettes as tobacco products should be cut by 70 percent to account for the loss of pleasure vapers would suffer.
Speaking to Fox News following the document’s release, Dr Stanton Glantz said “this makes it a lot harder to justify regulations on cost-benefit grounds. It will undermine anything they try to do about anything.”
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