3 Million U.S. Middle & High School Students Affected!

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 11.3% which is 3.08 million US middle and high school students reported the use of tobacco products in 2022.

The use of any kind of tobacco product was high in high school followed by middle school. E-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among all students (2.55 million), followed by cigars (500,000), cigarettes (440,000), smokeless tobacco (330,000), hookah (290,000), nicotine pouches (280,000), heated tobacco products (260,000) and pipe tobacco (150,000).

Incidentally, among race and ethnicity groups, American Indian or Alaska Native students had the highest percentage of tobacco product use. On the other hand, white students had the largest use of e-cigarettes and black students used combustible tobacco products including cigars.

It has to be understood that all these falls under commercial tobacco products, unlike the tobacco used by American Indians.

Factors like psychological distress, low family affluence, transgenders or lesbians, gays, and bisexuals mostly used commercial tobacco products according to CDC.